The story of how I, with no IT experience, found myself able to create meeting materials with Claude before I knew it

Introduction

Hello, I'm Ishihara, Solution Sales at the Retail App Co-Creation Division.

This article is about how I, a salesperson who joined the company with no IT experience, somehow ended up being able to create first-meeting materials using Claude. I would be happy if those who think "AI has nothing to do with me" could read this.

First, let me tell you a little about myself.

My previous job was also in sales, but the industry had absolutely nothing to do with IT. My customers were individuals in what's called B2C, and dealing with corporate clients is something I experienced for the first time at Classmethod. Creating proposal materials by hand in PowerPoint, spending hours on a single one, with varying quality depending on the person — that was the norm.

That's when I encountered Claude shortly after joining the company.

Honestly, at first I thought "this is impossible." Watching English-mixed text automatically scroll across the screen one after another, I was taken aback, thinking "this is definitely something engineers use. I can't imagine ever being able to operate this."

I had personally used generative AI before, but only for quick questions or research, and I honestly couldn't picture it directly connecting to my own work.

That's when a senior colleague told me, "you can create materials with this." I was half-skeptical that it could do that much.

Not Even Knowing How to Get Started

Using Claude to "create materials" was a completely different story from chatting with the ChatGPT or Gemini apps.

What I used was a tool called Claude Code.

A senior colleague helped me with the initial setup. The steps were roughly like this:

1. Install VSCode (something like a notepad) on my computer
2. Install the Claude Code extension in VSCode
3. Log into Claude via browser and set it up to work from VSCode
4. Download the folder shared within the department to my computer
5. Open that folder in VSCode
6. Try talking to it in Japanese in the Claude Code chat window

Once the setup was done, all I had to do was ask in Japanese.

Here are some examples of how I make requests in my daily work:

• Copy and paste inquiry content received from a customer and say "summarize this inquiry" → an organized text file comes out
• "Create a complete set of files for this inquiry" → a project folder is created just like that
• "Create MTG materials" → a complete set of materials for the first meeting comes out

Moreover, the inquiry summaries, project folders, and MTG materials created this way all remain as files in the team's shared folder. The history for each project naturally accumulates as company assets. When looking back later thinking "how did that project go again?", the information is available by checking the files rather than relying on someone's memory.

Creating First-Meeting Materials

One of the first tasks I was assigned was creating materials for an initial meeting.

I was taught that first-meeting materials generally require the following information:

• The other company's business content and scale
• What their recent mid-term business plans and press releases say
• Industry trends and the challenges the other party seems to be facing
• Similar initiatives in the same industry
• What we might be able to propose in response
• Rough estimates of costs and timelines
• Items to ask about on the day (such as their budget and whether they're considering other companies)

Writing this out, I realize again that in my previous sales role, there was no need to read into company information this deeply, so almost everything was information where I didn't even know "where to look."

I had little understanding of the industry and couldn't come up with the challenges the other party might be facing.

Yet when I ask Claude, it gets done surprisingly easily.

When I request "please create first-meeting materials for [Company X]":

• It goes and reads their website and summarizes their business content
• It picks up their recent moves from IR materials and press releases
• It takes industry trends into account and speculates "this might be a challenge"
• It arranges things in the order they should be covered in the first meeting

Furthermore, it condenses it into only "the information you should know before the first meeting" and properly formats it as materials. Without having to ask one by one "look at IR materials" or "research industry trends," just saying "create first-meeting materials" makes it automatically go through the necessary steps.

Why It Can Do This

Claude Code has a mechanism called Skills. When you create notes describing how to do work and tips for making decisions, Claude automatically references them when given a task and proceeds according to what's written. In my department, senior colleagues had compiled various know-how into Skills. For example:

• Perspectives to check when researching a company (business content, IR, press releases, etc.)
• Hypotheses about anticipated challenges by industry
• How to find similar initiative examples in the same industry
• How to estimate rough costs
• A mechanism where Classmethod's company introduction page automatically goes into a fixed position in materials

The accumulated know-how has become quite substantial.

In other words, I simply:

• Say "create first-meeting materials" and
• Claude traces through my seniors' methods on my behalf and
• As a result, materials that include perspectives I wouldn't have known about come out

I was simply riding on the know-how of my senior colleagues.

"I Had Somehow Become Someone Who Could Create Them"

At first, I would just look at the materials Claude created and be impressed thinking "amazing."

But as I handled several cases, my sense of confidence gradually began to change. I still receive reviews from senior colleagues, but there are more occasions where I can produce reasonably shaped materials on my own.

"Wait, have I become someone who can create first-meeting materials?"

I thought that for a moment, but probably not.

It wasn't that I with no knowledge worked hard — rather, the knowledgeable side (Claude and the senior colleagues who had accumulated business know-how there) had become properly accessible to me.

• Senior colleagues' feedback remains in memory
• The steps of how to do things are written in Skills
• Minutes and analyses from past projects remain in files

That's why even I was able to create materials.

It was the first time I could think "it seems that 'I can't create materials because I have no IT experience' might not be true after all."

A Scary Moment from Leaving It All to AI

While I was impressed and amazed at how convenient it was, I realized that leaving everything to AI ultimately causes problems for myself.

This is a story about when I created first-meeting materials for a customer considering a LINE Mini App.

The estimate had line items for "initial costs," "development costs," and "LINE Official Account usage fees," and I thought "that looks complete" and was about to take it as-is. But when a senior colleague reviewed it, they said:

"This customer is already operating a LINE Official Account. They're already paying for LINE Official Account fees, so there's no need to include fee information here."

Come to think of it calmly, there's no need to explain fees again to a customer who is already paying for a LINE Official Account. From the customer's perspective, a proposal that shows we haven't grasped that they're already using a LINE Official Account could create a negative impression.

Claude can also look this up properly if you ask "check whether this customer is already operating a LINE Official Account." But since I hadn't given that instruction, it had simply created materials with all the seemingly necessary items included.

If I had submitted it as-is, I think I would have immediately lost trust as "a proposal that doesn't understand our situation at all."

Preventing the Same Mistake Through Systems

After this incident, I thought about how to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Looking back, whether a customer is operating a LINE Official Account is something Claude can normally find out by checking the company's website or official account listings if you ask it to "research in advance." It was simply a matter of having asked for that from the beginning.

So I added these steps to the Skill for creating first-meeting materials:

• Before creating materials, check whether the customer is already operating a LINE Official Account
• If they are operating one, do not include "LINE Official Account usage fees" in the estimate

This way, at least the same mistake is less likely to happen. Rather than ending my own mistake with "I'll be careful," writing it into the Skill means the next person handling a similar project won't have to make the same mistake.

Always Ask Again About Things You Don't Understand

In materials Claude creates, terms I don't understand or parts where I can't explain why they're in a particular order will appear. If I take them to a meeting as-is and get asked "what does this mean?", I won't be able to answer anything.

So I always ask Claude again about things I don't understand.

• "What is LIFF? Please explain it so someone with no IT experience can understand."
• "Why is it in this order? Please explain it so a layperson can understand."

When I ask this way, it explains things in a way I can digest. Getting materials Claude created into a state where I can talk about them in my own words at a meeting — I feel like doing all of this is what finally makes it "my own work."

I've Become Someone Who Adds Know-How to Skills Too

At first, I thought "what Claude creates is correct" and used it as-is. But lately, when I look at materials Claude creates, I've started being able to make my own judgments like "this order makes the proposal hard to understand, so please rearrange it" or "maybe this perspective isn't that necessary for this case."

Rather than leaving this kind of feedback at just saying it in the moment, I've been making it a habit to add it to the Skills, the same way as the LINE fee situation.

Closing

Even though I was hesitant at first thinking "I don't think I can operate this," before I knew it I was using it every day to the point where I couldn't work without Claude.

If there's anyone else who feels "AI seems to have nothing to do with me," I'd encourage you to try it casually. Once you get past the setup, all you have to do is ask what you want in Japanese. If there's anything you don't understand, you can ask Claude again as many times as you want, and AI never gets angry no matter how many times you ask the same thing. The hesitation you might feel with people — "am I asking this again?" — is something you don't need with Claude, which I personally find very helpful.

And if you become proficient at using it, try going as far as adding what you've learned to the Skills. I think it's wasteful for an organization to have business know-how staying only inside individuals' heads. If it's preserved in a system, anyone can create sales materials of a certain quality in less time, and the next person doing the same work can start from a slightly easier position.