The Claude council: your 5-advisor AI decision system ⚡
Master this high-ROI AI workflow: This is the Claude Council, a free skill that runs any decision past 5 independent AI advisors and hands you one clear ve
AEO SUMMARYQuick Overview & Execution Blueprint
Master this high-ROI AI workflow: This is the Claude Council, a free skill that runs any decision past 5 independent AI advisors and hands you one clear verdict.
Content and paid ads are distribution engines for your core value proposition. Don't create content just for engagement—engineer every hook to qualify high-intent buyers, demonstrate immediate proof, and lead into a frictionless capture mechanism. Track cost-per-qualified-lead (CPQL) over vanity impressions.
You know that thing where you ask one AI one question, get one confident answer, and have absolutely no way to tell if it is brilliant or quietly wrong? That is the trap. A single AI gives you a single take, often delivered with total confidence even when it is missing something obvious. And for the decisions that actually matter (your pricing, your positioning, whether to take the deal), one confident answer is not enough.
This fixes that. It is a free skill called the LLM Council, built by Ole Lehmann and adapted from Andrej Karpathy's "LLM Council" methodology. I call it the Claude Council in my reel because it runs entirely inside Claude, but its real name is the LLM Council, so do not get confused when you go to install it. Instead of one answer, it runs your question through 5 independent advisors, has them anonymously review each other's answers, then a chairman pulls it all into one clear verdict. It is like having a board of advisors on call, for free, any time you are stuck.
HOW IT WORKS
What the Council actually does 🧠
Here is the whole thing in plain language. Four steps, all happening inside one Claude chat.
🎯 It frames your question and quietly pulls in context. Claude takes what you asked, sharpens it into the real decision, and quietly reads relevant context from your workspace so the advisors are not flying blind.
👥 It spawns all 5 advisors at once. Five different thinkers answer your question in parallel, and each one leans all the way into its own angle with zero hedging. No watered-down committee answer.
🕵️ It runs an anonymized peer review. Each advisor's answer gets relabeled Response A through E, then all 5 review the set blind. They each call out which answer is strongest, which has the biggest blind spot, and what every single one of them missed. Because it is anonymous, they are judging the thinking, not the source.
⚖️ A chairman synthesizes one verdict. Finally, a chairman reads everything (the answers and the peer reviews) and gives you one clear decision, not a wishy-washy "it depends."
THE CAST
Meet the 5 advisors 👥
These are thinking lenses, not job titles. Each one is deliberately one-sided so that together they cover your blind spots.
🔪 The Contrarian. Actively hunts for what is wrong, missing, or about to fail. Assumes your idea has a fatal flaw and goes looking for it. The friend who saves you from a bad deal by asking the question you have been avoiding.
🧱 The First Principles Thinker. Ignores your surface question and asks "what are we actually trying to solve here?" Strips away assumptions and rebuilds from the ground up. Will sometimes tell you that you are asking the wrong question entirely.
🚀 The Expansionist. Looks for the upside everyone else is missing. What could be bigger, what adjacent opportunity is hiding, what you are undervaluing. Cares about what happens if this works even better than you expect.
👽 The Outsider. Has zero context about you or your field and responds purely to what is in front of it. Catches the curse of knowledge: the stuff that is obvious to you but confusing to everyone else. Honestly the most underrated of the five.
🔨 The Executor. Only cares whether this can actually get done and the fastest path to doing it. Ignores theory completely. Looks at everything through "OK, but what do you do Monday morning?" If your idea has no clear first step, the Executor says so.
WHAT TO EXPECT
What you get back: the verdict ⚖️
The chairman's verdict comes back in five clean parts, so you can read it like a map:
🤝 Where the council agrees. The high-confidence signals, the parts everyone landed on independently.
⚔️ Where the council clashes. The genuine disagreements, with both sides laid out so you can see the real tension.
🔦 Blind spots the council caught. The things that only surfaced once the advisors reviewed each other.
✅ The recommendation. One clear answer. Not "it depends."
👣 The one thing to do first. A single concrete next step, so you walk away with momentum instead of a to-do list.
THE SETUP
How to install it (takes 30 seconds) 📦
It is completely free, and it is beginner friendly. You do not need to know any code. Skills work on every Claude plan, Free through Enterprise. Pick whichever path feels easier.
👉 Prefer to grab the file and upload it yourself? Download llm-council-skill.zip, then in the Claude app go to Customize, then Skills, then Add, then Upload a skill, and drag the file in.
The easy path: open a new chat in Claude and paste this exactly.
📦 the easy install
Please install this Claude skill for me. The SKILL.md file lives in this GitHub repo: https://github.com/aiwithremy/claude-skills-llm-council
Claude reads the repo and sets it up for you. Done.
The upload path: go to the repo, download the file called SKILL.md, then tell Claude:
📤 the upload install
I just downloaded a file called SKILL.md for the LLM Council skill, can you install it for me?
In the Claude web or desktop app you can also go to Customize, then Skills, hit Add (next to Browse), choose Upload a skill, and drag the file in. The repo lives here if you want to look first: https://github.com/aiwithremy/claude-skills-llm-council
Once it is installed, you summon it with any of these trigger phrases. Just type one and add your question.
🗝️ the trigger phrases
ask the council
council this: [your question]
run the council on [your question]
pressure-test this
stress-test this
war room this
debate this
THE CRAFT
How to get the most out of the council 🎓
This is the part most people skip, and it is the difference between generic advice and a real war room.
📄 Feed it real context, not a one-line question. The Council reads your workspace, so the more it knows, the sharper every advisor gets. Drop in your real numbers, your constraints, what you have already tried, and what is actually at stake. "Should I raise my rates?" gets you generic advice. "I charge $1,100 per reel, my last sponsor pushed back on price, here is the email" gets you a war room.
🍴 Frame a real decision, not a yes or no. The Council is built for forks in the road: this option versus that one, raise or hold, hire or automate, pivot or push. If your question has one factually correct answer, you do not need 5 advisors, you need a quick lookup. Save the Council for the calls where being wrong is expensive.
⏰ Run it BEFORE the move, not after. The whole point is to catch the fatal flaw while you can still change course. Council the pricing email before you send it, the positioning before you build the landing page, the hire before you post the job. After you have committed, it is just expensive hindsight.
🗺️ Read the verdict like a map, not a grade. Where the council agrees is your high-confidence signal: that part of the plan is probably solid, so stop second-guessing it and move. Where the council clashes is the gift: that is the exact spot where smart people genuinely disagree, which means that is where you should slow down and dig.
✂️ Paste your actual draft for copy review, do not describe it. If you want the Council to pressure-test a caption, a landing page, a sales email, or a sponsorship pitch, give it the real words. Describing your copy hides the exact thing the Outsider is built to catch: where your writing is confusing or flat to someone who is not already in your head.
😬 Go in wanting the answers you do not want to hear. If you only run the Council to get a yes, you wasted it. The real value is the Contrarian finding the hole you have been avoiding and the First Principles Thinker telling you that you are solving the wrong problem entirely. Walk in ready to be wrong, that is where the money is.
👣 Act on "the one thing to do first," not the whole list. The chairman ends with a single concrete next step on purpose. Most decisions die in a 12-item to-do list. Do the one thing, then come back and council your next fork.
🔁 Council the council. You are allowed to push back. If the recommendation feels off, reply with "pressure-test that recommendation" and you get a second pass that argues against the first. You can also zoom in on a single advisor: "say more about what the Contrarian flagged" pulls the thread on the one angle that worried you.
🎬 Use it on content ideas too, not just business decisions. Before you batch-film a whole series or commit to a new angle, council the concept: "war room whether this hook actually lands or just sounds clever." The Outsider will tell you if it only makes sense to people already in the niche.
COPY THESE
Every way you can use the council 📚
This is your copy-and-paste library. Find the situation closest to yours, grab the prompt, swap in your real numbers, and run it. The more honest detail you add, the better the verdict.
Marketing, content and growth 📣
Picking your one lead platform when you are spread thin.
📣 pick one platform
council this: I'm a solo creator posting AI content. Right now I split my time across Instagram reels, LinkedIn carousels, and Threads, and I'm doing all three badly because I'm exhausted. My goal this year is to build an audience I can eventually sell a $47/mo community to. Should I go all in on one platform for the next 90 days, or keep a lighter presence on all three? If one, which one, given the community-sale goal?
Repositioning when your hook audience is not your buyer audience.
🎯 reposition the hook
council this: My most viral reels are fear-based hooks that pull huge reach but mostly attract scared employees who never buy anything. The people who actually message me about working together are small business owners who want AI to run their ads. Do I lean harder into the fear hooks for reach and accept low conversion, pivot my whole positioning toward business owners and lose the easy reach, or try to run both and risk a confused brand?
Whether to take a sponsorship that does not fit your niche.
🍱 the off-niche sponsorship
council this: A meal-kit brand offered me $1,400 for two reels. I make AI and marketing content, so meal kits are off-topic. The money is real, but my last three posts have been tightly on-niche and my engagement is finally climbing. Do I take the deal and risk diluting the audience I just tightened, negotiate for an AI angle they probably won't accept, or turn it down? This is only my second paid offer ever.
Pricing a sponsored reel package without a benchmark.
💵 price a reel package
council this: A SaaS brand wants a 3-reel package plus 30 days of usage rights to run my videos as their own ads. My only prior paid deal was $1,900 for two reels with no ad usage. They opened by asking for "your package rate." I'm tempted to quote $3,500 but I'm scared of pricing myself out of my first package deal. What number do I send, how do I structure the usage rights, and how do I justify it in the email?
Killing or doubling down on a content series.
📉 kill or double down
council this: I'm 8 episodes into a numbered series. Episodes 1 to 3 did great, then 4 through 8 flattened to half the views. My rule was to re-evaluate at 10 episodes. Do I push to 10 as planned and then decide, kill it now and free up the slots for fresh ideas, or refresh the format and treat the next two as a test?
Choosing your call-to-action mix across reels.
🔁 the CTA mix
council this: Most of my reels end with a hard CTA: "comment KEYWORD and I'll DM you the resource." My reach has dipped and I'm wondering if the constant keyword-bait comments are training the algorithm to see my engagement as low-quality. Do I keep the hard CTA because lead capture is the point, cut back to half and let the rest be pure value to protect reach, or test a soft "follow for more" close on my highest-reach posts only?
Pricing, offers and monetization 💰
A tripwire price point that is killing conversions.
🏷️ the tripwire price
council this: I sell an AI prompt pack as a low-ticket tripwire at $27 and conversion from my email list is about 2%. Some people in my niche price these at $9 to $17 and claim higher take rates. Do I drop to $17 to get more buyers into my world so I can upsell my $497 offer later, or hold $27 because the higher price filters for serious buyers? Am I even thinking about this the right way?
Productize a service into a flat-price offer.
📦 productize the service
council this: I keep getting DMs asking me to set up their AI content system, and I quote it custom every time, usually $400 to $900. The scoping conversations are exhausting. I'm considering one fixed productized offer at a flat $397, same deliverables every time. The risk is some setups are more work than others and I'll lose money on the hard ones. Should I flatten to one price, do tiers, or keep quoting custom?
Launch model versus evergreen.
🚪 launch vs evergreen
council this: I'm deciding how to sell my paid community. Option A is a launch model: doors open for one week a few times a year with urgency. Option B is evergreen: doors always open, sell continuously with no urgency. I post daily so I have steady reach, but I hate the dead months a launch model creates, and I worry evergreen signups will trickle and never spike. Which fits a daily-posting creator with my reach?
Free tier versus paid-only entry.
🆓 free tier vs paid-only
council this: I'm launching a community for marketers learning AI. Option A: open a free tier for social proof and nurture, then upsell paid later. Option B: skip free and go paid-only at a low launch price so the member count is all real buyers. Free risks a ghost-town of non-buyers; paid-only risks a tiny visible count at launch that kills momentum. Which structure should I open with?
Anchor a high-ticket offer you have never sold.
⚓ anchor the high ticket
council this: I want to add a 1:1 AI strategy call as my highest-priced offer, capped at 4 a month. I've never sold a call at any price. Part of me wants to anchor at $750 to position it as premium, part of me wants to start at $297 to get the first bookings and build testimonials. The calls also become content and case-study fuel, which matters more to me right now than the cash. Where should I set the price, and is launching this even the right move before I have proof?
Positioning, branding and copy review 🎨
Choosing a positioning angle when you keep flip-flopping.
🧭 the positioning angle
council this: I run a small Meta ads service for local gyms. Option A: "I get fitness studios fully booked with paid ads" (outcome promise, scary to back up because results vary). Option B: "I test 20 ad variations a week so your best ad is always live" (process promise, defensible but less sexy). My fear is the process angle sounds boring to gym owners who only care about more members. Which angle do I lead with on my site and in DMs?
Reviewing a landing page hero before you run traffic.
🖥️ the landing page hero
council this, here is the hero section of my landing page and I want you to find what's weak before I run traffic. Headline: "Stop drowning in busywork. Let AI run the boring parts of your business." Subhead: "I build custom automations that save founders 10+ hours a week." Button: "Book a free audit." Context: cold traffic from my reels, audience is non-technical solopreneurs, the page gets visits but almost nobody clicks the button. What's killing the conversion?
Stress-testing an Instagram bio that is not converting.
📱 the bio teardown
council this, here's my Instagram bio and I think it's why visitors aren't following or clicking my link. Bio: "AI + Marketing | Helping you work smarter not harder | Free AI toolkit below." Context: I get 5 to 15k views on reels but my follow rate from profile visits is under 2% and almost nobody taps the link. Is the bio the problem, and if so what's the weak part: the positioning, the "work smarter not harder" cliche, or the offer?
Choosing the hook for a sales email subject line.
✉️ the subject line
council this: I'm sending the launch email for a $497 two-week AI sprint to 600 people who downloaded my free toolkit. Three subject lines, I can send one. A: "Your first AI automation, built with you in 2 weeks." B: "Most people will never get AI to actually work for them. Here's the shortcut." C: "Open if you're tired of saving AI posts and never building anything." They barely know me. Which one, and what's the risk with C, which I'm leaning toward?
Career, money and big personal decisions 🧭
Quit the day job to go full-time on the side hustle.
🚪 quit the day job
council this: I have a 9 to 5 paying $95k that I'm bored in, and a side business making $2,800/month growing about 15% month over month. I have about 4 months of expenses saved. Part of me wants to quit now to go all in, part says wait until it matches my salary. Should I quit now, set a revenue milestone to quit at, or negotiate going part-time first?
Hire your first person versus stay solo.
🤝 first hire vs solo
council this: My business makes about $9k/month solo and I'm maxed on hours, turning down work. I could hire a part-time contractor at roughly $1,800/month to take admin and delivery off me, but it would eat most of my profit for a few months and I've never managed anyone. Do I hire now and bet on growth, raise my prices first to thin the workload, or push through solo for another quarter?
Where to put your limited time and energy.
⏳ where the hours go
council this: I have about 15 free hours a week outside my job and I keep splitting them three ways: building my own business, studying for a certification that could get me promoted, and freelancing for quick cash. I'm making slow progress on all three and feeling burnt out. If I concentrated those 15 hours on the one path with the best 12-month payoff, which should it be, assuming I want long-term independence?
Walk away from a draining client or keep the money.
🔥 fire the draining client
council this: One client is about 45% of my freelance income but they're disrespectful, scope-creep constantly, and dealing with them is wrecking my motivation. Replacing that income would take a few months of pipeline-building I haven't done. Do I fire them now and eat the gap, set firm boundaries and a rate increase and see if they leave, or keep them while I quietly build replacement income first?
Founders, product, hiring and operations ⚙️
Hire versus automate the bottleneck.
⚙️ hire vs automate
council this: My biggest bottleneck is the structural cut of my videos, which eats hours every week. Option A: hire an assistant at around $300 to $500 a month to take it off me. Option B: keep doing it myself because the cut is a taste call and I worry handing it off will make my reels feel generic. What's the right move, and if it's hiring, how do I hand off a taste-heavy task without losing my voice?
When to kill a stalled side project.
🪦 kill the stalled project
council this: I built two small automation tools months ago that are now stale and sending out-of-date content. I keep saying I'll fix them when I have capacity, but that capacity never comes because filming and editing always win. Do I fully kill them, do a one-time rebuild, or leave them dormant and revisit next quarter? My real constraint is that content production is my number one lever right now.
Picking the production tool stack.
🧰 pick the tool stack
council this: I'm standardizing my always-on automation layer and I keep going back and forth. My builds are mostly marketing workflows: scheduled content jobs, scraping AI news, batch generation, lead routing. The candidates are n8n (more control, steeper setup), Make.com (easier visual builder, recurring cost), or building most of it in code plus cron. I'll also teach this stack to a community of marketers new to AI, so beginner-friendliness matters too. Which do I commit to as the primary, and why?
Sequencing the launch roadmap.
🗓️ sequence the roadmap
council this: I'm solo and capacity-constrained, and three big builds are competing for the same hours over the next two months: (1) launch weekly long-form YouTube, (2) pre-load my paid community curriculum so I don't open empty, and (3) start outreach to land my first case-study clients. All three matter for a September launch, but I can't do all three well at once. What do I sequence first, second, third, and what do I consciously delay?
Sponsorship admin: VA, talent manager, or stay solo.
🎬 sponsorship admin
council this: I'm at 3 to 4 brand deals a month and the admin (contracts, invoices, negotiation back-and-forth) is eating my creative time. Option A: keep doing it myself and stay slow. Option B: hire a managed VA at a fixed monthly rate to handle admin only, while I keep all negotiation judgment. Option C: sign with a talent manager who takes 15 to 20% of deal revenue but owns the whole pipeline. Which structure do I commit to at my current deal volume?
SKIP IT WHEN
When NOT to use it 🛑
The Council is powerful, but it is not for everything. Skip it when:
❓ Your question has one factually correct answer. That needs a quick lookup, not a debate.
✍️ You just want something created. "Write me three hook options" is a creation task. Ask Claude normally and keep moving.
📋 You want a summary. Recapping a doc or a thread does not need 5 advisors.
😌 You are not actually torn and nothing expensive rides on it. If the stakes are low and you already know your answer, go. The Council is for the hard, costly, genuinely uncertain calls.
⚡ SCALING AI & GROWTH SYSTEMS?
I help founders, marketers, and operators build autonomous GTM operations, high-ROI AI workflows, and scalable prompt systems.