Every founder swears they'll write the operations manual someday. Here's the secret: yours is already written. It's sitting in your sent mail, every client reply, every cancellation handled, every payment-plan negotiated. I pointed AI at my inbox with one instruction, create an SOP based on all my email, and it came back with the binder I'd been promising to write for years.
“We never do cancellations via email. We always have conversations.”
What it excavated
- A house voice guide, describing how we actually write to guests, it characterized ours as the warmth of a concierge with the precision of an editor, which is exactly what I'd trained my team toward without ever writing it down.
- A catalog of our standard subject lines and email patterns, learned from repetition I'd never noticed.
- The real policies, including one I'd never documented anywhere: we never handle cancellations over email, we always have a conversation. It found that rule by watching me follow it.
- Cancellation scripts, payment-extension language, escalation paths, and where we book what.
Claire's own numbers
The framework, step by step
- 1
A house voice guide
describing how we actually write to guests — it characterized ours as the warmth of a concierge with the precision of an editor, which is exactly what
- 2
A catalog of our standard subject lines and email patterns
learned from repetition I'd never noticed.
- 3
The real policies
including one I'd never documented anywhere: we never handle cancellations over email — we always have a conversation. It found that rule by watching
- 4
Cancellation scripts
payment-extension language, escalation paths, and where we book what.
Claire's own framework from this essay, in the order she teaches it.
Source: Claire B. Soares, from her own travel business and live trainings.
Why this beats writing from memory
A manual written from memory records how you THINK you operate. A manual excavated from your inbox records how you actually do, including the standards you keep unconsciously. Run it against everything since the beginning of your business; let it work overnight. The next person I hire won't shadow anyone for a month. They'll read the binder that fifteen years of emails wrote, and so will my AI employees, because the same binder is their training manual too.
Common Questions
How do you write standard operating procedures quickly?
Excavate them rather than writing them. Point AI at your sent mail and ask for an SOP, and it returns the house style you have been following without documenting.
What can AI learn from your sent email?
Your voice and tone, your standard subject lines, your cancellation and payment-extension language, escalation paths, and policies you follow but never wrote down.
How does this help with hiring?
The next hire reads the binder your years of email wrote, and the same document becomes the training material for your AI employees.
Written By
Claire B. Soares
6× Condé Nast Top Travel Specialist, Certified AI Consultant, and founder of Travel AI University. $3.4B+ in enterprise travel software sold to Google, IBM, Boeing, the federal government, and the DoD; $16M+ in luxury travel sales with Up in the Air Life.
About Claire
