Know Your Claude · AI Kickstart

AI Kickstart

Know Your Claude

There isn't one Claude. There's a family of models, three ways to work, and a handful of settings that change everything. Five minutes here and you'll stop leaving capability on the table.

Part 1 · The models

Every model in the picker is a different brain with a different appetite. The bigger the brain, the better the work on hard problems, and the faster it uses up your plan's limits. Operators don't pick a favorite. They match the model to the job.

The sprinter

Haiku

The fastest and lightest of the family. Instant answers, and it barely touches your usage limits.

Reach for it: quick rewrites, summaries, simple questions, long back-and-forth chats where speed beats depth.

Power · lightest on limits

The workhorse

Sonnet

The balance point: seriously smart, still fast, reasonable on limits. Where most of your selling work should live.

Reach for it: research briefs, follow-ups, call breakdowns, everyday Cowork tasks. Your default.

Power · moderate on limits

The deep thinker

Opus

Noticeably stronger on complex, multi-step work, and it spends your limits faster to get there.

Reach for it: deal strategy, dense documents, territory plans, anything where being wrong is expensive.

Power · heavy on limits

The powerhouse

Fable / Mythos

The most capable tier, built for the hardest problems.

Not available right now: currently restricted by the U.S. government. It exists, you just can't use it yet.

Power · restricted, not yet available

The rule of thumb: default to Sonnet. Drop to Haiku when the task is simple or you're watching your limits. Step up to Opus when the work is worth it. You can switch models mid-conversation from the model picker, so downshifting after the hard part is done is a real move.

Part 2 · One Claude, three ways to work

Same models, three different doors. Knowing which door to open is half the skill. We go deep on the middle one in Session 2.

Think

Chat

The conversation window. Questions, drafts, thinking out loud, working an idea over. Where everyone starts.

Delegate

Cowork

In the desktop app. Claude works with your real files and tools, and runs tasks on a schedule. The teammate door, and the spine of this course.

Build

Code

For building software. Most sellers never need this door. The day you outgrow that sentence, you've reached level 4.

Part 3 · Set up like an operator

Five settings, two minutes, and every conversation you ever have gets better. Find them under Settings in the app.

Fill in your profile

Tell Claude your name, your role, what you sell, and how you like answers (short and direct beats long and hedged). It reads this before every conversation, so one minute here pays off in all of them.

Turn your privacy toggle off

Settings, then Privacy. Find "Improve Claude for everyone" and switch it off. You're on a paid plan, so there's no reason to leave it on. Off keeps your conversations yours.

Connect your tools

Calendar, email, CRM. Connectors are what turn generic answers into answers about your actual week. We do this together in Session 1.

Know where your limits live

Usage shows how much of your plan you've used and when it resets. Glance at it once so a busy day never surprises you mid-deal. If you hit the ceiling, downshift a model instead of stopping.

Get the desktop app

Cowork only lives there, and scheduled tasks only run while it's open. The browser is for visiting. The desktop app is for working. Download it at claude.ai/download.

Pro tip: the model picker is a gear shift, not a loyalty program. Start your morning brief on Sonnet, hand the gnarly renewal strategy to Opus, and let Haiku clean up the small stuff. That one habit stretches a Pro plan a very long way.

Model lineup current as of June 2026: Haiku 4.5, Sonnet 4.6, Opus 4.8, and the Fable / Mythos powerhouse tier (currently restricted in the U.S.). Names and versions will change. The matching habit won't.

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