Most small businesses have brand rules somewhere: a colour palette, set fonts, a way of placing the logo, a layout, a tone of voice. Fewer have documents that follow them. Reports get built in a hurry, someone copies an old slide deck, and the result is almost on-brand but not quite.
For franchises the problem is sharper. The franchisor has rules and every location has to follow them, usually without a designer on staff. Somebody ends up tidying documents by hand, or they go out looking slightly different each time.
This article explains a simple fix: write the brand rules down once, as instructions an AI assistant follows every time it produces a document.
How it works
- Write the rules down once. The colour palette, fonts, logo placement, layout and tone of voice go into a single set of written instructions. This is the style guide the AI works from.
- The AI follows them for everything it produces. Reports, slide decks, spreadsheets and documents all come out following the same rules. You ask for the document; the style is already taken care of.
- It checks its own work. Before it finishes, the AI goes through a checklist drawn from the rules and fixes anything that does not match.
- You review and use it. The finished file is a normal Word, PowerPoint or Excel file in the tools you already have.
We use Anthropic's Claude for this. The AI does the writing and the layout decisions. Where there is arithmetic, such as in a spreadsheet, scripts do it. The rules sit in one place (for us, a Claude “skill”: a written instruction file plus the logo file the AI loads whenever it makes a document), so changing them changes every document produced after that.
What to watch out for
Vague rules give vague results. "Friendly and professional" is hard to follow. "Short sentences, plain words, no jargon" is easier. Wherever you can, write rules as things that can be checked.
Put the real files in. An AI can follow instructions about logo placement, but it needs the correct logo file to place. Give it the approved versions, not a screenshot someone took last year.
Keep the guide in one place. If the rules are copied into three documents they will drift apart. One source, updated in one place, is the whole point.
Test with real documents. Try the guide on the things you actually produce, such as a monthly report, a proposal and a slide deck, and see where the output misses. Then tighten the rules.
Do not let it speak for the franchisor. If your brand belongs to a franchisor, check that you are allowed to write their guidelines into your own instructions, and use their latest version.
What still needs a person
- Writing the rules in the first place, or confirming them if the franchisor already supplies them.
- Supplying the approved logo and any templates.
- Reviewing documents before they go out. The checklist reduces mistakes, but it does not replace a final look.
- Updating the guide when the brand changes.
Real example
We run this for two franchise fitness studios in Auckland that are related companies of ours. The franchise's brand rules for colour, fonts, logo placement, layout and tone of voice are written down once as instructions for the AI. Every report, slide deck, spreadsheet or document it produces for the studios comes out on-brand, and it runs through a self-check list before finishing.
Want this for your business?
We build automations like this at a fixed price, from NZ$1,000 + GST. If you have brand rules that documents keep missing, we can talk through what you have and whether a style guide for an AI would help.
Book a free 30-minute automation audit
FAQ
Do I need a designer to do this? Not necessarily. You need your brand rules written clearly and the right logo files. A designer helps if the rules are not written down yet.
Does it work for Word, PowerPoint and Excel? Yes. The same rules apply to reports, slide decks, spreadsheets and documents.
What if the brand changes? Update the written guide once. Documents produced afterwards follow the new rules.