These 7 ChatGPT Prompts Can Solve Problems Even MBAs Struggle With

AI is already changing how business problems get solved. Leading companies like Google, Amazon, and JP Morgan are already using AI to help with decision-making across everything from supply chain optimization to risk assessment. This technology is quickly becoming a standard part of how modern companies operate.

But to get real results, you need to know how to communicate with AI correctly and instruct it in the proper way. That’s where proven business frameworks and role-based prompts come in. These make ChatGPT walk you through scenarios like a consultant, strategist, or startup advisor.

Its capabilities in these domains have been proven through problem-solving tests like the MATH benchmark, GPT-4o scored 76.6% – higher than most college applicants – on multi-step reasoning tasks. In practice, that means it can help you logically break down big challenges and find practical solutions.

The prompts below are designed to help you do exactly that. Use them to save hours, and run your business more efficiently.

1. Root Cause Analysis (5 Whys)

Example use-case: You’re constantly missing sales targets, but you’re unsure why.

Prompt: Act as a business operations analyst. I am facing the following problem: [describe your problem]. Please use the 5 Whys technique to help me identify the root cause. For each “why,” provide a logical explanation and connect it to the previous answer until we reach the underlying cause.

Why it works: This prompt uses a time-tested diagnostic method originally popularized by Toyota to uncover the underlying causes of persistent issues. The “5 Whys” forces structured, cause-and-effect thinking, rather than jumping to surface-level fixes. By assigning ChatGPT the role of a business operations analyst, you’re essentially simulating a consultant walking your team through the logic step-by-step.

This eliminates emotional bias and uncovers overlooked system failures. It’s especially powerful when leadership teams are too close to the problem to see it objectively. You can use the results to inform department-level audits, redesign KPIs, or even justify strategic pivots in front of stakeholders.

2. SWOT Analysis

Business problem: You’re considering entering a new market but want a strategic overview.

Prompt: Act as a senior strategy consultant. I want to analyze the situation: [describe the situation or challenge]. Please conduct a detailed SWOT analysis, listing at least three points each for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats relevant to this scenario. Afterward, recommend the most strategic next step based on your analysis.

Why it works: This prompt combines critical thinking with real-world framing. SWOT is an essential framework used by strategic consultants, but its value depends entirely on the quality and objectivity of the inputs. By assigning ChatGPT the role of a senior strategy consultant, you force the model to reason from a structured, high-level business perspective.

It also removes team biases or blind spots, surfacing overlooked vulnerabilities or untapped advantages. The result is a more balanced, multi-angle evaluation that ties internal factors to external situations.

3. Mind Mapping

Business problem: You’re planning a product development move and need to structure all your ideas, challenges, and dependencies clearly before execution.

Prompt: Act as a product innovation coach. I’m working on solving [state your problem or goal]. Please create a detailed mind map in text form, starting from the central problem and branching out into main categories, subcategories, and possible solutions. Present the mind map as an indented list for clarity.

Why it works: Mind maps help structure your thinking around complex projects by visually organizing everything from root challenges to potential solutions. This method uncovers hidden relationships, highlights unexplored ideas, and makes it easier to trace how different components connect. And once generated, you can plug the result into a visual tool like Miro to instantly turn your outline into a visual diagram.

4. Phoenix Checklist

Business problem: You’re preparing for a potential crisis (PR issue, technical outage, etc.)

Prompt: Act as a crisis response strategist. I want to thoroughly analyze and solve [state your problem]. Please use the Phoenix Checklist approach: List clarifying questions to better understand the problem, Answer each question based on available information, List solution-focused questions, Provide actionable answers to these as well.

Why it works: Originally developed by the CIA, the Phoenix Checklist is designed to force structured thinking under pressure, breaking down a problem into its most elemental parts through rigorous questioning. Submitting the prompt in this form makes ChatGPT evaluate the situation from multiple vantage points, often surfacing blind spots you hadn’t considered.

This prompt is especially powerful because it separates emotion from analysis, helping you respond to high-stakes scenarios – like data breaches, regulatory violations, or PR blowups – with clarity instead of panic. The checklist format also creates a documented trail of decisions and considerations, which can be useful later for internal reviews, stakeholder communication, or post-crisis analysis.

5. Strategic Roadmap Generator

Business problem: You’re launching a new niche product and need a year-long plan.

Prompt: Act as a startup growth advisor. I’m launching [describe your product or company goal]. Please generate a strategic roadmap that spans 12 months, divided into clear phases with objectives, milestones, and KPIs for each phase. Include potential risks and how to mitigate them.

Why it works: This prompt turns abstract goals into operational plans by bringing clarity on both vision and execution. Instead of vague aspirations like “grow the user base” or “scale operations,” you’re getting phased timelines, concrete KPIs, and milestone checkpoints that map directly to business outcomes.

ChatGPT, acting as a startup growth advisor, can also simulate real investor expectations by flagging common red flags or missed dependencies. It’s especially useful for solo founders or lean teams who can’t afford a full-time strategic officer but still need a long-term plan.

6. Pricing Strategy Optimizer

Business problem: You’re unsure how to price a new digital or physical product.

Prompt: Act as a pricing strategist. I’m launching [describe your product or service]. Please help me choose an optimal pricing strategy by evaluating different models (e.g., freemium, tiered, one-time fee, subscription). Suggest which model fits best and explain the psychological and financial rationale.

Why it works: The prompt forces ChatGPT to weigh both company business goals and user psychology, which is crucial when setting price points that convert. Acting as a pricing strategist, the AI evaluates monetization models like freemium, tiered, or subscriptions, while looking at your product type, audience expectations, and industry benchmarks.

It draws from case studies and behavioral pricing theory (like anchoring, decoy effect, and loss aversion), giving you options based on real life data. You can use the insights to refine landing pages, build compelling A/B tests, or even justify pricing changes internally.

7. Investor Pitch Polish

Business problem: You have a strong product but a weak investor pitch deck.

Prompt: Act as a venture capital advisor. I’m preparing an investor pitch for [brief description]. Please help me polish the pitch by simplifying jargon, emphasizing traction, clarifying market opportunity, and enhancing the storytelling. Provide suggestions to improve each slide or section.

Why it works: AI here plays the role of a seasoned VC, analyzing the exact elements investors care about, from business model clarity to competitive advantage and product-market fit. It challenges your pitch deck’s structure, and emotional arc.

The output helps you clarify your market size with accurate data, tighten up your traction proof, and stress-test assumptions about growth and monetization. It can even suggest better visual flow slide-by-slide or flag where social proof or milestones are missing. This prompt is very useful for early-stage founders who don’t yet have access to seasoned advisors but still want their pitch to land with top-tier investors.

How To Create Your Own AI Prompt

You don’t need to be a prompt engineer to get incredible results from AI. You just need a smart structure. A good prompt gives the AI clear context, a role to play, and a way to deliver insights that actually help you move forward. Here’s a simple checklist you can follow to turn ChatGPT (or any AI tool) into a powerful business problem solver:

• Start with a role – Begin with something like: “Act as a senior growth strategist…”. Giving the AI a role shapes its mindset and language to fit your task.
• State the challenge clearly – Define the exact problem you’re solving. Avoid generalities like “help with strategy” and aim for specifics: “our conversion rate dropped 25% last quarter.”
• Add a thinking framework – Use a tool like SWOT, 5 Whys, SCAMPER, roadmap planning, or decision matrix. It gives the AI structure and helps you get results you can act on.
• Ask for a specific output format – Whether you need a list, table, comparison chart, or action plan, tell the AI how to deliver the answer. This saves you time and makes the result easier to use or share.
• Set the tone and detail level – Let the AI know if you want something short and compact, or deep and strategic. You can also ask it to write in a friendly tone, a formal tone, or CEO-ready language.
• Provide context – Just a sentence or two about your company, audience, or product can make the AI’s answer 10x more relevant. For example: “We’re a fintech startup targeting freelancers.”
• Mention constraints if needed – If you want low-cost ideas, eco-friendly options, or B2B-only strategies, say it upfront. That helps the AI filter ideas before it starts.
• (Optional) Ask it to double-check itself – You can even add: “At the end, list any assumptions you made.” This helps you catch anything the AI guessed or inferred.

Conclusion

Most teams still underutilize AI, or worse, they treat it like a side-kick. But with well structured prompts and clearly defined roles, ChatGPT can function like an internal consultant, strategist, or even a role-play investor for preparing pitch decks. Start testing these prompts directly inside your workflow, and adapt them to your specific business context. The more concrete instructions and context you give, the more helpful your results will be.

The real power lies in building repeatable workflows inside the AI. These prompts are templates you can reuse, refine, and even combine. Want to run a product launch? Use the roadmap generator, pair it with pricing optimization, and finalize it with an investor pitch polish. Facing a team crisis? Start with the Phoenix Checklist, then follow up with a root cause analysis. The better you understand that AI is a genuinely good thinking partner, the more value you’ll extract from it.

Don’t wait for a perfect use case. Try one of the prompts above right now on a real challenge your team is facing. You might be surprised how quickly it sharpens your thinking, and how easily AI can go from nice-to-have to absolutely essential.