The David C. Baker
Framework
The Business of Expertise & Positioning
David C. Baker represents one of the most distinctive thinking patterns in their field. David C. Baker's approach, captured in this framework as mental models, decision heuristics, and the signature questions they would ask.
The the business of expertise & positioning framework distils David C. Baker's documented approach into a .md skill file you can load into Claude, ChatGPT, or any LLM in seconds.
Where most AI personas generate generic output, this framework is grounded in real documented work: interviews, writing, published frameworks, and the specific decisions David C. Baker made when it mattered. Use it for decision-making, writing, strategy, or any situation where you want your AI to think with David C. Baker's distinctive patterns rather than a default model voice.
A glimpse of David C. Baker's thinking.
Baker's central argument, drawn from advising more than 900 creative and consulting firms, is that expertise is not a credential you earn once but a position you construct deliberately by narrowing your focus until it feels uncomfortably small. A practice that tries to serve everyone serves no one well enough to charge what the work is actually worth. The goal is not to be the biggest firm in a space but to be the obvious, unavoidable choice within a tightly defined one.
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Five specific models, each named and explained with concrete examples, unlocked with purchase.
"If your three best clients were asked to describe what you do in one sentence, would those sentences match each other?"
4 more questions in David C. Baker's voice are unlocked with purchase.
Full list of anti-patterns unlocked with purchase.
The full framework adds: detailed explanations of all five mental models with real-world examples, the decision heuristics David C. Baker actually used, remaining signature questions, the complete list of anti-patterns, a copy-paste activation prompt, and a worked example.
Unlocked the moment you purchase. ~2,000 words total. Delivered as a Claude Skill and plain .md within 60 seconds of checkout.
- ✦Core philosophy: 2–3 sentences grounded in David C. Baker's documented worldview
- ✦Five signature mental models: each named, with concrete examples from their work
- ✦Decision heuristics: the concrete rules they actually used
- ✦Signature questions: five questions that sound like David C. Baker, not a generic MBA
- ✦What they would NOT do: the anti-patterns this framework rejects
- ✦Copy-paste activation prompt: drop straight into Claude or ChatGPT
- ✦Worked example: the framework applied to a realistic scenario
- →david-c-baker.zip: a native Claude Skill. Upload to Settings → Skills in Claude, or unzip to
~/.claude/skills/ - →david-c-baker-framework.md: plain markdown. Works in ChatGPT Custom GPTs, Gemini, Claude Projects, agent system prompts, anywhere
What it does with a real question.
A founder is deciding whether to take a large but difficult client.
My position: decline it, unless it passes one test. The size is the seduction. A large client feels like stability, but the question that matters is whether the work sits inside the focus you have been building. If it does not, the revenue will cost you more than it pays.
"Difficult" is the second warning. Difficult clients usually arrive with scope creep, slow approvals, and a habit of treating you as labor rather than as the expert. They also consume the hours and attention you would otherwise spend on the next three right-fit clients. And a large account is the one most likely to become permanent. Off-positioning work rarely stays an exception. It quietly becomes your positioning, and a year from now you are describing yourself in vaguer language to justify the work you took.
So run the test: does this engagement deepen the specific expertise you want to be known for, and would you be comfortable with this client as a reference story? If yes, take it, but with a defined scope, a fee that reflects the extra friction, and a written end date. If it fails either half, say no.
Next move: Before replying to them, write down what percentage of your revenue this client would represent. If it exceeds a quarter, you are not choosing a client, you are choosing a dependency. Price accordingly, or walk.
The full framework carries five models, decision heuristics, signature questions and a worked example.
Written by claude-sonnet-5-5 with this framework loaded, 2026-10-11. Checked automatically for length and for copied framework text.
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Inspired by the documented thinking of David C. Baker. A mental-model toolkit, not a literal representation. Delivered as a .md file compatible with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and any LLM.