Six questions we'd ask any business owner
The questions from our 45-minute walkthrough, and what we'd tell you once you answer.
1. What is a customer worth?
If you don't know what a customer is worth, you don't know what you can afford to pay for one.
For example, take a family law firm. Divorce clients far outnumber adoption clients. Each is worth a different amount, and a different set of firms competes for it.
Every product you sell has its own customer value, cost to win, and competition.
Check For each kind of client, what does the average one spend with you over time?
How campaigns are compared by what a customer is worth
2. Where do your ad campaigns send people?
A specific ad should land on a page that speaks to that reader and makes one offer.
Someone searching for sciatica relief doesn't care about headaches. Send them to a page about sciatica, not a homepage that lists every treatment.
Check Open your last ad. Does the page it lands on match what the ad offered?
A landing page taken apart, section by section3. Who on your team does manual data entry?
Enter it once, and the rest of the work follows.
A bakery writes each order on paper, types it into a spreadsheet and saves the number in a phone. To text that the cake is ready, or ask for a review, someone searches all three. No retyping means fewer mistakes, and anyone can pull up the order right away.
Check Ask the people doing the work what they type in twice.
An order system that works this wayOn paperPaper
In a spreadsheetSpreadsheet
In someone's phonePhone
Unified customer tracking
4. What would you fix if it were affordable?
“Prior to the AI revolution, companies would just accept workflow gaps and plug those gaps with human intervention because the cost of hiring a developer was too high.”
Now that the cost has come down, a gap you accepted years ago is worth looking at again.
Take an accounting firm. Staff open each client's receipts, key in the amount and hunt for the matching bank charge. Now each receipt is read and matched on its own, and staff look only at the ones that don't fit.
Check Where does your software leave a gap that someone has to fill by hand?
AI tools and agents built around one workflowHow to tell if you're barely using AI5. How are you using AI currently?
AI can be your front line or a backup for your staff. It can speed up their work or plug gaps in your workflow.
Open hours
Somebody answers the phone.
Overnight
A pipe bursts at 2 a.m. An AI receptionist answers, because it isn't feasible to pay somebody to sit by the phone all night.
- Call after hours
- Appointment on the calendar
- Text confirming it
Start of the day
The plumber's first job is on the schedule.
Check Where does AI already help your team, and where could it take on more?
AI tools and agents built for your team6. Where does your company knowledge live?
Most businesses run on tribal knowledge.
A company knowledge base means:
- Employees need a resource to refer to.
- Managers can hold employees accountable.
- Owners stay focused on the bigger picture.
A new hire at a wholesale distributor asks how to handle a customer return, and the answer depends on who they ask. One place that holds how each job gets done lets staff answer their own questions, and you control what it says.
Check Could a new hire find out how a job gets done without asking you?
