Choose one repeated workflow
Missed-call handling, estimate follow-up, intake, documentation, data entry, and support triage are useful examples. Avoid something as broad as “customer service.”
Free 800-Hour Workflow Worksheet
Measure the work before you automate it.
Put one repeated workflow on paper. Estimate its annual staff hours, labor cost, and business consequences. Then decide whether the answer is AI, ordinary automation, a clearer process—or leaving it alone.
Why start here?
“We need AI” is not a business case.
A useful project begins with a specific workflow, honest volume, and a baseline. The worksheet makes the hidden cost visible before a vendor, platform, or impressive demo chooses the answer for you.
Use real system data when available. When it is not, sample the work for one or two weeks and label the result as an estimate.
Count monthly occurrences
Use call logs, tickets, forms, estimates, or a short sample. A defensible range is better than a confident guess dressed for a board meeting.
Measure staff time
Include every person who touches the workflow and the time spent re-entering information, finding context, correcting errors, and handing work off.
Calculate hours and labor cost
Calculate annual hours, then multiply by a loaded hourly cost that includes wages and reasonable overhead. Record delays, lost opportunities, and risk separately rather than inventing precision.
Apply the ten-times test
A project should proceed only when the conservative first-year opportunity could plausibly be at least ten times the fee and the workflow can be improved without creating unacceptable risk.
Important:
Estimated hours are not guaranteed savings. Automation rarely recovers every minute, and capacity only becomes value when the company deliberately reallocates it. Use the worksheet to decide what deserves measurement—not to manufacture a promise.
Found something expensive?
Bring us the workflow—not an AI shopping list.
The $1,000 Founding Business Bottleneck Map measures one qualified workflow, compares AI and non-AI options, and delivers a clear go, no-go, or start-smaller decision within seven days.
Discuss this workflow