Business Audit Prompt Set

Prompts for looking hard at your own business. AI is useful here mainly because it does not flinch and has no stake in the answer.

Use these on things you can actually change. An audit that produces twenty insights and no decisions is entertainment.

Before you start

AI knows nothing about your business until you tell it. These prompts are only as good as the context you supply. Have ready:

• What you sell, to whom, at what price
• Revenue split by product or service, roughly
• Your costs, roughly
• What you did last quarter that worked and did not
• What you are worried about

Vague inputs produce a generic business-school answer.

The offer

What are you actually selling?

Here is how I describe what I sell: [YOUR CURRENT DESCRIPTION]
Here is what customers say when they explain it to someone else: [THEIR WORDS]
Here is what they were doing before they bought from me: [ALTERNATIVE]

Where do these three disagree?
What do customers seem to value that my description does not mention?
What does my description emphasise that they never mention?

The gap between your description and their words is usually where the marketing problem is.

The pricing check

My offer: [WHAT]
My price: [PRICE]
What it replaces or saves them: [ALTERNATIVE COST, TIME, RISK]
Typical customer: [WHO, AND WHAT THEY EARN OR TURN OVER]

Questions:
1. Is my price anchored to my costs or to their value? Which should it be here?
2. What would have to be true for this to be worth 2x?
3. Who would pay 2x, and what would they need that I do not offer?
4. What am I giving away that could be a paid tier?

The unprofitable work

Here is my revenue by product/service: [BREAKDOWN]
Here is roughly how my time splits across them: [BREAKDOWN]

Where is the mismatch? What is taking disproportionate time for its revenue?
For each: is it a loss leader that earns its place, or should it stop?

The customer

The real objection

People who do not buy say: [WHAT THEY SAY]
But I suspect the real reason is: [YOUR HUNCH]

For each stated objection: is it likely the real reason, or a polite substitute?
What would I test to find out?
What is the cheapest way to remove the top objection?

The churn question

Customers who leave: [WHAT YOU KNOW]
How long they typically stay: [DURATION]
What happens just before they leave: [PATTERN, IF ANY]

What might be causing this that I would not see from inside?
What is the earliest signal I could track?

The concentration risk

My top customer is [X]% of revenue.
My top three are [Y]%.
Longest relationship: [DURATION]

What is my actual exposure here?
What would the three months after losing the top one look like?
What is the cheapest thing I could do this quarter to reduce it?

Operations

The bottleneck

Here is how work flows through my business: [DESCRIBE THE STEPS]
Where things pile up: [WHERE]
What I personally have to touch: [WHAT]

What is the actual constraint on how much work I can take?
If I removed it, what would become the next constraint?
Is the constraint worth removing, or is it what makes the work good?

That last question matters. Some bottlenecks are the quality.

The dependency audit

Things my business would stop without: [PEOPLE, TOOLS, PLATFORMS, SUPPLIERS]

For each: what happens if it disappears tomorrow? How long to replace it?
Rank by (likelihood × damage). What are the top two, and what is the
cheapest mitigation for each?

Strategy

The pre-mortem

It is [TIMEFRAME] from now and my business is in serious trouble.
Write the three most plausible explanations.
For each: when did it become inevitable, and what was the earliest signal?

The honest position

My business: [DESCRIBE]
My main competitors: [WHO]
Why customers pick me: [YOUR BELIEF]
Why they pick them: [YOUR BELIEF]

Is my stated advantage actually an advantage, or is it table stakes?
What could a competitor copy in a month?
What could they not copy, and am I investing in that?

Turning it into decisions

An audit is worthless without this step.

Here is everything we surfaced: [PASTE]

Sort into:
1. Do this month — high impact, low effort
2. Decide this quarter — needs a real decision from me
3. Watch — track it, act if it worsens
4. Ignore — real but not worth the attention now

For category 1, give me the first concrete step for each.
Maximum three items in category 1.

Three. An audit that produces a twelve-item action list produces nothing.

The caution

AI will generate confident business advice that sounds like a consultant and is based on nothing but pattern-matching on your prompt. It does not know your market, your customers or your constraints.

Use it to find questions you had not asked. Do not use it to answer them.