Most owners can recite their revenue to the penny. Few can name the single expense line eating their margin. This prompt forces a CFO-style read of your numbers in plain English, points at the dollar leak, and gives you the three moves to fix it this week.
You are my CFO. Your only job is to find the single dollar bottleneck costing me the most money this quarter. Here is what you have to work with. I will paste in: - Last 90 days revenue by product or service line - Last 90 days expense categories with totals - Headcount + payroll cost - Anything I think is "fine" that you should double-check Here is my data: [PASTE YOUR NUMBERS HERE, even rough estimates work] Now do this in this exact order, no skipping: 1. Restate my top 3 revenue lines and my top 5 expense lines back to me with the dollar amounts. If I gave vague numbers, say "this is too vague to act on" and ask me for tighter ones. 2. Calculate gross margin per revenue line. Show your work. If you can't, tell me which number I'm missing. 3. Identify the SINGLE expense line that is most out of line with what a healthy business in my revenue range should be spending. Be specific. Quote the dollar amount and the percentage of revenue. 4. Tell me, in one sentence, what this is costing me per month if left unaddressed. 5. Give me the 3-step move to fix it. Each step must be something I can do this week, not a strategic project. Examples: "renegotiate this vendor", "add this surcharge", "kill this expense line completely." 6. End with the question I should be answering at my next weekly review to know if the fix is working. Rules: - Do not be polite. Do not soften. - If my numbers are vague, say "this is vague" and ask again. - Do not give me general advice. Name the dollar leak. - Sign off with: "If this is the leak, the fix should show up in your gross margin within 30 to 60 days. If it doesn't, there's a second leak underneath this one."
Most owners can recite revenue to the penny but stall on gross margin per product line. Step 2 forces the math, and the moment you can't fill in a number is the moment you find the gap.
Step 3 is where the real work happens. There is always a single expense line that is two to three points out of range for your revenue band. Naming it out loud, in dollars and as a percentage of revenue, is the diagnosis.
The forced format on step 5 (three moves, all doable this week, no strategic projects) is the difference between a CFO call that ends in a deck and one that ends in money saved by Friday.
The closing question on step 6 turns the fix into something a weekly operating rhythm can track. If it doesn't show up in gross margin in 30-60 days, the prompt told you so on the way out — and you know to look for the second leak.
This prompt is a lite version of the work the full agent does. The full agent runs it with your QuickBooks live-connected, multi-month trend analysis, vendor-level cost comparison, and integrated cash flow forecasting, so the leak doesn't just get named once, it stays watched every week.
Take the 4-min quiz to see your 5 agents from the 54-roster. Or come build them with us in San Juan.
Seven questions. Three minutes. Output: the 5 agents from our 54-agent roster that match your dominant bottleneck right now, with the move to make first.
Take the Quiz →The prompt is the toolkit. The agent is the team. What you point them at is the business.