The Diagnostic AI Audit.
Inspect Before You Invest.
A 5-day operational review for mid-market service businesses ($2M–$20M). In just 2 to 3 hours of your team's time, we pinpoint where payroll leaks on manual busywork and deliver a practical action plan with our $25k–$100k+ software rationalization audit.
The Home Inspection Before You Buy the House.
Most companies rush out and buy expensive AI subscriptions or hire developers without knowing where their actual operational bottleneck is. They end up automating the wrong tasks—spending $30,000 building flashy marketing widgets nobody uses while four office staff spend six hours a day copying data between emails and invoices.
Stopping Bad Software Sales Pitches
We do not sell software licenses or accept referral kickbacks. Sitting on your side of the table, we review sales quotes and vendor proposals you are considering and tell you which ones are overpriced, unnecessary, or unworkable before you pay.
Finding Where Your Team Wastes Hours on Busywork
Fixing the wrong task depletes capital without helping your bottom line. We trace your day-to-day operations to find where staff waste hours on repetitive busywork—whether that is re-typing PDF invoices, quotes sitting unread, or after-hours calls slipping through the cracks.
Recovering Real Payroll Hours
We speak money and time, not tech. Every recommendation is measured in recovered staff hours, faster quote turnaround, quicker invoice collections, and protected profit margins—giving you a clear, dollar-for-dollar return on investment.
A Simple 5-to-7 Day Operational Audit.
We do not interrupt your daily operations or pull your team into endless committees. The entire evaluation requires approximately two to three hours of your leadership team's time spread across five to seven business days.
Kickoff & Staff Workflow Check
A 45-minute discovery conversation with the CEO or operations leader to map business metrics, profit margins, and operational friction points. We deploy an anonymous 10-minute questionnaire to staff to see where employees quietly copy-paste company data into free consumer AI tools.
150-Point Operational Scoring
We examine your operational workflows across all 7 business areas using our 150-point rubric. We trace how customer inquiries arrive, how quotes are prepared, where manual data re-entry occurs, and how your confidential data stays private.
Findings & Executive Briefing
We deliver the comprehensive 9-Section Findings Report and host a 60-minute briefing with your leadership team. We walk through where your team wastes hours on busywork, review the software rationalization findings to cancel unnecessary subscriptions, hand over your corporate AI policy, and deliver the 90-day roadmap.
The 7 Operational Areas We Inspect.
We do not inspect abstract model specs. We evaluate the seven functional engines that govern company revenue, gross margin, and corporate valuation.
Executive Leadership & Governance
Evaluating strategic decision rights, software budget ownership, and clear employee rules to make sure your confidential client data stays private.
Sales Intake & Lead Velocity
Auditing inbound response time, lead triage, quote turnaround velocity, and CRM integration so high-margin jobs never slip through the cracks to faster competitors.
Operations & Service Delivery
Pinpointing where skilled professionals waste high-value hours acting as human copy-paste bridges between disconnected systems and spreadsheets.
Customer Communications & Support
Inspecting after-hours customer calls, scheduling workflows, client messaging, and ticket routing to handle customer requests without adding payroll.
Billing, Invoicing & Collections
Tracing supplier invoice reconciliation, eliminating manual entry from messy PDF invoices, and automating payment follow-ups to accelerate cash conversion.
Company Knowledge & Data Systems
Auditing where company SOPs, pricing sheets, and job histories live, making sure your team's knowledge is organized so software tools give reliable answers.
Legal, Security & Software Vetting
Finding unauthorized AI tools, reviewing third-party software contracts, ensuring private customer data is never used to train public models, and completing cyber insurance questionnaires.
What Arrives on Your Desk: The 9-Section Findings Report.
You do not receive abstract slide presentations. You receive a practical 35-to-45 page executive blueprint detailing your operational bottlenecks, dollar savings, and clear vendor recommendations.
Executive Summary & Scorecard
High-level commercial summary, overall operational score (0–150), and the three critical business decisions facing executive leadership.
Bottlenecks & Operational Leaks
A clear operational breakdown identifying the primary bottleneck choking your capacity and where your team wastes hours on repetitive busywork.
Scorecard Across 7 Business Areas
Point-by-point diagnostic scoring across Leadership, Sales, Operations, Support, Finance, Data Systems, and Governance.
High-Yield Automations Backlog
Rank-ordered automation opportunities scored on Impact, Confidence, and Ease (ICE), isolating immediate 30-day quick wins that save payroll.
Company Knowledge & AI Safety Policy
Turnkey one-page corporate AI policy, acceptable use rules, and readiness evaluation to ensure confidential client data stays private.
Risk Exposure & Insurer Defense
Data privacy controls, private API security checks, customer data redaction rules, and documentation for cyber liability insurance renewals.
"What We Recommend Against"
Our independent critique identifying overhyped software pitches, predatory contract terms, and unnecessary upgrades—saving clients $25,000 to $100,000+.
Quantitative ROI & Payback Model
A clear financial ledger showing payroll hours recovered, operating expense reductions, and exact months to cash payback.
90-Day Execution Roadmap
A week-by-week implementation plan across Foundation, Pilot, and Scale with clear checkpoints to verify ROI before expanding.
$999 Flat Investment. 100% Credited to Your Retainer.
The 150-Point Diagnostic Audit is delivered for a one-time fee of $999. There are no hidden fees, travel costs, or surprise expenses.
If your leadership team decides to engage our Fractional Chief AI Officer retainer within 30 days of receiving your Findings Report, 100% of your $999 audit fee is credited directly against your Month 1 retainer invoice ($6,501 net Month 1 due). If you decide not to proceed, you keep the complete 9-Section Findings Report and 90-day roadmap with zero obligation.
Request Your Diagnostic Audit.
I review every diagnostic request personally. We schedule a 45-minute discovery conversation within one business day, review your core business numbers, and begin the 150-point evaluation.
Diagnostic Audit Intake
Direct executive review by JC Burrows. Response within 24 business hours.
Prefer to Model Your Operational Readiness First?
Before engaging an advisor or committing capital, run your organization through our self-guided interactive engine. In under 15 minutes, audit your 20-point operational baseline across 5 dimensions, ratify a 1-page corporate AI policy, isolate high-yield workflows via ICE scoring, and export a complete 8-page boardroom packet.
Frequently Asked Questions.
How much of our leadership team's time does the audit require?
The entire 150-point diagnostic requires only two to three total hours of your team's time across five to seven business days: a 45-minute discovery kickoff, brief workflow documentation access, an anonymous 10-minute staff survey to see what unauthorized AI tools employees use, and a 60-minute briefing to review your findings report.
What makes this different from vendor software demos?
We do not sell software, take referral kickbacks, or represent technology vendors. Sitting on your side of the table, we provide a completely objective inspection that frequently eliminates overpriced software contracts, saving clients $25,000 to $100,000+ by showing how to solve bottlenecks using existing systems and practical automations.
How does the $999 retainer fee credit work?
If you decide to engage our Fractional Chief AI Officer retainer ($7,500/month, minimum 3-month commitment) within 30 days of receiving your Findings Report, 100% of your $999 audit fee is credited directly against your first month's invoice, making the diagnostic completely free.
What exactly do we receive at the conclusion of the audit?
You receive a complete, binder-ready 9-Section Findings Report detailing where your team wastes hours on busywork, a 150-point scorecard across 7 business areas, 3 to 5 high-yield automations ranked by hard dollar ROI, a turnkey 1-page corporate AI policy, our 'What We Recommend Against' vendor diligence roadmap saving $25k–$100k+, and a sequenced 90-day execution roadmap.