AI Ops Playbook
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Practical AI workflows your small business can deploy in under 30 minutes.

Customer Ops

4 Templates for the Industry You Actually Run

The most common pushback we get from members goes like this: "These templates are great, but I run a restaurant — I need something more specific to me." And the operators are right. Generic templates work because they are generic, but they leave value on the table for the operators whose problems are shaped by the specific business they actually run. A restaurant owner does not have a "support ticket" — they have a guest who left a 1-star review at 11 PM. A consultant does not have a "marketing asset" — they have a 30-minute client interview that needs to become a publishable case study by Friday. This week's four templates are industry-specific. Each one is calibrated to a real workflow inside a specific kind of business — restaurants, professional services firms, and DTC e-commerce brands — instead of trying to be applicable to everyone. ## What's New This Week **Restaurant Guest Recovery Workflow** (Customer Ops, Beginner) — Paste in a 1- or 2-star review, the reviewer's name, your restaurant context, and the recovery offer you are authorized to make. The template returns three things in one pass: a calm, on-brand public reply for Google or Yelp; a private outreach message with a specific recovery offer; and a one-line internal note for your GM about the operational issue if any. Designed for owners and GMs who handle 4-8 negative reviews a week and currently lose 15-20 minutes per response writing them from scratch. **Professional Services Case Study Writer** (Marketing & Sales, Intermediate) — Run a 30-minute structured interview with a client, paste the transcript into the prompt, and get back a 1,000-1,400 word case study with a measurable headline, an at-a-glance box, a four-section narrative, three pull-quotes, and meta fields ready for your CMS. A second prompt produces a partner LinkedIn post, a newsletter section, and a sales-deck slide pointing at the same lead metric. The case study you have been pushing to next quarter for a year, finishable in an afternoon. **E-Commerce Product Bundle Pitch** (Marketing & Sales, Beginner) — Feed the products, the bundle price, the dollar savings, and the rationale. Get back name options, a publish-ready PDP hero block, two A/B email subject lines and a body, three Meta ads variants with audience recommendations, a homepage hero block, and five urgency micro-copy lines. Bundle launches are the highest-margin SKU you can ship — same products, same fulfillment cost, higher AOV — and most stores never sell more than two or three because writing the copy is a slog. This template is the slog removed. **E-Commerce Product-Market Fit Analyzer** (Strategy & Research, Intermediate) — A two-prompt chain that runs structured PMF analysis on a new product concept: segment fit, price sensitivity, competitive differentiation, demand signal check, and a single explicit recommendation (GO / GO WITH CHANGES / PIVOT / NO-GO) with a top-3 risk list. Prompt 2 converts the analysis into a one-page decision memo for the founding team. Use this before you commit inventory cash to the next product idea. ## Why These Four Together Industry-specific templates are about respecting the texture of how operators actually work. A restaurant owner replies to a bad review on her phone at 11 PM, not at a desk between meetings. A fractional CFO writes case studies in the gaps between client deliverables, not in dedicated marketing time. A DTC operator decides on the next product launch in a Slack thread that drifts for three weeks until someone just commits inventory and hopes. Each of these templates is calibrated to the actual moment the work happens — the format, the length, the inputs, and the urgency — instead of an idealized "marketing workflow" that nobody runs in real life. If you run one of these businesses, the relevant template should be obvious. If you run something else, two of them are worth borrowing anyway: the case study writer applies cleanly to any service business with named client outcomes, and the PMF analyzer works for any business considering a new SKU or service line — the e-commerce framing is just where it is sharpest. ## A Note on the Format Two of these templates (the case study writer and the PMF analyzer) are multi-prompt chains rather than single prompts. We resisted multi-prompt templates for the first five weeks because they add complexity and we wanted the early templates to be a single copy-paste. But for outputs where the second step depends on a clean first-step output — distribute a case study, write a memo from an analysis — a chain produces noticeably better work than trying to do everything in one giant prompt. The Quick-Start SOP walks through both prompts in sequence; treat each chain as one workflow, not two separate templates. ## Get Started All four templates are available now for Pro members: - **Restaurant Guest Recovery Workflow** — in [Customer Operations](/customer-operations) - **Professional Services Case Study Writer** — in [Marketing & Sales](/marketing-sales) - **E-Commerce Product Bundle Pitch** — in [Marketing & Sales](/marketing-sales) - **E-Commerce Product-Market Fit Analyzer** — in [Strategy & Research](/strategy-research) Pick the one that matches the business you actually run and use it on a real piece of work this week — a real review, a real client, a real bundle, a real product idea sitting in your "maybe" folder. Industry-specific templates only earn their keep when you point them at a real problem you have today.

May 6, 2026
Customer Ops

4 Automations That Run Your Business While You Sleep

Every prompt template we've shipped so far has the same shape: open a chat tool, paste a prompt, fill in the blanks, copy the output back to wherever it needs to go. That last step — the copy back — is where most AI productivity gains quietly evaporate. You save 20 minutes drafting the email, then spend 5 minutes pasting it into the right tool, picking the right thread, tagging the right teammate. Multiply by dozens of workflows and the time you saved is back on the clock as friction. This week's four templates close that gap. Each one wires the AI step inside a Zapier or Make.com automation so the work happens end-to-end — trigger fires, AI thinks, output lands where it's supposed to land — without you ever opening a chat window. This is automation week. ## What's New This Week **Zapier: Auto-Route Support Tickets by Keyword** (Customer Ops, Intermediate) — Every new email landing in your support inbox is read by a ChatGPT classifier that assigns a category, a priority level, and a Slack channel or assignee, then posts the routed ticket to the right place automatically. Stop the "is anyone seeing this one?" Slack threads. The ticket is already where it needs to be by the time you check. **Make.com: Publish Blog Post to Social Automatically** (Marketing & Sales, Intermediate) — Your blog's RSS feed triggers a scenario that generates platform-specific captions for LinkedIn, Facebook, and X — each one written for the platform's voice and length limits — and posts them simultaneously the moment a new article goes live. The "I'll share that on social later" promise that you usually break, kept automatically. **Zapier: Slack Standup Collector to Google Sheets** (Internal Ops, Intermediate) — Your team types their daily standup into a Slack channel like normal. A ChatGPT step extracts yesterday's wins, today's plan, and any blockers — flagging the blockers — and writes a structured row to a Google Sheet. Now you have a searchable history of every standup, every blocker, every commitment, without anyone changing how they work. **Make.com: AI-Powered Weekly Report Compiler** (Internal Ops, Intermediate) — Every Friday afternoon, a scheduled scenario pulls task data from your project management tool and deal data from your CRM, hands both to an AI module, and emails leadership a structured weekly report — wins, risks, pipeline movement, numbers with deltas vs. last week, and next-week focus areas. The report you've been promising to write since January, written every Friday at 4 PM, on its own. ## Why These Four Together They cover the four operational seams where AI work usually leaks back out into manual work: support triage, content distribution, team status capture, and leadership reporting. Each one was previously a "I should set up an automation for that" thought you've had at least once. Each one now exists as a step-by-step blueprint with the exact apps, triggers, actions, field mappings, and embedded AI prompts you need to get it running in under 30 minutes. A note on the format: these templates look different from the prompt templates we usually ship. Instead of a single prompt block, each one is a numbered list of automation steps — apps, triggers, field mappings — with the AI prompt embedded as one step in the chain. The Quick-Start SOP walks you through building the automation in Zapier or Make.com from scratch, including the Make.com module wiring or the Zapier filter logic. If you've never built an automation before, the SOPs assume that and start from "create a new Zap" or "create a new scenario." ## The Tradeoff to Know About Automations charge by task or operation. A Zap that fires on every new email might use 1,000+ Zapier tasks per month if you're a busy support inbox. Make.com is generally cheaper per operation but pricier on the entry tier. Each template's Customization Guide includes a note on the volume math so you can decide whether the time saved is worth the subscription tier you'd need. For most small businesses, even the entry tier is more than enough — but it's worth checking before you build. ## Get Started All four templates are available now for Pro members: - **Zapier: Auto-Route Support Tickets by Keyword** — in [Customer Operations](/customer-operations) - **Make.com: Publish Blog Post to Social Automatically** — in [Marketing & Sales](/marketing-sales) - **Zapier: Slack Standup Collector to Google Sheets** — in [Internal Operations](/internal-operations) - **Make.com: AI-Powered Weekly Report Compiler** — in [Internal Operations](/internal-operations) Pick the one that maps to the workflow you're tired of doing manually and build it this week. Each template takes about 30 minutes to set up and pays itself back the same week — usually inside the first day.

May 2, 2026
Strategy & Research

4 Strategy & Research Templates That Turn Planning Conversations Into Finished Plans

Most strategy work in a small business dies in the "we should really sit down and figure this out" stage. You know you need OKRs for the quarter. You know your positioning is muddy. You know there's a grant your industry qualifies for. You know the CSV export from last quarter has answers in it. None of these get done — because the meeting to start them never gets scheduled, and when it does, the blank page stares back and everyone goes to lunch. This week's four new templates are built for exactly that gap. Each one takes a strategy conversation you've been avoiding and turns it into a finished artifact in 20–30 minutes. They're the Strategy & Research equivalent of "just do the thing" — with the AI doing most of the thinking so you can do the deciding. ## What's New This Week **OKR Drafting Assistant** (Intermediate) — Feed in a high-level business goal for the quarter and get back 2–4 objectives with 3–5 measurable key results each, baselines and targets for every KR, tagging that distinguishes output results from activity results from stretch goals, a per-objective check-in cadence, and a full quarterly review rhythm. The "we should write OKRs" conversation, finished. **Competitive Positioning Statement Generator** (Intermediate) — Paste in up to 5 competitors and a target audience segment, and get back a competitor positioning map, a differentiated statement in the classic "For [audience] who [need], [product] is a [category] that [benefit], unlike [alternative]" format, a messaging hierarchy with primary value prop plus 3 supporting pillars with proof points, and a tagline. The messaging audit you've been quoting consultants $5K for, done in 30 minutes. **AI Data Analysis Prompt Chain** (Advanced) — A three-prompt chain for ChatGPT's Advanced Data Analysis or Claude's analysis tool that profiles your CSV, surfaces trends and anomalies, and produces 3–5 executive-ready insights with recommended actions and confidence levels. Every number is tied back to a source column. When the data can't answer the question, the AI says so instead of making something up. **Grant Opportunity Research Prompt** (Intermediate) — A two-part chain that identifies relevant federal, state, foundation, corporate, and industry grants for your organization, ranks them by fit, and drafts a letter-of-intent outline for the top-ranked program. Works for both nonprofits and for-profit small businesses. Outputs flag every deadline and eligibility requirement as "verify on the funder's website" — no hallucinated programs. ## Why These Four Together They cover the four strategy conversations every small business defers: what are we aiming for, how are we different, what does the data actually say, and where's the money that doesn't dilute us. None of these are hard problems to think about. They're hard problems to start. Each template removes the starting cost — you show up with inputs, the template returns a draft, and you spend your time editing instead of staring. The Advanced one (AI Data Analysis) is the first Advanced template we've shipped. If you have a CSV and a question you can't answer from a pivot table, it's the fastest way we know to get a defensible insight without hiring an analyst. ## Get Started All four templates are available now in the [Strategy & Research](/strategy-research) section for Pro members. Each takes 20–30 minutes to set up and produces reusable output — the OKR rhythm carries across quarters, the positioning statement carries across campaigns, the data analysis chain works on every future CSV, and the grant research chain is the same process for every funder you pursue. If you've been putting off quarterly planning or a positioning refresh because you couldn't face the blank page, this is the week to knock both out.

April 22, 2026
Internal Ops

3 AI Templates That Fix the Part of HR Nobody Has Time For

Every small business has the same three HR tasks sitting in a pile: the interview that needs a scorecard, the expense report that needs a narrative, and the employee leaving next Friday with no offboarding plan written yet. None of these are hard. They're just tedious, and they show up at the worst times — usually when you're already behind on something else. This week's three new templates knock out that pile. They're the Internal Ops equivalent of clearing your inbox on a Friday afternoon: not glamorous, but the weight lifts the moment it's done. ## What's New This Week **Job Interview Scorecard Builder** (Beginner) — Paste in a job description and get back a structured scorecard with 5–7 weighted criteria, 2–3 behavioral and situational question prompts per criterion, a 1–5 rating rubric with descriptors, a red-flag checklist, and a summary recommendation block (Strong Hire / Hire / No Hire / Strong No Hire). Stop running interviews from memory. Run them from a rubric — the kind hiring managers at bigger companies have had for years. **Expense Report Narrative Writer** (Beginner) — Paste in your line items — date, vendor, amount, category — and a one-line trip purpose, and get back a complete expense report narrative with business justification per item, policy compliance flags, totals by category, and a clean signature block ready for finance. The "writing up" part of expenses is the part that gets deferred for weeks. This template eliminates it. **Employee Offboarding Checklist Generator** (Beginner) — Generate a role-specific offboarding checklist organized across Notice Period, Last Week, Last Day, and Post-Departure. Every task has an owner (Manager, HR, IT, Finance, Departing Employee), a category (Knowledge Transfer, Systems Access, HR/Legal, Equipment, Communication, Final Pay), and a completion criterion. Handles voluntary and involuntary departures differently — including same-day access revocation where appropriate. Paired with our Onboarding Checklist Creator, you now have the full employee lifecycle covered. ## Why These Three Together They cover the HR work that small businesses are most likely to skip or wing: hiring decisions, expense documentation, and departures. Each one replaces a task that's usually done from memory or, worse, not done at all until something goes wrong — a bad hire, a rejected expense, a former employee who still has access to the customer database three months later. None of them are exciting. All of them are the kind of thing that becomes a crisis the moment you don't have one. ## Get Started All three templates are available now in the [Internal Operations](/internal-operations) section for Pro members. Each takes 10–20 minutes to set up and produces output you can reuse for every future hire, expense, and departure in the same role.

April 15, 2026
Marketing & Sales

4 AI Templates That Turn Marketing From a Time Sink Into a System

Small businesses don't have a marketing team. They have one person wearing six hats — writing blog posts between sales calls, filming a YouTube video in the parking lot, agonizing over email subject lines at 11 PM, and Googling "how to write a listing description" for the third time this month. The bottleneck is never the ideas. It's the execution. Turning "we should do a YouTube video about X" into an actual script. Turning "we need to send that email" into a subject line that gets opened. This week's four new templates attack that bottleneck directly. ## What's New This Week **YouTube Video Script Outline** (Beginner) — Give the AI your topic, audience, and key points and get back a complete talking-points outline for a 5–10 minute video: hook, structured sections, transitions, and a call-to-action. No more staring at a blank doc wondering how to start. Film it section by section and you'll sound like you planned for hours. **Email Subject Line A/B Test Generator** (Beginner) — Paste in your email campaign details and get 10 subject line variants organized by psychological trigger: curiosity, urgency, social proof, and personalization. Each variant comes with preview text. Pick your top 2, A/B test them, and stop guessing what will get clicks. **AI Image Generation Prompt Builder** (Beginner) — Describe what you need the image for and your brand style, and the template constructs optimized prompts for Midjourney and DALL-E. The difference between a generic AI image and a usable marketing image is entirely in the prompt — this template closes that gap without requiring design skills. **Real Estate Listing Description Writer** (Beginner) — Paste a property feature checklist and get MLS-ready descriptions in three tone styles: luxury, family-friendly, and investor-focused. Then generate matching social media posts and email teasers from the winning description. Built specifically for agents who list multiple properties per week. ## Why These Four Together They cover the four biggest time sinks in small business marketing: video content, email campaigns, visual assets, and property/product copy. Each one replaces a task that typically takes 30–60 minutes of staring at a blank page with a 10–15 minute fill-in-the-blanks workflow. More importantly, they compound. The YouTube script gets you content. The subject line generator gets that content in front of people via email. The image prompt builder gives you visuals to promote it on social. And the listing writer shows how the same approach applies to industry-specific copy that used to require a specialist. ## Get Started All four templates are available now in the [Marketing & Sales](/marketing-sales) section for Pro members. Each takes 10–15 minutes to set up and produces output you can use immediately.

April 8, 2026
Customer Ops

Stop Losing Customers You Could Have Saved — 3 New AI Templates for Customer Retention

Most small businesses find out a customer is unhappy the same way they find out an employee is quitting — when it's too late to do anything about it. The customer just stops buying, stops logging in, stops responding. By the time you notice, they've already moved on. This week we're dropping three new Customer Operations templates that tackle the retention problem from three different angles: spotting churn risk before it turns into cancellations, building an FAQ system that answers questions before they become support tickets, and automating review requests so your happy customers actually tell the world about it. ## What's New This Week **Churn Risk Identifier** (Intermediate) — Paste your customer data and get a scored risk assessment for every account. The AI flags who's about to leave, why, and drafts personalized re-engagement messages tailored to each customer's specific warning signals. No more guessing which customers need attention. **AI Chatbot FAQ Trainer** (Beginner) — Turn raw support transcripts into a structured FAQ document, formatted and ready to drop into any chatbot builder or help center. It also surfaces the questions your team has been answering inconsistently — knowledge gaps that cost you trust and time. **Review Request Email Sequence** (Beginner) — Generate a complete 3-email post-purchase sequence that asks for reviews at the right moment, in the right tone, without ever feeling pushy. Includes A/B subject line variants and a thank-you email for customers who actually leave a review. ## Why These Three Together They form a retention loop. The Churn Risk Identifier catches customers who are drifting. The FAQ Trainer reduces the friction that causes drift in the first place — fewer unanswered questions means fewer frustrated customers. And the Review Request Sequence turns your satisfied customers into public advocates, which builds the social proof that brings in new customers who are less likely to churn because they came in with realistic expectations. Retention isn't one big fix. It's a system of small interventions at the right moments. These three templates give you that system. ## Get Started All three templates are available now in the [Customer Operations](/customer-operations) section for Pro members. Each one takes 15–20 minutes to set up and runs on autopilot after that.

April 1, 2026
Customer Ops

AI Customer Support Email Responder — Save 3 Hours a Week

Small businesses spend 3+ hours a week crafting customer support emails — each one needs to be professional, empathetic, and on-brand. This ready-to-use AI template lets you paste any customer inquiry and get a polished reply in under 60 seconds, so you can focus on running your business instead of your inbox.

March 26, 2026
Strategy & Research

AI Competitor Analysis Framework — Monitor Your Market Systematically

Most small businesses know who their competitors are but never get around to analyzing them systematically. This AI framework walks you through a structured competitor analysis — covering positioning, pricing, strengths, and gaps — so you can make strategic decisions based on real insights instead of gut feelings.

March 26, 2026
Internal Ops

AI Job Description Generator — Write Better Job Posts in 10 Minutes

Writing a good job description is harder than it looks. Too vague and you attract the wrong candidates. Too rigid and you scare off good ones. This AI template generates clear, compelling, and inclusive job posts in about 10 minutes — tailored to your role, company culture, and must-have requirements.

March 26, 2026
Internal Ops

AI Meeting Notes Summarizer — Never Miss an Action Item Again

You leave a meeting with a page of scattered notes and good intentions. A week later, half the action items are forgotten. This AI template turns raw meeting notes into structured summaries with owners, deadlines, and next steps — so nothing falls through the cracks.

March 26, 2026
Marketing & Sales

AI SEO Content Brief Generator — Rank Higher with Better Briefs

Writing content that ranks starts with a solid brief — but creating one manually means hours of keyword research, competitor analysis, and outline planning. This AI template generates a comprehensive SEO content brief in minutes, complete with target keywords, search intent analysis, and a structured outline.

March 26, 2026
Marketing & Sales

AI Social Media Content Calendar — Plan a Month of Posts in 15 Minutes

Planning social media content is one of those tasks that always takes longer than it should. You sit down to map out the week and suddenly an hour is gone. This AI template generates a full month of platform-specific posts — with hooks, hashtags, and posting schedule — in about 15 minutes flat.

March 26, 2026