Is this not just a way of qualifying us out?

It is a way of not selling something that will embarrass both of us in month two. An assistant on top of unwritten rules produces confident wrong answers at speed, and the person who gets blamed for that is not the vendor.

We fail on one of the three. Do we wait?

Depends which. A missing rules owner is a decision you can make this week. Records that nobody maintains is a longer job, and it is the one where the honest advice is to fix that first and talk to us afterwards.

What does the audit cost?

Nothing, and it is deliberately scoped to one process rather than to the business, so it produces something usable in an afternoon instead of a document nobody reads.

Contents6 sections

State one: prices are a habit
State two: the records are not current
State three: nobody will own the rules
The half-hour version
What you get if the answer is no
When the answer flips

ChoosingARTICLE

Before You Buy Anything

Three states a business can be in where the honest answer is not yet. How to check which one you are in over half an hour, and what to do with the answer if it is no.

2026-11-09Costa4 min read

Short answer

Do not buy an assistant if your prices are a habit rather than a rule, if your records are not current enough to answer from, or if nobody will own the rules after launch. Each of those makes the assistant confidently wrong rather than useful. Half an hour of checking tells you which state you are in, and in two of the three the fix costs nothing and is worth doing regardless.

Key facts

The audit looks at one process and what it costs now, rather than at the whole company.
Readiness turns on three things: a price rule, records that are current, and a named owner for the rules.
Two of the three are fixed with writing rather than with software.
A business that fixes all three and buys nothing still answers customers more consistently than before.

The most useful thing we can tell some businesses is that they are not ready, and the reason is not politeness. An assistant installed over unwritten rules does not fail quietly. It answers strangers, confidently, at speed, from whatever it was given.

Three states, and each has a specific tell.

State one: prices are a habit

Somebody in the company can quote any request without looking anything up, and nobody can reproduce their numbers from a document.

The tell is the ten-quote test: take the last ten quotes anyone sent and try to derive each one from your written pricing. If two or three are unreachable, you have a price list rather than a price rule, and an assistant will either refuse constantly or invent something.

This is the cheapest of the three to fix. An afternoon with the person who actually quotes, and it pays for itself whether or not you ever automate anything.

State two: the records are not current

The test is a single question: can you say right now how many live deals or bookings you have, without asking anyone.

If the answer involves a phone call, an assistant reading that system will tell customers things that stopped being true days ago. This is the state where the honest recommendation is to fix the record first, and it is a different purchase entirely or no purchase at all.

State three: nobody will own the rules

The quiet one, and the one that kills projects in month three rather than month one.

After launch, somebody has to keep the rules current: update the price when it changes, add the answer to the question nobody had asked before, adjust a trigger. That job did not exist before, because the rules lived in people's heads and updated themselves. If the honest answer to who is that is nobody, the assistant will be accurate for about six weeks and then slowly become the least current thing in the business.

This one costs nothing to fix and cannot be fixed by us. It is a name.

The half-hour version

Sit down with the last ten quotes, the live deal count and the question of who owns the rules. That is the whole diagnostic and it does not need anybody from outside.

If you want the longer version, the audit takes one process — the one that is actually hurting — and works out what it costs you now and what changes if it is automated. Deliberately one process rather than the whole business, because a document about the whole business is a document nobody acts on.

What you get if the answer is no

Two of the three states are fixed by writing rather than by buying.

Write the price rule and quoting becomes consistent across your staff, new people stop needing six months before they are trusted with a number, and the discount somebody has been giving out of habit becomes visible. Name the rules owner and somebody is finally responsible for the fact that your terms and your website disagree.

Both of those are worth doing on their own. A business that does them and buys nothing has still improved, and it will get more out of an assistant later than a business that skipped straight to buying one.

When the answer flips

Not at a headcount and not at a revenue figure. At a moment.

The first weekend somebody loses a booking because nobody answered. The first month the same question arrives forty times. The first time an owner realises the mornings are gone before anything useful has started. Until one of those has happened, the honest recommendation is a shared inbox and a habit, and we would rather say that than sell against it.

Questions this raises

Is this not just a way of qualifying us out?: It is a way of not selling something that will embarrass both of us in month two. An assistant on top of unwritten rules produces confident wrong answers at speed, and the person who gets blamed for that is not the vendor.
We fail on one of the three. Do we wait?: Depends which. A missing rules owner is a decision you can make this week. Records that nobody maintains is a longer job, and it is the one where the honest advice is to fix that first and talk to us afterwards.
What does the audit cost?: Nothing, and it is deliberately scoped to one process rather than to the business, so it produces something usable in an afternoon instead of a document nobody reads.