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AUDITS

JUL 2026 · 6 MIN

What an AI audit actually looks at

People hesitate to buy an audit because they cannot picture it. Fair. Here is the whole thing.

By Daniel Barraza · dbar Labs

Boerne, Texas

Most small businesses do not need an "AI strategy." They need to know three things: where the business is leaking time, where it is leaking money, and which of those leaks software can realistically plug. That is what the AI Opportunity Audit is for. Here is what it actually examines, in plain language.

Before we ever talk

The audit starts with homework I do on my own time, not yours. I look at your website, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and how a customer would try to reach you at 7 pm on a Tuesday. I check how long it would take a stranger to get an answer out of your business. A surprising amount is visible from the outside, and the outside view is what your customers see.

The intake form

Before our session, you fill out a short form: what the business does, how customers reach you, and what is eating your time. It takes a few minutes. It exists so our live time goes to work instead of introductions.

The working session

We spend about 75 minutes together, on video or in person if you are local. We map a real week of work, in roughly this order.

  • The phone. How many calls come in, when they come in, and how many get answered. Missed calls are one of the most common money leaks in service businesses, and one of the most undercounted.
  • The inbox. Quotes, questions, scheduling requests. How fast they get answered, and by whom.
  • Scheduling and intake. How an appointment actually gets booked, from first contact to calendar.
  • Follow-up. What happens after a quote goes out. In many businesses the honest answer is one attempt, then nothing.
  • Repeat questions. The questions you and your staff answer over and over. These are prime automation candidates, because they are frequent, predictable, and boring.
  • Paperwork and documents. Where information lives, and how hard it is to pull an answer out of it.

What findings look like

Every business is different, but the same patterns show up often enough that I can describe them honestly without pointing at anyone:

  • A meaningful share of calls goes unanswered during working hours because everyone is doing the actual work.
  • New leads wait hours for a first reply, and after-hours inquiries often get none.
  • Quotes get one follow-up, then get forgotten when the week gets busy.
  • The same five to ten customer questions get answered many times a week.
  • Scheduling runs on phone tag spread across two or three apps.
  • Important answers sit inside documents that only one person knows how to search.

You will not have all of these. The point of the audit is to find yours, not to read from a script.

What the Decision Pack contains

Within 5 business days of the session, you get a concise Decision Pack. It includes:

  • The real workflow in scope and the first move I recommend.
  • Up to three supported opportunities, ranked by impact, effort, risk, and readiness. If only one or two are worth doing, I do not add filler.
  • The evidence and assumptions behind the recommendation, including material unknowns that could change the answer.
  • Recommended tools with current public prices when a tool is actually part of the answer.
  • Estimated impact, cost, and potential return when the information supports it, with the assumptions stated plainly. Anyone who promises exact returns from weak inputs is guessing.
  • What not to automate, and why. This section matters as much as the rest.
  • A measurement plan so you know whether the first move actually worked.
  • The prioritized next action: what to do first, what can wait, and what to skip entirely.

A good decision can save you from a bad purchase.

What the audit deliberately avoids

No fake precision. No 60-page deck. No list of 40 tools you will never open. The Decision Pack stays concise because you need a decision you can use, not another binder to maintain.

What you can do with it

Whatever you want. Execute it yourself, hand it to another vendor, or hire dbar Labs for a proof of concept or implementation. 100% of the $249 credits toward a proof of concept or implementation booked within 30 days of Decision Pack delivery. Not redeemable for cash. The Decision Pack is yours either way.

That is the whole product: establish what is true about the work, decide what is worth changing first, and leave with a next move you can defend.