AI workflow audits · fixed fee · SMB

Honest reads on where AI actually helps your business — and where it doesn’t.

Valarsen runs one-on-one interviews with the owners of small and mid-sized businesses, then delivers a written report that scores every opportunity on impact, feasibility, and risk. Sometimes the right call is no new technology at all. That is the audit.

Fixed fee
$250–$750
Deliverable
Written report
Follow-on
Optional, quoted separately
Sample verdict — Ridgefield Insurance Brokers, 38 staff
Excerpt, real report

Intake triage & transcript routing

Off-the-shelf transcription + a rules engine saves ~9 hrs/wk.

Yes

AI-generated follow-up emails

Drafts only, sent by a human. Worth it if your tone of voice is consistently off.

Conditional

Replacing the CRM with a "smart" alternative

Migration cost exceeds savings for 14+ months — hygiene fixes first.

No
Sampled for this page
Methodology disclosed up front
No redactions

How it works

One conversation. One page. One report.

No multi-week discovery, no PowerPoint. The whole engagement runs from first call to written report in roughly ten working days — faster if you are mid-project and need input quickly.

  1. 01

    A 60-minute interview

    One video call with the owner. We walk through how work actually moves — leads, fulfilment, billing, support — not your org chart.

  2. 02

    A clean workflow diagram

    We return a single page mapping how work enters, who touches it, and where it stalls. Owners usually spot the bottleneck in the first five minutes.

  3. 03

    A scored opportunity list

    Every candidate fix — AI tool, automation, CRM hygiene, or "leave it alone" — is rated on impact, feasibility, and risk.

  4. 04

    A 30-minute debrief

    You walk through the report with us. Bring your ops lead, your accountant, whoever needs to disagree in person.

What you get

Three things you can put in front of your team on Monday.

No proprietary portal, no NDA-gated PDF you cannot share. You own the deliverable. If you stop replying, you still have the report.

A
Workflow diagram

A single page mapping how work enters, who touches it, and where it stalls, drawn from the interview notes.

B
Scored opportunity list

Each candidate fix rated against impact, feasibility, risk, and ROI. Line items marked Yes, Conditional, or No.

C
30-minute debrief

A live walk-through with the founder. Bring the people who need to disagree with the report in person.

What we score

Six dimensions. Each verdict cites which ones tipped the call.

Readers of the report can disagree with us because we show our working. The dimensions are the same on every engagement so the score is comparable across audits.

Impact
Hours saved or revenue unlocked per month — not vibes.
Feasibility
Cost to implement with the team you already have.
Risk
Compliance, data quality, vendor lock-in, customer trust.
ROI
Payback window expressed in months, not "soon".
Model selection
Off-the-shelf, fine-tuned, or no model at all.
Integration friction
Where your CRM and ERP will push back — and when that matters.

The honesty clause

An audit that recommends AI everywhere isn’t an audit, it’s a sales pitch. Roughly a third of our recommendations are “do nothing — tighten what you have.”

We do not sell software, we do not resell licences, and we do not bill by the hour. If the audit tells you not to bring in AI, that is a complete deliverable — it is also the reason you hired us.

Compared with the alternative

A boutique AI readiness assessment, a vendor demo, and us.

Apples to oranges is not really fair. But most owners we speak to are choosing between the three, so the table is short on purpose.

Valarsen
Boutique AI assessment
Vendor demo
What you pay
$250–$750, fixed
$2,000–$8,000+
Free (until the contract)
Who writes it
The founder
An analyst on the team
A sales engineer
Will they ever say "no"?
Required by the brief
Sometimes
Practically never
Includes software
No
Sometimes
Always, if you sign
After the report
Implementation is quoted separately
Often bundled
You are in the funnel

FAQ

Questions owners ask before booking.

Still uncertain? Email valarsen-8s09y7@polsia.app and a human will reply.

If we are not a fit, we’ll say so on the call.

Book a 60-minute interview. Walk away with the report, even if we’re not the right people to act on it.

The interview is the brief. If, on the call, the honest answer is “you don’t need an audit, you need to fix your CRM first,” we will tell you. The fixed fee is only charged after the report is delivered and you confirm it is what you wanted.

Email the founder

You will reach valarsen-8s09y7@polsia.app directly. Replies go out within one working day.

Fixed fee billed after report delivery · No NDA required · You own the deliverable