Home/Insights
WB-NOTES

Field notes on building better business tools.

Practical, plain-spoken notes on dashboards, templates, workshop materials, process and AI, how to build tools your team actually uses.

A scripted chatbot giving a dead-end reply beside a helpful AI assistant answering a real question on a small business website
WB-AI · AI16 Aug 20264 min read

A helper, not a hurdle: getting AI right on a small business website

Most website chatbots frustrate people. Here is how to add AI to a small business website the right way, an assistant that answers, captures leads, and hands off to a human.

Read
A clean, fast small business website with a simple layout and mobile view
WB-SITE · Websites08 Aug 20264 min read

Why your small business website should be simple

Most small business websites are far more complicated than they need to be. Here is what a site actually has to do, and why simple beats complicated.

Read
ProcessKit, an AI tool that interviews you about a process and produces a clean SOP
WB-AI · AI08 Aug 20265 min read

I built an AI SOP tool to prove a point about process

Most SOPs do not fail because writing them is hard. They fail because the knowledge is stuck in someone's head. Here is the tool I built to test a bigger idea about what AI is for.

Read
Workbench sales-forecast dashboard, sales data flowing into an auto-updating forecast model
WB-DATA · Excel28 Jul 20266 min read

How to build a sales forecast in Excel that updates itself

Most forecasts are last month's file typed over the top. Here is the version that pulls in your actuals and projects them forward on a rule you can defend.

Read
Workbench training toolkit, facilitator guide, workbook and activity cards
WB-LEARN · Learning28 Jul 20265 min read

How to design training that people actually remember

You can run a polished session and watch it evaporate by the next week. Here is how to design training people can still use once you've left the room.

Read
Workbench self-refreshing Excel dashboard, KPI tiles and charts
WB-DATA · Excel14 Jul 20266 min read

How to build a self-refreshing sales dashboard in Excel

The monthly report is where hours quietly disappear. Here is how to build the version that updates itself.

Read
Workbench PowerPoint template system, slide masters, chart styles and layouts
WB-PRES · Presentations23 Jun 20265 min read

Why your PowerPoint template keeps breaking (and how to build one that doesn't)

If your "template" is really just an old deck everyone copies, it was always going to drift. Here is what an actual template is.

Read
Workbench standard operating procedure, process flow and roles
WB-PROC · Process09 Jun 20265 min read

How to write an SOP people actually follow

A procedure no one opens is not documentation, it is shelfware. Here is how to write the kind people actually run on.

Read