Field Notes № 01 — An Operating Manual for the AI Era

Stop hiring to do work
a system should be doing.

Most AI pilots die in the demo. We build the ones that survive the second quarter.

Book the $999 Audit→No obligation. No demos. Direct access.
30 hrs/wk*
manual work absorbed per automation (average)
90 days*
typical audit-to-production timeline
$39K*
annual operator cost absorbed per automation (30 × 52 × $25)
∞
the operator that does the work doesn’t take vacation

*Averages across the automations we've shipped, not a guarantee for any single build. Derived from observable operator baselines at $25/hr fully-loaded. Your numbers get pinned down in the audit.

II.The Doing-Nothing Tax

You don’t have an AI strategy.
You have a backlog.

The cost of staying manual isn’t zero — it compounds.

Every quarter, the gap between what your team can produce and what your business demands widens.

The team works later. Hiring accelerates. Quality erodes.

Five years in, you’ve paid the price of an AI-equipped competitor many times over — in overtime, in turnover, in missed deals.

That isn’t a strategy gap. It’s an operating gap.

Manual overhead, by the year
Year 1
$195K / yr
5 automations × 30 hrs/wk × 52 wk × $25/hr
Year 2
$205K / yr
Manual overhead +5% drift, process debt
Year 3
$215K / yr
Turnover from overwork + tool sprawl
Year 4
$225K / yr
Opportunity cost — deals/quotes/responses missed
Year 5
$236K / yr
Compounding + competitor gap widens
Σ
$1.076M
5-year manual overhead · automation built: $0.00

Five years of manual work. Nothing automated to show for it.

III.The Crossover Calculator

Calculate the crossover.

Two trajectories. The status quo compounds; the engagement pays for itself. Find the month the lines cross.

30
030 (typical)80
5
15 (typical)20
Each automation absorbs 30 hrs/wk of manual work
$25/hr
$10$25 (default)$50
fixed
$999
Optional engagement terms
Figure 01

Cumulative cost trajectory

Status quo (manual)
Engagement
Crossover · Mo. 1
Status quo = hours/wk × rate/hr × 4.33 weeks/mo × automations. Default 30 hrs/wk × $25/hr × 5 automations = $16,250/mo manual overhead ($195K/yr). Each automation absorbs one unit of manual work. Adjust inputs to match your operation; production values are scoped per engagement.Engagement: audit fee + monthly retainer as toggled. Crossover marks the month engagement < status quo.
Crossover month
Mo. 1
When engagement < status quo
12-month savings
$133,851
vs. status quo
Hours / week returned
150
Back to the business
IV.Example Automations

Thirteen example
automations.

A sample of what we build, not the whole list. If it's manual and repetitive, it's probably automatable — bring it to the audit.

01Internal baseline

Document Automation

Excel / Word / PowerPoint / PDF generated from raw data.

Internal baseline: 30 hrs/wk producing weekly reports across 4 entities.

~$39K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
02Internal baseline

Spreadsheet Automation

Reconciliation, modeling, roll-ups that re-run themselves.

Internal baseline: 30 hrs/wk manual reconciliation across 4 chart-of-accounts.

~$39K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
03Internal baseline

RAG over Proprietary Corpus

Your internal knowledge base — manuals, deal jackets, contracts — queryable in plain English.

Internal baseline: 30 hrs/wk research/lookup across internal docs.

~$39K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
04Internal baseline

Voice & Call Agents

Inbound calls transcribed, summarized, routed. Outbound follow-ups drafted.

Internal baseline: 30 hrs/wk call-summary + follow-up drafting.

~$39K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
05Internal baseline

Multi-Source Data Integration

One source of truth across CRM, accounting, inventory, comms.

Internal baseline: 30 hrs/wk cross-system reconciliation + reporting.

~$39K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
06Internal baseline

Speed-to-Lead Systems

Inbound leads engaged within 60 seconds, 24/7 — by SMS, email, or voice.

Internal baseline: 20 hrs/wk on first-touch outreach + qualification.

21×more likely to qualify (MIT / InsideSales.com)
Sub-60-second response = 391% conversion lift.
07Internal baseline

Lead Generation

Outbound prospecting — list build, enrichment, sequence drafting, reply handling.

Internal baseline: 20 hrs/wk pipeline-building + nurture.

~$26K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
08Internal baseline

Automated Competitor Research

Weekly briefs on pricing, product, positioning — pulled from public sources.

Internal baseline: 5 hrs/wk market-intel gathering.

~$6.5K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
09Internal baseline

Automated Meeting Agendas

Agendas drafted from prior meeting notes, CRM context, and stated outcomes.

Internal baseline: 2 hrs/wk agenda prep + recap drafting.

~$2.6K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
10Internal baseline

Automated Survey Reports

Survey responses cleaned, themed, and turned into executive-ready reports.

Internal baseline: 5 hrs/wk survey distribution + analysis.

~$6.5K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
11Internal baseline

Content Automations

Video scripts + shorts + SEO posts drafted, scored, scheduled.

Internal baseline: 20 hrs/wk video + SEO content production.

~$26K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
12Internal baseline

Automated Inbox Triage

Inbox classified, prioritized, drafted replies queued — every morning.

Internal baseline: 30 hrs/wk email triage + reply drafting.

~$39K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
13Internal baseline

Email Automation

Drip sequences, lifecycle mailings, transactional sends — built + maintained.

Internal baseline: 20 hrs/wk email sequence drafting + maintenance.

~$26K/yr@ $25/hr
Client outcome: scoped per audit.
Σ · 13-engagement baseline
252 hrs/wk returned
~$328K/yr

13 engagements × weighted hrs/wk × 52 wk × $25/hr. Speed-to-Lead excluded from $/yr — it pays back in conversion lift, not hours. Pick the four that matter most at audit; the rest activate on retainer.

V.Productized Intelligence

Hands-on engineering.
Not strategy decks.

Three ways we engage — a diagnostic first, a build second, and an operating team only if you want one.

01Find the leverage

Audit

Find the highest-leverage automation in your operation in 7 days.

Fixed price · $999
02Ship to production

Build

Ship the working system in 30–90 days. Measured by users, not commits.

Quoted from the audit
03Keep it running

Operate

The retainer plus the AI employee system. We keep it running, fix it when it breaks, and keep building as the business changes. Terms discussed after the audit.

Monthly · optional
VI.Operating Principles
New Plains · Operating Code

Software is leverage.
Operating discipline is what makes it multiply.

Most AI work fails after the pilot — not because the demo was wrong, but because nobody ran it like an operating function.

Four rules govern every engagement. The same discipline we hold our own operations to.

The four rules
  1. 01Audits before pitches.Every engagement starts with the $999 audit. No exceptions.
  2. 02Ship to production.If it isn’t running in your business by day 90, it didn’t happen.
  3. 03Your team, trained.Every system ships with documentation and a handoff session.
  4. 04No lock-in.Source, credentials, data — all yours. We hand over. You keep it.

The discipline compounds. The operation you run becomes the asset.

VII.Engagement Tiers

One diagnostic. One project.
One optional retainer.

Start with the audit. Everything after that is your call.

Tier I.The $999 Audit
$999
one-time
7 days
Tier II.Implementation Project
Quoted
one-time
~30 days
Tier III.Retainer + AI Employee System
Discussed after the audit
monthly · optional
ongoing
The $999 Audit · What you get
  • ✦7-day diagnostic on one workflow that eats your team's week
  • ✦Written findings, recommended architecture, and a build estimate with real numbers
  • ✦No lock-in. The audit is yours whether or not we ever work together again. Build it with us, your team, or someone else entirely.

“The audit is yours to keep. What you do with it is entirely up to you.”

Implementation Project
30
days, typical time to deliver
  • ✦Scoped straight from the audit. Usually running in about 30 days from sign-off.
  • ✦Production automation, deployed into the tools you already use
  • ✦Hands-on change management so the team actually uses it
  • ✦90-day post-launch support window
  • ✦Keys to everything we build, handed over at delivery. Source, configs, prompts, accounts.
Retainer + AI Employee System
∞
inference. automations. our team.

Your AI employee doesn't clock out. Unlimited use, unlimited builds, and a concierge call every month.

  • ✦Unlimited inference. No per-call, per-query, or per-seat metering. Ever.
  • ✦Unlimited automations. We build as many as the operation needs.
  • ✦Our team on retainer, keeping it running and building what comes next.
  • ✦Monthly AI concierge calls.
  • ✦Terms get discussed after the audit, once we've both seen the same numbers.
∞
inference
∞
automations
12
concierge calls
a year
The only thing you need to know upfront
No lock-in on the audit.

The deliverable is a written report and you own it. Use it with us, with your own team, or hand it to anyone else. We have no claim on what you build from it.

VIII.Contractual Logic

The engagement ends.
Your system keeps running.

New Plains operates under a single contractual principle: when the engagement closes, you hold everything needed to run it — without exception, without escrow, without condition.

I

Source

Code repository, scripts, prompts. Yours to fork, modify, or hand to anyone.

II

Credentials

API keys, OAuth tokens, vault entries. Exported to your password manager.

III

Data

All generated data, vector indexes, embeddings. Exported in portable formats.

IV

Documentation

Runbooks, architecture decisions, known issues. Readable by your successor.

“You don’t own a strategy deck. You own the system that’s still running on Monday morning.”

— New Plains LLC, Field Notes № 01
IX.Claim the Audit

Book the audit.
See the math yourself.

Tell us about one workflow that should be running itself. We’ll scope the diagnostic and send back the written findings — with the time and cost math laid out on the page.

✦ No demos, no sales call cycle
✦ Direct response within two business days
✦ Your data, your inbox, full stop

$999 — invoiced on submission. Refunded if we can’t deliver the diagnostic in 7 days.

Direct: info@newplains.dev