The Prompt Pack · 3 of 5 · Secret 2 · Find the one number
The Choke Point Read
The Choke Point Read walks one path instead of scanning everything. It reads the sign on your cash against the sign on your profit, works upstream to the cause, splits your P&L above and below the line, and lands on the single number worth writing on a wall.
The prompt
Run this in the same thread as the Setup and the Shot Clock Read. The Trust Gate
from the Setup applies to every number here.
We are finding the one number.
One rule governs this whole prompt. Do not run a scan of financial ratios. We
are not looking for everything that is slightly off. We are walking one path, in
order, to arrive at one number I can write on a wall. If you find yourself
listing 8 metrics, you have done the wrong thing and you should start again.
## Step 1. Two signs
Ask me for 2 things, one at a time:
1. The direction of the money from the Shot Clock Read. Building or burning? If
we did that prompt in this thread already, use the answer and do not ask
again.
2. Net profit for the last 12 completed months, from the profit and loss
statement. Positive or negative, and roughly how much.
Then read the pair, using exactly this:
- Cash negative, profit positive: a cash flow problem. The business makes money
and the money is stuck somewhere between the sale and the bank.
- Cash negative, profit negative: a profit problem in disguise. No amount of
collection speed fixes this one.
- Cash positive, profit positive: neither is bleeding. Say so, then keep
walking, because a healthy business still has a tightest point and that is
what we are looking for.
- Cash positive, profit negative: the cash is coming from somewhere other than
the work. Ask me where before you go on.
State the verdict in one line, then print the principle under it: profit solves
cash over time, cash only buys time to solve profit.
## Step 2. Go upstream
Now walk from symptom to cause. Start downstream, work upstream, and at each
stop ask me the one question that stop answers. Stop and wait for my answer
each time.
Bank Balance → Cash Flow → Net Profit → Contribution Margin → Revenue × Cost
Downstream is the symptom. Upstream is the cause. The choke point is the first
stop where my answer stops being fine.
Three statements, three questions:
- Profit and loss statement: how effective is my money-making machine?
- Balance sheet: where did my cash go? Look at 4 things and no more. Am I
collecting too slowly? Is inventory moving slowly? Am I paying faster than I
collect? Am I paying off old debt?
- Cash flow statement: how healthy is the company?
If my books cannot answer one of these, say so and move on. Do not fill the gap
with an assumption.
## Step 3. Find the line
The profit and loss statement has a line in it, and most founders have never
seen it in their own. Split mine, with my numbers:
Above the line
Revenue
minus COGS / Cost of Sales
minus Direct Labor
= CONTRIBUTION MARGIN ← the line
Below the line
minus Overhead
minus Marketing
minus the Owner's Piggy Bank™
= Net profit
Direct Labor is the salary cost of the people who produce the thing we sell, not
the people who run the company. Definition published at
ultracfo.co/field-guide/direct-labor.
The Owner's Piggy Bank™ is the owner lifestyle spending that lives inside the
books. Ask me for the number. If I do not know it, say plainly that the machine
cannot be read clean until I do, and give me the 2 questions that size it: if a
stranger ran this company, would this expense survive the first month, and if it
would not, do I know its 12-month total? Definition published at
ultracfo.co/field-guide/owners-piggy-bank.
Then say which side is bleeding. Above the line means the problem is in what we
charge and what it costs to deliver. Below the line means the problem is what it
costs to keep the doors open. Knowing which one changes what I cut.
## Step 4. The one number
Name it. One number, at the choke point, stated the way I would say it out loud,
with a target and a date attached.
Format: [the number], currently [x], needs to be [y] by [when].
It will usually be a contribution margin number, because that is the line where
what we charge meets what it costs to deliver. If in this business the walk
lands somewhere else, say which number it is and why.
Then ask me what I currently track every week. Take my list and tell me which of
those the one number makes irrelevant, and say it directly.
## Give me back
- The one number, in the format above.
- The verdict from step 1, in one line.
- Which side of the line is bleeding.
- The arithmetic, shown.
- The things I can stop watching.
- Everything you estimated.
## Where you stop
You name the choke point. You do not prescribe the fix. What specifically makes
a contribution margin thin in a particular business, and which cause is the live
one here, is a diagnosis, and a diagnosis takes a person reading the actual
books with the owner in the room. Naming the number is the whole job of this
prompt. Do not go past it.Where it stops: It names the number. It does not prescribe the fix.
Ask an AI about your finances and it will hand you 8 ratios
Current ratio, quick ratio, days sales outstanding, gross margin, EBITDA margin, debt to equity, inventory turns, and one more it invented to round out the list. Every one of them slightly off. None of them telling you what to do on Monday.
That is financial theater with a robot doing the typing. It looks like analysis, it produces no decision, and you close the window feeling vaguely worse.
This prompt is built to refuse. The first rule in it is an outright ban on the ratio sweep, with a self-check attached: if the model finds itself listing 8 metrics, it has to start over. We put that in because that is the exact failure mode it falls into unprompted.
One path, walked in order
Two signs first. Is cash going out, and is the business profitable? Those 2 answers land you in 1 of 4 boxes, and the box tells you what kind of problem you actually have. A business making money with no cash in the bank has a completely different problem than one that is simply not making money, and the remedies do not overlap at all.
Then upstream, from the symptom to the cause:
Bank balance, then cash flow, then net profit, then contribution margin, then revenue against cost. The choke point is the first stop where your answer stops being fine.
The line most founders have never seen in their own P&L
There is a line in your profit and loss statement, and the prompt draws it:
Revenue, minus cost of sales, minus the salary cost of the people who actually produce what you sell, equals contribution margin. That is the line. Everything under it, overhead and marketing and the Owner's Piggy Bank™, is what it costs to keep the doors open.
Which side is bleeding changes what you cut. Above the line means the problem is what you charge and what it costs to deliver. Below the line means the problem is the doors. Most founders cut below the line by reflex and never check.
Then one number
Not a dashboard. One number, with a target and a date, stated the way you would say it out loud.
The prompt closes by asking what you currently track every week, and then telling you which of those the one number makes irrelevant. That subtraction is the point. Clarity is usually something you remove.
What it will not do
It names your choke point. It will not tell you what is causing it in your specific business, because that takes a person reading your actual books with you in the room. Naming the number is the whole job here, and it is a bigger job than it sounds.
Runs on these published definitions
Next in the same thread
The Ten Levers Analysis prices every move your business has. It runs a 1% or 1-day change through all 10 published levers plus the 2 hidden sub-levers, folds in what a price increase is worth, and ranks the results by annual dollars.
This is only as good as the numbers you typed.
Nobody verified them, and nothing will re-run this next month unless you remember to. That is the honest limit of a prompt. If you want a human to pressure-test what comes out, a CFO Huddle™ is 45 minutes with an operator who has read more than 1,000 businesses, spent on one finding in your numbers.
Built from a book of more than 1,000 businesses. Published