Recent exceptions
List five customer, pricing, schedule, or employee exceptions from the last 30 days.
- Who made the call?
- What information was missing?
- Could someone else have decided with a rule?
Field Guide Sample
See how a Field Guide turns a signal into a practical next move.
This public sample shows the kind of interpretation, evidence checks, false-fix warnings, and decision rules a SweetSpot Field Guide gives an owner after a self-assessment.
Representative sample only. It is not a real client report, and it does not expose confidential assessment data. Paid Field Guides are reviewed before delivery and tied to the owner situation the owner completed.
What this sample proves
The guide is not a generic PDF. It is a decision aid for the next operating move.
A Field Guide sits between the free self-assessment and a custom Inspection. It gives standard guidance for common patterns, then helps the owner decide whether the issue is safe to handle internally or important enough to inspect with outside help.
The sample below uses a blended owner-led business scenario. The structure is representative across owner situations, while the actual paid guide changes the evidence, examples, and warnings to match the owner situation.
- Interpret the signal.Translate the primary and secondary result into plain operating language.
- Pull evidence.Look at real work before accepting the first explanation.
- Choose a fix level.Compare field moves, system moves, and infrastructure work.
Sample interpretation
Primary signal: owner bandwidth. Secondary signal: handoffs and systems.
This sample assumes the owner is still required for too many approvals, customer exceptions, pricing calls, schedule moves, and internal handoffs. The visible symptom may look like a sales, staffing, or software problem, but the guide first asks where decisions actually slow down.
The key move is to inspect the work before buying the fix. If the owner is the only person who can interpret exceptions, software alone will mostly make the bottleneck easier to see.
Sample evidence checks
Evidence the owner should pull before spending money.
Handoff misses
Pick three jobs or projects where work moved from one person to another and something got lost.
- Scope?
- Timing?
- Margin?
- Customer promise?
Owner interruptions
Track one ordinary week of owner interruptions and sort them by type.
- Approval
- Judgment call
- Missing facts
- People issue
- Customer exception
Sample false fixes
What to pause until the constraint is clearer.
The Field Guide is deliberately practical about what not to do yet. It should protect the owner from plausible moves that are expensive, distracting, or too early.
Do not hire a manager into fog.
A manager cannot own decisions if authority, information, and escalation rules are still unclear.
Do not buy software to replace judgment.
Tools can improve visibility, but they will not decide pricing exceptions, customer tradeoffs, or people issues.
Do not push harder on sales first.
More demand can worsen the constraint if delivery, scheduling, margin, or owner approvals are already strained.
Do not rewrite everything.
Start with the decision category that creates the most repeat interruptions or rework.
Do not call it a people problem too fast.
Good employees can look weak when the business has not defined what they are allowed to decide.
Do not skip the numbers.
The right first move should show up in fewer interruptions, less rework, better margin, faster cycle time, or cleaner follow-through.
Sample fix levels
Field, System, or Infrastructure: choose the smallest fix that fits the risk.
Field moveCreate a one-page decision rule for the most common exception and test it for 30 days.
System moveBuild a visible handoff checklist that travels with the job, customer, or project from promise to payment.
Infrastructure moveRedesign decision rights, manager cadence, scorecards, and escalation rules so the owner is no longer the operating router.
Sample decision rule
When the Field Guide is enough, and when to move to an Inspection.
The guide is usually enough when the issue is familiar, narrow, and reversible. It is not enough when the next move affects hiring, pricing, cash, customer promises, sale timing, family transition, acquisition risk, or a major software decision.
That is the honest bridge: use the guide when you need sharper thinking. Use the Inspection when the wrong answer could be expensive.
Choose a path
Start with the owner situation closest to the real pressure.
Each owner situation has its own free self-assessment, paid Field Guide, and Inspection path. The sample above shows the format; the owner-situation pages carry the actual next step.
Common next paths
Sample FAQ
Questions about the Field Guide sample.
Is this a real client Field Guide?
No. This is a representative public sample. It shows the format, depth, and decision logic without exposing client-specific assessment results or confidential business details. For a live starting point, use the Start Here self-assessment as the next step.
Does every paid Field Guide look exactly like this?
No. The structure is similar, but each owner situation has different evidence checks, false fixes, examples, and next-step guidance. The owner situation paths show how the paths split by business pressure.
What is the paid Field Guide for?
The paid Field Guide is the first low-cost step after a free self-assessment. It helps an owner inspect the likely signal before spending money on a larger fix. The Revenue Plateau Field Guide shows the live offer pattern.
When should an owner choose an Inspection instead?
Choose an Inspection when the next decision is expensive, tangled, time-sensitive, or likely to affect people, customers, cash, pricing, or a major operating change. The Business Systems Inspection is the step for that deeper review.