Portable Business Context Page

Why these pages exist

If you have ever asked an AI tool a question about your business and gotten back something that sounded like a magazine article, this is why. It does not know who you are. It does not know which line is your best, that your fiscal year ends in September, or that when you say “mid-tier” you mean something specific. So it answers for a generic company in your industry, and a generic answer is worthless to you.

The fix takes about an hour and you only do it once. You write a page that describes your business the way you would describe it to a new general manager on their first morning. Then you paste that page at the top of anything you ask. Every answer after that is about your company instead of a company.

This is the single highest-leverage thing most operators can do with AI, and it costs nothing but the hour.

Why they have to be portable

These pages live in your files, not inside any one AI tool. Tools change, accounts change, and the settings you built inside one tool do not follow you to the next. A page you own does. Switch tools and you paste it in on day one instead of starting over.

Two versions of every page

Every page in this guide comes in two versions, built from one master.

Leadership version. For senior staff only. Everything on the staff version, plus what leadership is aiming at and what it will not do: targets, limits, priorities, and who decides what. It lives only in a restricted project inside your company-approved workspace.

Staff version. For everyone. The leadership version with the senior-only lines removed. It is written to be safe if it leaks, gets forwarded, or walks out the door with someone who leaves. Assume one day it will.

You write the leadership version first and mark each senior-only line with [S]. The staff version is that page with the [S] lines removed. Never write the two separately. Two pages written separately drift apart, and then your senior people and your staff get different answers to the same question.

What never goes on either version

Anything that changes month to month, such as actual results, balances, or this month’s numbers, goes in the report you attach to the question, not on a page. Account names stay off both versions; AI does not need a name to reason, and names are what hurt most when a page walks out the door. Nothing about specific people.

How the two parts fit

Part 1: the company page. Written by the operator. Who we are, who we sell to, what we sell, how we measure, what our words mean, and the rules AI follows on every question. Every company needs this page.

Part 2: the department page. Written by the person who runs the department. How that function works: what it owns, what it runs on, its own terms, its calendar, its own rules. It sits under the company page and never replaces it. One per department.

Do Part 1 first. Do Part 2 at a later date.

Each layer holds only what is true at that level. If something is true for the whole company, it goes on the company page, not the department page. In a smaller company where the department head and the person doing the work are the same, skip Part 2.

Part 1: Write the company page

Three steps to the leadership version, then one more to make the staff version from it. The first step is optional and takes two minutes. The second is where the work is. Do not skip the last two.

What these pages are not

They are not a strategy document or a financial report. Think of the staff version as the orientation you would give a competent new hire: what we sell, how we talk, what our words mean. Think of the leadership version as the extra briefing you would give a new general manager: what we are aiming at and where the limits are.

Step one: let AI find the public half first

Some of what belongs on this page is already public: your locations, roughly how long you have been in business, the lines you carry, what your own website says you do. You can have AI go find that and hand it back, which saves you typing and, more usefully, shows you what it thinks it knows about your company before you correct it.

That second part is the real reason to do this. Whatever it gets wrong here, it would have quietly assumed later. Better to see it now.

The hazard is that a private company has almost no public footprint, and an AI asked about one will cheerfully invent revenue, branch counts, and ownership. It will look authoritative and be wrong. So the prompt below is written to make it prove where each item came from and say UNKNOWN when it cannot. That is exactly what the rules at the bottom of the prompt are for.

Already built your public company profile in the Toolkit? Use it here and skip to step two.

Search the public internet for information about my company: [COMPANY NAME], a [WHAT YOU DO, e.g. lumber and building materials dealer] in [CITY, STATE]. Our website is [WEBSITE].

Find only what is actually published. For each item you find, give me the item and the source you found it in.

Look for: locations and addresses; year founded; ownership structure if stated publicly; product lines and brands we carry; services we advertise, such as delivery, installation, or design; the markets and counties we say we serve; how we describe ourselves in our own words.

Rules (these matter more than the findings):
- Use only what you actually find published. Do not estimate anything.
- Do not infer revenue, employee count, or market share from company size, location, or industry averages. If it is not published, it is UNKNOWN.
- Do not blend in facts about companies with similar names. If you are not certain a source refers to my company, leave it out and say so.
- Mark every item you could not find as UNKNOWN. Do not fill gaps.

Then give me two lists: what you found with sources, and what you could not find. Keep the second list complete. I need to know what is missing more than I need it to look finished.

Read what comes back with a pen. Fix anything wrong and keep the rest. Expect it to fill maybe a third of the page. The useful third is the part you would have had to type anyway. The UNKNOWN list is not a failure; it is the tool telling you the truth about its limits, which is the same behavior you want when you are asking it about your margins.

Step two: fill in what only you know

Two ways to do this part. Pick either. Either way, mark every senior-only line with [S] as you go.

Option A: Write it yourself. Go to the Part 1 template at the end of this guide and answer the prompts in your own words. Each section shows a staff example and, where it applies, what leadership adds. Plain sentences. No formatting, no polish.

Option B: Have AI interview you. If a blank page is the hard part, paste the prompt below into your company’s AI workspace. It will ask you questions and assemble the page from your answers. Then read what it produces and fix anything it got wrong. It will get something wrong, which is the point of reading it.

Where the other rules go

Rules about what your people may paste into which tool do not go on any of these pages, including the guardrails section. AI cannot enforce them, so putting them here looks like protection without being any. They belong in your company AI use guide, which the Set the Rules for AI Use exercise in the Toolkit walks you through.

You are helping me write a one-page business context document about my company for my leadership team. I run a [WHAT YOU DO, e.g. lumber and building materials dealer]. We will paste this page at the top of future AI conversations so you understand our business instead of answering generically. Later I will make a staff version by removing the senior-only lines.

Interview me. Ask me these questions a few at a time, not all at once, and wait for my answers:
1. What does your company do, how many locations, and roughly how big is it in annual revenue?
2. Who do you sell to, roughly by percentage? How concentrated is revenue in your largest accounts? Give me a range, not names.
3. What product or service categories do you report on internally, and what do you call them? Which carries your best margin, and which is most price-sensitive?
4. What margin targets or floors do you hold by category?
5. When you say “margin,” what exactly do you mean: before or after freight, before or after rebates? When does your fiscal year end?
6. What internal terms would confuse an outsider? Define them the way your team uses them.
7. What software do your reports come out of, and is there anything odd about how they export?
8. What are this year’s top three priorities? Who decides what, and at what dollar level? What constraints is leadership working within?
9. What rules should AI follow on every question about your business? For example: never estimate a number, say UNKNOWN when you do not know.

Rules for you:
- Mark every line that only senior staff should see with [S] at the start of the line. Targets, floors, revenue, concentration, priorities, decision rights, and constraints are always [S].
- Do not include account names, people’s names, or figures that change month to month. If I give you one, leave it out and tell me.
- Ask follow-up questions when an answer is vague. Do not fill gaps with assumptions. Do not invent any fact about my business.
- Do not add industry commentary, benchmarks, or advice. This is a description, not an analysis.

When I have answered, write the finished page in plain sentences under these headings: Who we are, Who we sell to, What we sell, How we measure, What our words mean, Where our numbers come from, Priorities and limits, Rules for working with us (Guardrails). Keep it to one page. Then list anything you were unsure about so I can correct it.

Step three: read it once as a stranger

Read the finished page as though you had never seen your company before. Anything that only makes sense if you already work there needs a sentence of explanation. Check that every senior-only line carries its [S]. Five minutes, and it is the difference between a page that works and a page that quietly misleads.

Step four: make the staff version

Copy the leadership page and remove every [S] line. Then read what is left against three tests.

Competitor test. Would this help a competitor win a customer, price against us, or hire our people away?

Customer test. Would a customer gain leverage, or be upset, reading it?

Need test. Does someone on staff need this line to get a good answer in their job?

A line that fails either of the first two comes out. If the direction still matters, keep it without the number: “Millwork, 31% target” becomes “Millwork is our highest-margin line.” A line that fails the third test comes out even if it is harmless. Definitions, conventions, and rules stay word for word; they are the most useful lines on the page and the least sensitive. You can do this by hand, or let AI do the first pass with the prompt below.

Below is my company’s leadership context page. Lines marked [S] are senior-only. Produce the staff version, which must be safe if it leaks or leaves with a departing employee.

[PASTE YOUR LEADERSHIP PAGE HERE]

Rules:
- Remove every line marked [S].
- Check every remaining line against three tests: would it help a competitor win a customer, price against us, or hire our people; would a customer gain leverage or be upset reading it; does a staff member need it to get a good answer in their job.
- Where a line fails the first two tests but the direction matters, rewrite it without the number. For example, “31% target on millwork” becomes “Millwork is our highest-margin line.”
- Remove any account names, people’s names, or figures that change month to month.
- Do not add anything new. Do not change definitions, conventions, or rules; they stay word for word.

Give me the staff version, then a complete list of every line you removed or rewrote and why, so I can check your work.

Read the list of removals, then read the staff version once more as if a competitor were holding it. If anything on it would bother you in their hands, it comes out.

Part 2: Write a department page

Do this part at a later date, after Part 1 is finished. The department page assumes the company page exists and builds on it. The steps below use Finance as the example, but they work the same for any department.

Two rules before you write

Step one: read the company page first

Anything already on the company page stays there. The most common mistake is restating the company’s margin definition or fiscal year on the department page. Two copies of the same fact drift apart, and then AI has to guess which one is right.

Step two: fill in what only the department knows

Option A: Write it yourself. Go to the Part 2 template at the end of this guide, put your department’s name at the top, and answer each heading for your department. Replace the Finance examples with your own, and mark senior-only lines [S].

Option B: Have AI interview you. Paste the prompt below into your company’s AI workspace, with your department’s name and your leadership company page where it says to. It will ask the questions and assemble the page. Then read it and fix what it got wrong.

You are helping me write a one-page context document for my department. I run [DEPARTMENT, e.g. Finance, Sales, Operations, Credit] at [COMPANY NAME]. My company already has a business context page, pasted below. This page sits under it and covers only how my department works.

[PASTE YOUR LEADERSHIP COMPANY PAGE HERE]

Interview me. Ask me these questions a few at a time, not all at once, and wait for my answers:
1. What does the department own, and what does it not own that people might assume it does?
2. Who uses the department’s work, inside and outside the company, and what does each of them receive?
3. What systems and reports does the department run on? When two reports disagree, which one wins?
4. What terms or conventions does the department use that the company page does not already define?
5. What is the department’s calendar: closes, deadlines, recurring reviews?
6. What questions does the department ask most often, or would ask AI most often?
7. What targets, thresholds, or limits does the department work to that only leadership should see?
8. What rules should AI follow on every question from this department, on top of the company rules?

Rules for you:
- Mark every line that only senior staff should see with [S] at the start of the line.
- Do not repeat anything already on the company page. If one of my answers conflicts with it, point out the conflict.
- Do not include account names, people’s names, or actual figures such as balances or results. This page describes how the department works, not what the numbers are.
- Do not invent any fact about my department. Do not add commentary, benchmarks, or advice.

When I have answered, write the finished page in plain sentences under these headings: What we own, Who uses our work, Our systems and reports, Our words, Our calendar, The questions we ask, Rules for working with us (Guardrails). Keep it to one page. Then list anything you were unsure about so I can correct it.

Step three: two readers

Give the staff version to the newest person in the department and ask what they would not have understood on their first day. Then show the leadership version to the operator once. The operator’s job is to catch anything that contradicts the company page or says more than should be said. Ten minutes between them.

Step four: make the staff version

Same as Part 1, step four. Remove the [S] lines, apply the three tests, and use the staff version prompt if you want AI to do the first pass.

Using them

Paste in this order: the company page, then the department page if you have one, then your question with the report attached. That is the entire mechanic. Most tools will also let you save pages in a project or shared workspace so nobody has to paste. Do that, and keep the master copies in your own files. The copy inside a tool is a convenience. Your file is the original.

Which version goes where

Leadership versions live only in a restricted project inside your company-approved workspace, with named senior users. They are never emailed and never pasted into a personal account. Staff versions go wherever your company approves AI use for everyone.

When someone senior leaves, the operator re-reads the leadership pages and asks what that person now carries out the door. Sometimes the answer changes a practice, not the page.

Before you paste anything

Know what kind of workspace you are in. A company-approved business account and a personal account carry different data terms, and many business plans commit to not training on what you upload. The staff versions are written to be safe if they leak. The leadership versions and the reports you attach are not. Check your agreement before a customer list leaves your building.

Four things to check in what comes back

• Does it use our terms, or did it drift back to generic language?
• Does the arithmetic tie to the report? Spot-check one number before you repeat it to anyone.
• Did it tell me what it could not do, or did it quietly fill a gap?
• Would I have reached the same conclusion? If not, ask it to argue the other side.

Keeping them current

The operator reviews the company page twice a year, and any time something structural changes: a location opens or closes, category names change, priorities reset. Each department head reviews their page at the same time, and any time the department changes its systems, its reporting, or its people. Always edit the leadership version, then make the staff version again from it. Never edit a staff version on its own. Change the date at the top every time you touch a page. An out-of-date context page is worse than none, because it is confidently wrong instead of obviously empty. The Run an AI Checkup exercise in the Toolkit is a good time to do it.

What comes next

These pages tell AI what your business is and what leadership is aiming at. They deliberately stop short of two things: your live numbers, and a method for turning those numbers into a decision. That next layer, where actual results go in and a clear recommendation comes out, is what AI Growth Partners is building now. It starts from the leadership page you write here, so nothing you do today gets thrown away. Start here. These pages alone will change the quality of what you get back.