Bottleneck Buster: How I Use AI to Spot What’s Slowing Down My Business
Every ambitious entrepreneur I know has one thing in common: we hate inefficiency.
We’re not just building for growth—we’re building for clarity, flow, and impact. And yet, even with the best intentions, it’s easy to miss the friction points hiding in your systems. That lag in your sales pipeline? That disconnect between marketing and fulfillment? That recurring delay that seems too small to deal with but keeps eating your time?
That’s your bottleneck. And AI can help you find it faster than any spreadsheet or team meeting ever will.
Why I Started Using AI to Diagnose Business Slowdowns
As someone leading two companies, managing client projects, and creating content regularly, I don’t have time to waste. And yet, a while back, I noticed something was off. Our team was working hard, but we weren’t moving as efficiently as we could. Growth felt like it came with resistance.
So I did what I always do: I paused, observed, and then brought in support—in this case, AI tools that could act like my behind-the-scenes operations analyst.
I wanted visibility. I wanted precision. And most of all, I wanted to spend less time guessing and more time leading.
The Tools That Help Me Spot Bottlenecks Before They Spiral
Here’s how I use AI to surface what’s slowing me down—before it turns into a crisis:
🧠 ChatGPT for Workflow Mapping and Strategic Audits
I start with prompts like:
- “Audit this workflow for delays or redundancies.”
- “What are 3 possible reasons my lead conversion slowed down last month?”
By feeding in basic process outlines or KPI reports, ChatGPT helps me identify likely problem areas. It won’t give me everything—but it gives me a starting point. And sometimes that perspective shift is all I need.
📊 Fathom and Otter.ai for Meeting Analysis
I use tools like Fathom or Otter.ai to transcribe and analyze team meetings. They help me:
- Spot repeated concerns or blockers
- Identify where projects are getting stuck
- Surface communication gaps
What we say in meetings often reveals what we avoid writing in emails. These transcripts become gold when reviewed with AI assistance.
🔍 Process Mining Tools like Celonis or UiPath
If you have a larger team or multiple systems talking to each other, process mining tools are game changers. They map out your workflows from digital footprints—helping you see delays between actions.
Even if you’re not at enterprise scale, tools like these can:
- Pinpoint where tasks sit in limbo
- Reveal which platforms are slowing you down
- Suggest automation opportunities
Real Example: The Sales Follow-Up Slowdown
I once noticed our close rate dipped—nothing major, but enough to raise my eyebrows. The usual suspects (lead quality, pricing, offer positioning) didn’t explain it.
So I fed our sales follow-up workflow into ChatGPT, along with timing benchmarks.
Turns out, the handoff between a discovery call and the proposal was inconsistent. One team member sent follow-ups immediately; another waited two days. No one had flagged it because everyone thought their timeline was normal.
AI helped me zoom out and catch the delay we were too close to see.
We standardized the process. The dip corrected itself within a week.
How It Feels to Lead with Insight, Not Instinct
I used to pride myself on intuition—and I still do. But intuition backed by insight? That’s where the magic happens.
Using AI doesn’t make you less involved. It makes you better informed. It gives you:
- Faster pattern recognition
- Cleaner data
- Sharper decision-making
It also gives you space. When I trust that AI is surfacing what I might overlook, I free up mental bandwidth for creativity, strategy, and vision.
How to Get Started (Even If You’re Not Techy)
You don’t need to overhaul everything to start spotting your own bottlenecks. Begin here:
1. Pick a part of your business that feels slow or clunky. Sales? Onboarding? Fulfillment?
2. Write out the current process, then ask ChatGPT to audit it. Try: “What might be slowing this process down?”
3. Review one team meeting transcript. Look for repeated frustrations or delays. Ask AI to summarize them for you.
4. Make one small change—and track it. This work isn’t about big overhauls. It’s about tiny refinements that restore flow.
Final Thoughts: You Don’t Need to Hustle Harder—Just Smarter
There’s power in knowing where your energy is leaking. And there’s peace in knowing you’re not carrying that alone.
AI gives you the clarity you need to adjust before things break. It helps you lead from a place of insight, not reactivity. And for founders who want to scale with intention, that insight is everything.
🎧 Want to hear me break it down in real time? Listen to the full episode of The Queen of AI: Bottleneck Buster – Using AI to Pinpoint Your Business Slowdowns
