Act as a business-development analyst helping me decide how to pursue [BUSINESS GOAL]. Our company, offer, economics, and current traction are: [COMPANY CONTEXT]. The target market, accounts, partners, or segments under consideration are: [OPPORTUNITY SET]. Here is the evidence available, including customer feedback, pipeline, market data, partner information, and prior outreach: [EVIDENCE]. Our resources, timing, commercial constraints, and non-negotiables are: [CONSTRAINTS]. Produce a decision memo, not a generic growth plan. Start by defining the decision to make and the assumptions that require validation. Build a weighted opportunity scorecard using criteria appropriate to the situation, such as strategic fit, customer pain, reachable decision-makers, expected deal value, gross-margin impact, sales-cycle length, implementation burden, partner incentives, concentration risk, and evidence quality. Explain each score using only supplied facts; mark unknowns as unknown rather than assigning false precision. Compare the strongest three options. For each, show the buyer or partner rationale, value exchange, likely objections, required capabilities, key risks, leading indicators, and the smallest credible test. Recommend one option, explain the trade-offs, and give a 30-day action plan with owner roles, deliverables, outreach or discovery steps, and a decision gate for continuing, changing, or stopping.
Do not invent market size, contact relationships, revenue, contract terms, customer demand, legal approval, or competitor behavior. If a partnership involves data sharing, exclusivity, regulated industries, or material commitments, flag the need for legal, finance, or executive review. Ask up to 3 clarifying questions only if a required input is missing. Before answering, check that the recommendation follows from the scorecard and that each action has a measurable learning objective, not just a meeting or outreach count.
Fill in
| Placeholder | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| [BUSINESS GOAL] | State the commercial outcome you need and the deadline or planning period. | Generate $250,000 in qualified annual contract value for a new analytics integration within six months. |
| [COMPANY CONTEXT] | Describe your offer, ideal customer, pricing or economics, sales motion, and current traction. | BeaconMetrics sells product analytics to B2B SaaS companies with 50-500 employees; annual contracts average $28,000; sales-led motion; eight current integration customers. |
| [OPPORTUNITY SET] | List the accounts, partner types, segments, geographies, or channels you want to compare. | Compare agency partnerships, integration marketplace listings, and direct outreach to 40 Series B SaaS companies. |
| [EVIDENCE] | Paste relevant pipeline facts, customer notes, research, partner details, and prior outreach results. | Three agencies asked about referral economics; two marketplace customers came inbound; direct outbound reply rate was 6% but no meetings from the last 70 emails; interviews show buyers value implementation support. |
| [CONSTRAINTS] | State available team time, budget, delivery capacity, legal limits, timeline, and non-negotiables. | One partnerships manager, one solutions engineer available one day weekly, $15,000 program budget, no exclusivity agreements, and limited capacity for custom integrations. |
How to use
- Paste real pipeline and customer evidence, including unfavorable results, so the scorecard can identify uncertainty instead of hiding it.
- Check the weighting criteria and change any that do not reflect how your company actually makes money or delivers value.
- Assign named internal owners to the 30-day plan before treating it as an operating plan.
- Follow up with: “Turn the recommended test into a one-page partner outreach brief with qualification questions and a stop rule after 20 conversations.”
Variations
Partner Evaluation
Use this when deciding whether to invest in a specific channel or technology partner.
Evaluate a potential partnership between [MY COMPANY] and [PARTNER]. Our goal is [GOAL], and these are the known facts: [EVIDENCE]. Constraints and approval limits are [CONSTRAINTS]. Produce a partnership memo with customer overlap, value exchange, commercial model options, integration or delivery requirements, incentives, risks, diligence questions, and a 60-day pilot design. Compare “pursue,” “defer,” and “decline” using explicit criteria. Do not invent partner revenue, customer access, terms, or technical capability. Flag legal and finance review points. Check that the pilot produces evidence for a go/no-go decision.
Account Plan
Use this when preparing a focused plan for one strategic prospect or account.
Create an account-development plan for [TARGET ACCOUNT] based on [ACCOUNT FACTS] and our offer, [MY OFFER]. The commercial goal is [GOAL], and known stakeholders or signals are [STAKEHOLDER NOTES]. Output an account hypothesis, likely business priorities, buying committee map with unknowns labeled, value narrative by role, discovery questions, outreach sequence themes, proof required, risks, and a 30-day plan. Do not fabricate contacts, initiatives, budgets, or relationships. Check that every outreach theme ties to a stated account fact or is framed as a question.
New Market Test
Use this when assessing a new segment, geography, or vertical before committing a sales team.
Design a low-cost validation plan for entering [NEW MARKET] with [OFFER]. Our current strengths and evidence are [CURRENT EVIDENCE], while constraints are [CONSTRAINTS]. Produce a market-entry hypothesis, ideal first customer profile, assumptions ranked by risk, interview and outreach plan, minimum viable offer, pricing questions, success metrics, budget, and decision gates after [TIMEFRAME]. Do not estimate market size or demand without supplied sources. Flag regulatory, localization, procurement, or delivery issues needing expert review. Check that the plan can disprove the hypothesis, not only collect encouraging anecdotes.
Tips
- Score opportunity quality separately from opportunity size; a large theoretical market is not automatically reachable, profitable, or supportable.
- Write a stop rule before a pilot begins, such as a minimum number of qualified introductions or a target conversion signal by a date.
- Use discovery conversations to test a concrete value exchange, not merely to collect interest; interest without a buyer, problem, or action is weak evidence.
- Treat partner incentives and delivery capacity as first-class constraints because a signed partnership that produces no behavior change is not a channel.
FAQ
Can AI find the best partnership for my company?
It can structure the decision and identify missing diligence, but it cannot verify partner intent or commercial viability without current evidence and direct conversations.
What makes a business-development test credible?
It has a defined audience, offer, owner, time limit, measurable signal, and a decision rule. Counting introductions alone rarely proves a channel works.
Should I include failed outreach in the prompt?
Yes. Failed messages, low conversion, and lost deals often reveal more useful constraints than a list of successes.