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Rank customers by profit after COGS and support cost

  • For FP&A and financial analysts
  • You practice Asking for a format you can use
  • Time about 5 minutes
  • Level Intermediate

About this exercise

You're ranking customers by profit for the head of customer success. Write a prompt for a markdown table with columns Rank, Customer, Profit and Margin %, ranked by profit dollars (highest first). Profit = revenue minus COGS minus support cost at $50 per ticket, shown as an equation in the Profit cell. Margin % is profit divided by revenue, whole percent. Use the corrected ticket counts. Under 140 words.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Using Burke's 600 tickets. The AI keeps the uncorrected count and ranks Burke last. Try: Say: "Use the corrected ticket count: Burke is 450."
  • Ranking by margin percent. The AI sorts by Margin %. Try: Add: "Rank by profit dollars, highest first."
  • Hiding the equation. The AI shows only the profit number. Try: Add: "Show revenue - COGS - tickets x $50 in the Profit cell."
  • Giving advice. The AI recommends action on Burke. Try: Add: "Facts only; no recommendations."
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting and runs past word limits. Try: Ask for fewer words than the real cap and keep each part short.

What a strong prompt includes

  • Names the columns
  • Uses the correction
  • Sets the ranking basis
  • Shows the formula
  • Caps length

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