--- name: content-strategy description: > Analyzes sales data from PayPal and QuickBooks to find top performers and slow movers, layers in seasonality, and produces a prioritized 30-day content brief: what to push, what offers to run, what to hold. Strategic output only — no calendars or assets. Use when the user asks what to post, wants a content plan, asks what's selling, or what to promote this month. ---
Content Strategy
**Status:** MVP draft **Owner:** JJ **Version:** 0.2.0 · Phase MVP **Category:** Marketing & Sales
Quick start
When an SMB owner asks "what should I post this month?" or "what's my content plan?", this skill:
- **Pulls sales data** from QuickBooks or PayPal (transaction history, product/service revenue by date)
- **Identifies patterns** — top-selling products, slow movers, seasonal trends
- **Layers in context** — seasonality (user-provided or industry benchmarks), past performance
- **Produces a 30-day brief** — ranked recommendations of what to push, what to hold, what offers to consider
- **Gets owner approval** before the brief feeds into `canva-creator` for asset generation
The output is strategic only — no calendar scheduling, no creative assets.
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Workflow
Step 1: Pre-flight check (QuickBooks only)
If using QuickBooks, verify the business profile is set up:
- Call `company-info` to check if `Industry` is populated
- If missing or "Unknown":
- Ask: "I need your business category to pull the right seasonality benchmarks. What industry are you in?" (e.g., retail, services, SaaS)
- Call `quickbooks-profile-info-update` with the user's industry
- Confirm: "Profile updated. Ready to pull your sales data."
- If profile is set, proceed to Step 2
**Note:** PayPal and Square do not require profile setup.
Step 2: Clarify priorities & metrics
When triggered, ask the user:
- **"How do you want me to measure 'top performers'?"**
- By total revenue?
- By profit margin?
- By sales velocity (how fast they're selling)?
- Combination of the above?
- **"Do you have seasonality patterns in mind?"**
- If yes: "Tell me about them" (capture user's known seasonality)
- If no: "I'll use industry benchmarks for your category"
Step 3: Pull and analyze sales data
Fetch data from the authenticated connector (QuickBooks, PayPal, or Square, user's choice):
- **Date range:** Last 90 days (or full history if <90 days available)
- **Extract:** Product/service name, date sold, revenue, quantity
**Connector-specific notes:**
- **QuickBooks:** Fetch invoice line items via `profit-loss-quickbooks-account` (pre-flight sets industry context)
- **PayPal:** Fetch merchant transactions via `list_transactions`. *Rate-limiting:* If you hit rate limits, pause 30 seconds and retry once. If still blocked, gracefully offer: "PayPal is rate-limited. Would you like to switch to QuickBooks or Square instead, or I can continue with historical data I already pulled?"
- **Square:** Requires location ID first. Call `make_api_request(service="locations", method="list")` to discover available locations, then fetch orders for each location. *Future enhancement:* Square integration is stubbed; full path documented in `reference/square-integration.md`.
**Fallback:** If <3 months of data, use industry seasonality benchmarks for the SMB's category (e.g., retail, services, e-commerce)
Identify:
- **Top 3–5 performers** (by user's chosen metric)
- **Bottom 3–5 slow movers** (consider holding or repositioning)
- **Trending up** (gaining momentum in last 30 days)
- **Trending down** (losing momentum)
Step 4: Layer in seasonality
- **User-provided:** If they shared seasonal patterns, weight recommendations against them
- **Industry benchmarks:** For categories without strong user data (e.g., "Q1 is strong for tax services")
- **Timing:** Flag products that should ramp up/down in the next 30 days based on seasonal patterns
Step 5: Build the 30-day brief
Structure:
- **Executive summary** (1–2 sentences: "Your best sellers are X and Y. Seasonal shift to Z is starting.")
- **Push hard** (Top 2–3 products + recommended content angle, e.g., "Case study on ROI", "How-to video")
- **Hold steady** (Middle performers; maintain visibility but no heavy lift)
- **Reposition or pause** (Slow movers; consider discounting, bundling, or pausing)
- **Seasonal opportunities** (What's coming next month that you should position for now)
- **Recommended offers** (Bundle, discount, or free-trial strategy based on data)
Example length: **200–400 words** (brief and actionable, not essay-length).
Step 6: Owner approval & iteration
Present the brief to the owner. Ask:
- "Does this match your gut?"
- "Anything to adjust?"
- "Ready to feed this to canva-creator for asset generation?"
Iterate if needed; once approved, return the final brief as structured JSON (ready for downstream tools).
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Gotchas & edge cases
See [`reference/gotchas.md`](reference/gotchas.md) for common pitfalls.
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Examples
See [`reference/examples/`](reference/examples/) for worked examples (SaaS, retail, services).