Show up. Watch. Write it down.

8:00 — Coffee, then I disappear

I show up when you open and I stay out of the way. I’m listening to how the phone gets answered, watching how a lead turns into a quote, noticing which spreadsheet gets opened forty times and who’s copying numbers from one screen to another.

I’m not judging. Every business has this stuff. It’s where the money is.

10:30 — I follow the paper

Invoices, estimates, intake forms, the notebook by the register, the group text with your crew. I’m mapping where information gets created, where it gets re-typed, and where it dies. Almost every AI win in a small business lives in one of those gaps.

12:00 — Lunch and the real conversation

You tell me what drove you crazy this week. What you’d hire for if you could afford it. What you’ve tried before that didn’t stick. What you’re afraid of breaking. I take a lot of notes and I don’t pitch anything.

1:30 — The whiteboard

Two hours, you and me, maybe your office manager. I walk through what I saw and sort it into three piles:

• AI does this well today. Answering the phone, booking, follow-ups, drafting quotes and replies, summarizing, sorting.
• AI does this badly, or not yet. I’ll tell you which and why, so nobody sells it to you next month.
• Don’t touch this. The parts of your business that are you. Relationships, judgment, the thing customers actually come for.

Then we pick the first three to five moves and put them in order.

4:00 — You get the plan

Written, in plain English, before I leave. For each move: what it does, roughly what it costs per month, how long setup takes, and whether you need me or can do it yourself. Usually a page or two. You own it.

After

Some owners run the plan themselves. Some hire me to build and run it, which is how I make my living. Either way I’ll tell you straight whether you need me, and I’d rather earn the work than trap you into it.

Book the day, or read about your industry first.