AI for a small business: find the work worth handing off, build it, and keep it yours.
Most small businesses have a handful of jobs that get done the same way every week. Some of them should be done by software now. My work is to find those, build them on tools you own, and teach your people to run them. There is no separate AI package. It runs through the offers already on this site, each with its price on its own page.
What an AI consultant for small business should do
An AI consultant for a small business finds the repeated work that software can now do, builds it on accounts and code the business owns, and teaches the team to run and change it. The test is whether it still works a month after the consultant has gone.
That last part is the one that gets skipped. A small business has no IT department to hand the result to. If the automation lives in my accounts, or only I know how it works, you have hired a dependency, and the first time it breaks you are back on the phone with me.
So the order I work in is plain. Write down how the business makes its calls first. Then build the automation to follow what is written. Then hand it over: the repository, the logins, the notes. The writing-down step is the one people want to skip, and it is the one that decides whether the rest holds up. There is more on why in the approach.
What to automate, and what to leave alone
The rule of thumb I use: if the task follows steps you could write on one page, and a wrong answer is cheap to catch, hand it to software. If it turns on judgment, trust, or a relationship, keep a person on it.
Good first jobs for AI
Drafting in your voice from your own material. Pulling the same numbers into the same report every week. Sorting an inbox into what needs you and what does not. Researching a prospect before a call. Keeping a section of your website current. These are the agents on the menu for the Install, because they are small, they repeat, and you can see at a glance when one gets it wrong.
Leave these with a person
Pricing calls. Hiring and firing. Anything a client would be upset to learn a machine decided. And any process nobody has written down yet, because an agent handed a vague process does the vague thing faster.
If you already know the three or four tasks you keep doing by hand, you are further along than most. If you do not, that is what the first conversation is for.
Hiring an AI automation consultant
An AI automation consultant builds the links between your tools so work moves without someone copying it across. That is useful, and it is also where a lot of money goes to waste. Before you hire anyone, including me, ask four things:
- Whose accounts will it run in? The answer should be yours.
- Where does the code or setup live, and can I read it? It should be in a repository you own.
- Who fixes it when it breaks, and how will I know it broke?
- Will my team be able to change it without calling you?
If the answers are vague, you are buying a monthly bill for something you cannot see into. My answers are on the pages: the Install ends with the code in your GitHub account and your hands on the keyboard, and the Autopilot is there for anyone who would rather someone else keep it running.
What an AI implementation consultant should leave behind
"Implementation" is a big word for a simple question: when the engagement ends, what do you have? From me, the list is short and checkable.
- The tools installed and signed in on your own machines, under your own accounts
- Your website and any automation code in a GitHub repository you own
- At least one agent running on a real task, chosen with you beforehand
- One change you made and shipped yourself, so you know you can do it again
- Written handover notes in plain language
That is the Install, in one day, in person at your place, for $5,000 with travel included. It comes with two weeks of email follow-up and your first month of the Autopilot, and it credits in full toward the Map. The requirements checklist says what has to be ready before the day.
Top AI consulting firms vs. a one-person practice
I am not going to rank firms here. I have not worked inside most of them, and a list from someone selling a rival service is not worth much. What I can tell you is what each kind of help gives a small business, so you can judge which one fits.
A large consulting firm
A team, and depth behind it. A firm can put several people on your work at once, cover many specialties, and keep going if one person leaves. It will have the contracts, insurance, and process a procurement team expects. It is also built and priced for companies with more going on than most small businesses have. Ask who will do the day-to-day work, and whether you will meet them before you sign.
A one-person practice (me)
The person you talk to is the person who does the work. I hold the whole picture of your business myself, my prices are published, and you can start with a free Scan or a $250 call instead of a proposal. The trade-offs are real: I cannot staff ten people, I take on a limited number of clients at once, and if I am out, the work waits.
When a firm is the better choice: many locations or systems that need changing at the same time, heavy compliance rules, or a need for a team on site for months. When one operator is the better choice: a founder-led business small enough that one person can understand all of it, where you want to end up running the tools yourself.
What this looked like at TeamBuildr
TeamBuildr is a strength-and-conditioning platform used by 5,500+ organizations. Its marketing team had grown from the inside, and months of top-of-funnel work had piled up in the backlog.
I was brought in to lead the change. We reshaped the team around the skills already there, built AI into the team's actual workflows with the brand's standards as the guardrails, and coached the new leaders on how to run it. The first wave of AI workflows is in production and the backlog is moving again. The engagement is ongoing.
The reorganizing and the AI were one piece of work, not two. Adding the tools without changing how the team was set up would have just made the old way faster.
Where to start, and what it costs
Every price below is already on its own page. Each step credits toward the next, so starting small does not cost you twice.
The Scan — free
Two minutes, no meeting. A scored report on what search and AI engines can read about your business from your website. Run the Scan →
The Read — $450
A recorded walkthrough of your site and a ranked memo of fixes, in two business days. About the Read →
The Session — $250
One call on one problem, including where AI fits and which tools to pick. About the Session →
The Install — $5,000
One day. You leave with Claude Code running, your site in GitHub, and an agent doing real work. About the Install →
The Autopilot — from $899/mo
Someone keeps your site running and changing every month, if you would rather not do it yourself. About the Autopilot →
The Seat — from $6,000/mo
Ongoing custom work across the whole operation, a few days a month, six-month minimum. About the Seat →
Not sure which? All eight offers are side by side here.
Questions
- Do I need to know how to code? No. The Install is built for people who have never opened a terminal. If a terminal is off the table, the desktop app does the same job.
- Which AI tools do you use? Claude and Claude Code for most of it, with GitHub holding the code. I pick tools you can own and keep paying for yourself.
- Is there an AI package or retainer on its own? No. The work runs through the offers above. If none of them fits, tell me what you have in mind.
- What if I just want it done for me? Then the Install is the wrong place to start. Take the Autopilot for the website, or the Seat for the wider operation.
Start with what you can see.
The free Scan shows what machines can read about your business today. If it turns up a problem worth fixing, we talk about which step comes next.