Your first week with AI.
Seven in ten business owners say they need more training to use AI well. Here is the training, free, on one page. No signup and no tool to buy. Everything below works with whatever software you already have.
The trick is not the tool. The trick is picking the right job. Four jobs pay off first for almost every small business, and they are the same four everywhere: answering questions, catching leads, booking, and follow-up.
Start with one job. Keep a human in the loop. Grow from proof.
- Day 1 and 2: pick one job from the four below. Just one. Write down how it works today.
- Day 3 and 4: set up the simplest tool that does that job. Feed it your real answers, not samples.
- Day 5 to 7: run it with a person checking every output. Keep what held up. Fix what did not.
- Week 2 and on: loosen the checking slowly. Add the second job only after the first one earns it.
Hand these over first.
These four show up in every survey of what small businesses automate first, and for good reason. Each one is repetitive, rule-shaped, and easy to check. That is exactly the work AI is good at.
Answering the same questions
Hours, prices, "do you do X", directions, returns. You answer these fifty times a month. Write your ten most common answers once, and let an assistant serve them on your site or inbox.
Catching leads after hours
Most missed business arrives when you are closed. A simple form or assistant that greets the visitor, takes their question, and promises a reply beats voicemail every time.
Booking without the phone tag
Let people pick a slot from your real calendar. The assistant confirms, reminds, and reschedules. You stop playing telephone ping-pong over a ten-minute appointment.
Follow-up that actually happens
The quote you sent and forgot. The customer who went quiet. Follow-up is where sales die, and it is pure repetition. Draft the reminders once, and let the system send them on schedule.
The rules that keep week one safe.
Every horror story about AI in a small business breaks one of these rules. Keep all four and the worst case is a boring week, not an angry customer.
One job at a time
Do not automate five things in one week. One job, run well, gives you proof and confidence. Five jobs at once give you five half-checked risks.
A person checks everything at first
Treat the assistant like a new hire on day one. Nothing it writes reaches a customer unchecked for the first two weeks. Loosen slowly, and only where it has earned it.
Feed it your real answers
An assistant guessing your prices is a liability. An assistant reading your actual price list is a receptionist. The difference is one afternoon of writing things down.
Know what it must never do
Decide up front: no discounts, no medical or legal advice, no promises about stock or dates it cannot see. Write the list. Every good setup has one.
Wondering where your data goes in all this? That question has its own page: AI safety basics.
Ready for more than a week?
The pages below carry the longer argument: how we think, what we read, and what happens when you want the four jobs built and checked by experts.
The six lenses
How we think on every engagement. Useful even if you never hire us.
The Reading Room
The papers, guides, and books we cite when we build. Curated, updated monthly.
The Don't Kick Test
Skeptical about AI answers? Run one prompt through and watch what the checking catches.
The consulting page
When you want the four jobs built for you, with a named expert checking the work.
Stuck on step one?
Tell us which of the four jobs eats your week. We will tell you the simplest setup that handles it, and whether you even need us for it.