Talk and diagnose
I sit with the team and watch the work, in person in Louisville or by video anywhere else. I map where the time goes. I just want to make sure it's something you'll actually use before we commit to building it.
Services
AI automation consulting for small businesses, one proven step at a time
There's a long way between trying ChatGPT and having AI run a real part of the business. This page is how I get a business across it, one step you approve at a time.
AI automation for small business: where it goes wrong
The Census Bureau's business survey puts AI use at roughly one firm in five. Private surveys of small businesses put it anywhere from 66% to 76%. A lot of the distance between those numbers is the distance between a login and a working system.
A vague problem is how an automation project gets expensive. If nobody has written down what's being fixed and what it should save, the scope grows to fill the budget. The other tell is a tool named in the first meeting, before anyone has watched the work.
How every engagement is set up
- 01
A written, fixed price for each step.
If anything changes, we agree it in writing before it changes.
- 02
A small, fixed-price prototype comes first.
It runs on your own process before there's any talk of a full build.
- 03
You approve each step before the next one starts.
The path, step by step
Prove it
A small, fixed-price working prototype of the one piece worth proving, running on your own process, so you watch it work before deciding anything bigger.
A Louisville recruiting firm did exactly this. The prototype pulled open job listings, researched each company, scored it against the kind of client they wanted, and drafted the outreach for their team to send. They paid for it, and I built and delivered it. Read the case study →
Build: from a working prototype to production
The production build, at a fixed price you've approved. What that usually means:
- AI agents that qualify incoming leads and hand your team a short profile instead of a raw inquiry.
- Business process automation: workflows that connect the CRM, email, forms and spreadsheets you already use, so routine work stops moving by copy and paste.
- GoHighLevel setups, with lead forms, tags, pipelines and workflows, so a new lead lands in the right place.
- Software that reads scanned documents and drawings and turns the parts that matter into data.
- Websites built and launched end to end, with the lead form wired to where your team works.
Run it, or hand it off
Either I keep it running month to month, watching it, tuning it and adding the next piece, or I train the person on your team who'll own it.
For mid-market teams
Some teams need a senior person inside for a quarter or two, then gone, with the system left running. At Global Payments, a 27,000-person company, I built the intake and governance engine that routed each piece of work to the right approvers by type, scope, systems and geography. It ran in production for years and outlived my 2022 departure. It was built before AI existed, so every routing call in it was written by hand.
If you'd rather have it run as one monthly service
For owner-run service businesses that want it handled as one monthly service with nothing new to learn, that's Hire Lexi.
Work that's running
A Louisville-area mechanical contractor.
Before a bid goes out, somebody has to read every piping drawing in the packet and count what's on it. I'm building the engine that does that read for them, as a paid build. A scanned drawing goes in, it finds the tables and labels, reads them, and hands back a material list their team can check. When it can't read a sheet, it says so instead of guessing.
Read the case study →An agency that sells websites to water-treatment dealers.
They pay me per site. Eight sites went out in the first two weeks, built one at a time. Now it's one factory, where a new dealer is a data folder: their logo, their cities and their form. Their clients never hear my name.
Read the case study →The outreach engine for my own app.
I wrote the offer once. The engine finds who to send it to, scores whether their audience is actually a fit, and runs the whole email sequence on its own. It runs itself daily.
Read the case study →Questions about working with an AI automation consultant
- How much does an AI automation consultant cost?
- It depends on scope, so every step here gets a written, fixed price before it starts, and the first paid step is a small prototype rather than a full build. For public market ranges, each with its source named, see what AI automation costs.
- What's the difference between an AI consultant and an AI automation agency?
- The labels overlap. The more useful question is whether someone diagnoses first and builds second, or arrives with a tool to sell. The first step here is watching the work and writing down what's worth fixing.
- How long does AI implementation take?
- About a week to diagnose, about two weeks to prove one piece, and two to six weeks to build. After that it runs month to month or gets handed to your team.
- Do I need to change the software we use?
- Usually not. Where it can, the work goes inside the tools your team already uses.
- What if the prototype doesn't prove out?
- Then you stop there. You've paid the prototype's fixed price, not a build's, and nothing moves to the next step without your approval.
- Do you work in person?
- With Louisville and Southern Indiana businesses, yes. AI automation in Louisville
Want a second set of eyes on it?
If there's a process in your business you'd like someone to look at, tell me about it.