How do I use AI in my small business?
Start with the work that should happen every time and doesn't. The follow-up email, the review request after a job wraps up, the notes from a call that never make it into the system. AI is good at the reminding, the drafting, and turning talk into records, and most small businesses get the most out of it there first.
The part people skip is what comes before that. AI needs your information in one place and the work written down somewhere it can follow. Without those, it's guessing.
What it looks like in a real business
A distributor I work with has close to 100 clients. His client list lived in a monthly spreadsheet, his order notes were in his phone, and his follow-up was in his memory. He couldn't easily tell which customers had gone quiet.
The first move wasn't AI. It was getting every customer into one place, in software he already paid for, and setting a rule for what happens when someone stops ordering. 60 days, a helpful email. 90 days, a different one. 120 days, a flag to pick up the phone.
AI helps write those emails. But the win was the rule, and the rule only worked once the information lived in one place.
Where AI tends to earn its keep
Anything you explain over and over. The same 20 questions from customers, the same answers for a new hire. An assistant that knows your business can take most of that and hand it to a person when it's out of its depth.
Anything that turns talking into records. Summarizing a meeting, reading paperwork, turning a voice memo from the truck into clean notes. Not exciting. It gives you back a few hours a week.
Anything you'd look at if it were easy to see. Most owners have a question or two they quit asking because pulling the answer took too long. That's usually a smaller job than people expect.
Where it doesn't, yet
If the same information lives in 3 places, AI will just be confused in 3 places. If the way something gets done lives in one person's head, AI has nothing to follow.
I don't think that's a reason to wait. Getting your information in one place and writing down how the work happens is most of the job, and it pays whether you add AI or not. It just means the order matters.
I love this stuff, for what it's worth. I build software myself, AI included. That's exactly why I'd rather you start with the boring part.
Where to go from here
At Good Business Group, I help owners in Lafayette and across Acadiana figure out which part of this is real for their business and then build it. There's more on how that works on the AI consulting page.
It starts with a free Vent to Me Meeting, about 30 minutes. You don't need to prepare anything. Usually the same day or the next, you get a First Read. After that comes Where to Start, the plan and the proposal in one short document, also free. AI work starts at $5,000, with a fixed price before anything starts and no retainer.
Need help? Book 30 minutes and vent.