Now booking new clients Lake Charles, Louisiana
Free guide · Where to start with AI

Where do you start with AI?

What AI is, whether it's worth it, how to use it ethically, and six simple ways to put it to work in a local business. In plain English, from Nick and Jack.

Scanned the code in our booklet? This is the rest of it: the prompts, the four builds that didn't fit in print, and the videos as we record them.

Start the course → See the six builds → Get the videos by email
Start here

Set up AI in your business, one video at a time.

Our free course, AI for Local Business Owners. Nick answers the questions owners ask first, then sets up Claude for a pretend landscaping company on camera, starting from a brand-new account. Each video picks up where the last one left off, so start with episode 1.

5 episodes · 1 hr 54 minOpen the playlist on YouTube ↗Get new episodes by email

  1. 11:04
    Episode 1

    AI for Small Business Owners: Honest Answers Before You Start

    Why AI is worth a local owner's time, straight answers to the questions we hear most, and four rules for using it.

  2. 14:21
    Episode 2

    Where to use AI in your Local Business

    Where AI fits in a local business, what an AI agent is, and setting up Claude on a brand-new account.

  3. 26:57
    Episode 3

    How to Teach AI About Your Business (CLAUDE.md, Folders + Gmail)

    Claude interviews you about your business and writes it down, then connects to your email and sorts the inbox.

  4. 35:46
    Episode 4

    Building your own Dashboard A to Z (no prior experience needed)

    Claude cleans up a messy customer list and sorts the payments into categories, then builds a four-tab business dashboard.

  5. 26:08
    Episode 5

    Build an AI Morning Brief for Your Business (Claude + Gmail)

    A routine that sorts the inbox at 5 AM and writes a one-page brief, starting with who you need to follow up with.

Why we wrote this

A lot of good businesses don't know where to start.

Most owners we talk to aren't asking about one particular tool. They're asking some version of the same question: "I know I should be doing something with AI. Where do I even start?" If you've said that before, this is for you, not the tech people.

So we wrote down our lessons from meeting with hundreds of local businesses: what AI is and isn't, where it pays for itself, how to use it ethically, and six simple builds we'd recommend to almost anyone.

If you want to work with us, skip to the bottom. But that's not why we wrote this. We want our community to adopt AI and adapt before some big conglomerate comes in and wipes out the local businesses here in Lake Charles.

Our take

Our take on AI, as two Catholic business owners

If you ask us whether AI will be good or bad for society overall, we'll tell you we're worried. Social media promised to bring us all closer together, and we've seen how that turned out. Used well, though, it has been a huge multiplier for good. We believe in using AI the same way, as long as we're not giving up the human gift of creativity, art and intellect.

Using AI in your business doesn't make you responsible for everything AI does to the world, the same way driving your truck to work doesn't make you responsible for every car on I-10. But how you drive is on you. And sitting it out isn't the moral high ground either. If a competitor uses it to beat your margins, who takes care of your customers, your employees and their families?

“It is certainly desirable for technology to relieve humans of arduous, repetitive or dangerous tasks and to provide intelligent support for human activity. Yet, the protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual must remain the general rule.”
Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas, 152

Our four rules for every build

Step 1

What AI is, and where to use it first.

What people mean when they say "AI," from the outside in.

The umbrella

AI

A buzzword. On its own, it means almost nothing.

The engine

Language model

Predicts the next word, based on an enormous amount of reading.

The brand

The model

The one you pick. Different makers, different strengths.

Engine + hands

The agent

The model plus instructions and tools, so it does the task instead of just talking about it.

It only knows your business if you tell it.

Out of the box it knows the moves in general. Your documents, prices and process teach it yours.

It isn't a calculator.

Ask twice and you can get two different answers. Clear instructions and checks make it repeatable.

It doesn't have to be 100% right to be useful.

If it does most of the typing and a person checks the rest, you got most of your afternoon back.

Where to use it first

Which one of these, if it got five times better, would change your business the most?

AdminStart here

Inbox, books, team questions. No customer feels a mistake here.

Get attention

Posts, reviews, follow-ups, referral partners.

Convert

Answering fast, quotes, proposals, chasing the ones that went quiet.

Deliver

Onboarding, job paperwork, customer updates.

Step 2

Map one job. Then climb one rung at a time.

Map it before you automate it.

Trigger

The phone rings.

What starts it.

Workflow

Answer, ask three qualifying questions, log the call.

The steps in the middle.

Done when

Booked, sold, or politely ended.

How you know it's finished.

Then decide how far to automate it

1
Rung 1 · Capability

AI plus your own document. You start it.

Example: Paste in a contract, ask for the key dates.

2
Rung 2 · Connection

Wired to the tools you already use.

Example: It reads tomorrow's calendar and drafts a prep note for each visit.

3
Rung 3 · System

Something happens, and it runs by itself.

Example: Transactions get categorized, and only the unsure ones reach your desk.

One question before any rung: does the customer feel this step?

If yes, keep a person on it. Let AI draft the estimate. A human sends it.

Six starter builds

Six builds we'd recommend to almost anyone.

Each one has a prompt you can copy into any AI tool today. When you want it to run on its own, that's the part we build.

Build 1 of 6Admin

An inbox that sorts itself

Every new email gets read and labeled, and the few that need you rise to the top. It never sends a thing. Nick runs this on his own inbox five times a day.

Get the prompt → Build 2 of 6Convert

The quote that writes itself from the call

The scope is already in the conversation. This turns your call notes into a quote, using your own template and prices. It's how our own proposals get written. It only uses prices you've approved. Blank stays blank.

Get the prompt → Build 3 of 6Admin

Transactions categorized for you

Confident calls get filed. Everything else goes to an "unsure" pile for a person to look at.

Get the prompt → Build 4 of 6Get attention

One recording, a week of posts

It's how we post. One recording becomes a week of posts in our own words, and a person approves every one.

Get the prompt → Build 5 of 6Get attention

The follow-up after you meet someone

In a relationship town, the note that mentions what you actually talked about is the one people remember.

Get the prompt → Build 6 of 6Deliver

The Friday report nobody builds by hand

Customers who hear from you every week don't call to ask where things stand.

Get the prompt →
One rule for all six

If nobody has opened the output in three weeks, turn it off. It's noise. Nick built himself a 5 a.m. morning briefing, never opened one in three weeks, and killed it.

Do this next

Your first five days.

About an hour a day. By Friday you'll have used AI on a real job in your business, and you'll know whether it's worth going further.

Day 1

Find the sigh.

Write down the task in your week that makes you sigh the most. That's your first project.

Day 2

Map it.

Trigger, workflow, done, the way Step 2 shows it. Note what it would need access to.

Day 3

Write your business down.

One page: what you sell, who you sell to, your prices, and how you like things said. This is what turns AI from a trained fighter into a swordmaster. It's the step most people skip.

Day 4

Try it on the first rung.

Open any AI tool. Give it your one-pager and the task. When it misses, don't quit. Ask it: "That's not what I wanted. This is what I wanted. What should I have said to get it right the first time?"

Day 5

Check it.

Have the person who does that job grade the result. Keep what works. Fix what doesn't. Then pick the next sigh.

Your hardest questions

Fair questions. Straight answers.

Is AI going to replace my people?

Not the way we build it. Every business has a Judy: the person who knows where everything is and how every customer likes it. Judy is the last person you want to lose. We take the copy-and-paste off Judy's plate so she can do the part only she can do. Nobody gets fired. Judy wins. You win.

Isn't it bad for the environment?

It's a real concern, since some of the biggest data centers in the country are being built in our own state. How they're powered and built raises real environmental questions, and only time, better engineering and regulation will fix that. Our own usage is small: a three-hour football game on TV uses about the same electricity as 1,200 typed AI questions. That's about 0.24 watt-hours and about five drops of water per question. (Sources: Google, Gemini app, August 2025. IEA, Energy and AI, 2025. TV at about 100 watts.)

Doesn't it make things up?

Yes, sometimes, and confidently. Treat it like a sharp new hire in their first week, not your ten-year veteran. It doesn't have to be 100% right to be useful. It has to be checked. Three checks we use: the person who does that job reviews the output, it can only pick from a list you approved, and anything with a price or a safety claim waits on a human.

Is my information safe?

It depends on the tool and the plan, so check before you give it everything. If it matters to you, use business plans that don't train on your data. Keep passwords and keys in a protected place, never typed into a chat.

I'm not a tech person.

Neither were we, by training. If you can communicate clearly with another person, you can use it. The mindset is what takes work. Give it 10 to 20 honest hours and you'll be ahead of most of your competitors.

My crew won't use new software.

When people stop using a tool, it's usually not laziness. The tool doesn't work the way they need it to, so skipping it is actually faster. Build for the person who uses it, and keep it as simple as one "yes" or "no" button.

Why nowMore than half of U.S. small businesses say they use AI. Two years ago, fewer than one in four did. (U.S. Chamber of Commerce Technology Engagement Center with Teneo Research, Empowering Small Business, 2025: 23% in 2023, 40% in 2024, 58% in 2025.)

Want a hand? We'll come to you.

Call or text either of us. We'll walk through how your business runs and show you where AI pays off first. You leave with a short list, whether or not you hire us.

Book your AI audit → Call (337) 305-3703