AI CAPABILITY BASELINE™

You do not have an AI problem. You have a priority problem.

There are probably three things in your business where AI pays, and thirty where it does not. Nobody has told you which is which, because almost everyone who could is paid to blur the line.

In 48 hours, I will tell you.

Built for owner-operated companies between $5M and $50M. From an owner who built a managed IT company to nearly 1,000 clients and sold it.

Everybody is using AI. Almost nobody is running on it.

You have looked at the tools. You are probably paying for a few. Somewhere in your company, people are running customer data through tools nobody approved, and you do not know which people, which tools, or what has left the building.

If your CFO asked which number moved because of any of it, you could not name one.

Your leadership team expects you to have a position on this. Right now you have opinions, and they can tell the difference.

That is not a discipline problem. It is what happens when tools get adopted and workflows do not change. Most companies your size are in exactly the same place. They just do not say it out loud.

WHAT YOU WALK OUT WITH

Three things, in order, each with a number and a name attached.

WHAT ORDER

Sequenced, and owned

So you are not doing six things badly at once. Each item has an owner on your leadership team who agreed to it in the room. Most stalled projects do not stall for lack of budget. They stall because two leaders never agreed it was the priority.

What this is not

Not a commitment

The fee credits in full toward the work if you continue. If you do not, you keep the answer.

A buyer does not pay for how hard you worked. They pay for what runs without you.

Here is what I learned selling my company:

• ✓  Processes that are written down, not stuck in one person’s head
• ✓  Numbers you can break out by line of business
• ✓  A world class technology stack: systems that are clean, current, and secure
• ✓  A defensible business moat: something competitors cannot easily copy
• ✓  A team that keeps serving customers when you step away

Every gap on that list becomes a discount on your price, or a term you have to fight for.

Now there is a new question on that list. Buyers, lenders, and investors are starting to ask how a company uses AI, and how it is protected. A company that runs on gut is worth less than one that runs on systems.

And even if you never plan to sell, these are the same things that make a company easier to run.

A REAL CONVERSATION

Sometimes the answer is that AI is not your priority this year.

A plumbing company owner, 30 years in business, brought a folder of AI ideas to our first meeting.

I asked how invoices turn into money. Three ways: new construction, service calls, and emergency calls. I asked where he makes the most profit. He thought service calls, so that is where he wanted AI.

We walked down the hall to his controller, who knew the overall margin. Not the margin on service calls.

So I told them both: you are not ready for an AI project yet. If you cannot measure it today, AI cannot improve it tomorrow. They could fix that without me, and save the cash a failed project would have burned.

That happens more than you would expect. Here are the six reasons I tell an owner to wait:

• 4.  Cash is too tight to fund the work
• 5.  Nobody on your leadership team can own it
• 6.  You are selling or merging within 12 months

When that is what I find, I say so, I tell you what comes first, and I do not take the larger engagement. That is the whole reason this is worth 48 hours of your attention.

THE PEOPLE SIDE

The office manager got her job back.

When I started with a service store, the owner’s biggest worry was not technology. It was that I would step on his office manager’s toes.

She was overworked and tied to her desk by manual scheduling. A late or missed service call sent the office into a panic.

After the work, reschedules and go-backs dropped, which cut overtime and sped up getting paid. The owner’s favorite result: his manager was less stressed, and she started doing what she enjoys, selling to multifamily building owners.

AI that your people will not use is just another bill. I plan for the people from day one.

You have a leadership team. You still have nobody to think this through with.

Everyone in the building reports to you, so you cannot be uncertain in front of them. Your banker and your attorney are transactional. Your competitors are competitors. The vendors are selling.

What is missing is somebody who has run and sold a company, who knows the technology down to the permissions, and who is not on your payroll or pointing you at a platform.

This is not a purchase decision. It is a deposit on work you may not want to do.

The fee credits in full. What you are actually deciding is whether you want the answer.

Your real alternative is not a different firm. It is another six months of guessing while somebody in your market stops guessing.