Hire a Canadian AI consultant for what they build, not for their time. The right person learns how your practice runs and builds one AI employee for a job nobody has time for. They put in writing that your practice owns it. And they agree one number with you before anything starts, so you'll know if it worked.
Your Friday numbers arrive late, and they're missing people
It's Friday at 4:30, and you want three numbers before you go home. You want to know who asked about tax help this week, who got a reply and who booked a first meeting.
Mark, your office manager, has spent the afternoon copying them from the booking calendar and the shared inbox into a spreadsheet. He did the same thing last Friday. He'll do it again next Friday.
You ask whether the count includes the people who emailed on Wednesday night. He checks, and it doesn't. Those emails sat until Thursday morning. Two of them never got an answer.
You've been meaning to look at AI for this kind of thing. You searched for an AI consultant and got agencies, software and lists. Very little told you what that person would actually change in your practice.
I did agency work for years before this. In office after office, I watched someone rebuild the same Friday report by hand every week.
Hire an AI consultant for what they build, not for their time
A lot of AI help gets sold as a rate. You pay for someone's time and get advice. Then Friday afternoon looks the same, and Mark is still copying numbers into a spreadsheet.
The other habit is software sold as AI consulting. You get a login, a training video and a bill. The Friday report is still Mark's job.
Both leave the work where it was. Judge anyone you're thinking of hiring on three things: the work they'll build, who owns it afterwards and the one number you agree on first.
When I work with a practice, I build an AI employee. An AI employee does one job and reports to one person on your staff. It never replaces anyone. It takes the work there's no time for, the work that gets done late or not at all.
In a practice like yours, the Friday report is a good first job. The AI employee reads the booking calendar and the shared inbox. It counts who asked about tax help, who got a reply and who booked a first meeting. Wednesday night emails count too. It writes that up as one page and sends it to Mark. Mark checks it, and you have it by Friday noon.
The AI employee works in writing. It doesn't answer the phone. It doesn't open client files, because a first job should stay away from client data. It works from counts.
A good AI consultant learns how your practice runs before building anything
I work in three steps, and each one starts with your practice, not with AI.
- See how the work runs now. I sit with Mark and watch where the Friday numbers come from. Which calendar, which inbox, which spreadsheet, and who asks for the report.
- Find where AI fits. The Friday report fits. It's the same steps every week, and it doesn't need client files. Booking a client's appointment straight from their records doesn't fit as a first job.
- Build it so it sticks. The AI employee reports to Mark. He reads its report before you see it, and he fixes it when a number is wrong.
If someone shows you a tool before they ask how your Friday goes, they've started at the wrong end.
You'll want to know how long before it works with nobody checking. That depends on how often Mark has to correct it, not on the calendar. At the start, it can hold every report until he's read it. He drops that step once the corrections thin out.
Settle who owns the AI employee, and what counts, before anything starts
Ask any consultant who owns what gets built when the work ends. Get the answer in writing. Ask if you can open it, change its instructions and switch it off without calling them. Ask whose name the accounts are in.
Here's mine, so you can hold me to it. I build the AI employee in my own workspace, then move it into yours. Your practice owns it, and you keep the admin rights. The accounts are in your name, because you connect your own. You buy it for a year, and the support comes with that year. At the end of the year you renew it, or you don't.
Then agree one number before any building starts. For the Friday report, it could be how many Fridays Mark still copies numbers by hand. Write it down and check it later.
My site has a list of five questions to ask before you hire anyone, on How do I compare AI consultants? One of them asks how you'll know in ninety days that it worked. The number you agreed on first answers it.
An AI employee costs about what you'd pay a person for one month
Here's the question I ask every business owner. What would you pay a person for one month to do a job you'd never hire for? Nobody hires someone just to build the Friday report. One month of that pay buys an AI employee doing it for a year.
I won't put a dollar figure on it here. Anyone who quotes you without seeing the job is guessing. How much does an AI consultant cost? explains why quotes swing so much.
What I build, and what I won't do
I'm the one who builds the AI employee. I don't hand you a login and walk away. I build it for the person on staff it reports to, because Mark lives with it every Friday after I'm gone.
There are things I won't do. I won't start with a job that touches client data. I won't build an AI employee to replace someone on your staff. I won't build anything that makes or takes phone calls, because the AI employees I build work in writing. And I won't sell you a software subscription and call it AI consulting.
If the Friday report sounds like your practice, tell me. Or maybe it's another job that only gets done late, like the thank-you email after a first meeting. That's the job I want to hear about.
Book Let's Chat AI, 30 minutes with me about the one job your practice never has time for.