thisdayconsulting.com

Find Your Path

Every organization is in a different place with AI. Some need a map, some need one problem solved, and some want the whole thing handled. Answer a few questions and the road will take you to the right path.

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The road splits here
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Your path

Execute

Solve a specific problem

You bring us a problem, we solve that one problem. One project, fixed scope, fixed price in writing before we start. No long-term commitment required.

That's exactly what this path is for. Fixed scope and a fixed price in writing before we start, and no commitment past it.

Plenty of longer relationships started as one build.

Any project worth doing takes real discovery, building, testing, and training your people to use it. Below a certain size we'd have to cut one of those, and the one that gets cut is always the part that makes it stick.

The floor is $1,000. If your ask is genuinely a fifteen minute change, that's a small request on a maintenance plan, not a project.

If your ask is genuinely a fifteen minute change, that's a small request on a maintenance plan, not a project.

No. We'll always recommend it, because picking the wrong first project is the expensive mistake, not the build itself.

If you already know what you want, we'll quote that and note in the brief that you directed the scope.

Where do you want to go?
A quick, low-commitment look at your business that hands you a short list of where AI would pay off first. No building, no retainer, no strings. The lightest way to start.
A clear shortlist of where AI pays off in your business, without committing to anything ongoing.

How it works

  • You pick the depth: $1,000 is one person, $2,000 is up to 3 people, $3,000 is up to 5 people. More than that, we quote it custom.
  • You pick the depth: one person, up to 3 people, or up to 5 people. More interviews make the list deeper.
  • Up to two weeks for the $1,000 option, up to four weeks for $2,000, up to six weeks for $3,000
  • Two to six weeks, depending on the depth you pick
  • You get a one-page report of your top AI opportunities, in the order we'd go after them, walked through live at a readout

The price

$1,000, $2,000, or $3,000, priced by how many people we interview. Due at booking.

How this differs from Navigate

Same diagnostic, bought on its own. Navigate wraps the Snapshot into an ongoing advisory retainer; here you just get the one-page answer and pick your own next move.

Best for

  • Owners who want a fast, honest read on where AI helps before spending on a build or a retainer
  • Anyone who wants clarity first and would rather decide the next step themselves
  • A 12-person office isn't sure where AI even fits. A week later they've got a one-page list of the handful of spots worth acting on.
  • An owner keeps hearing about AI and wants a straight answer on what's real for his business before he spends a dollar building anything.
  • A company that already knows it wants help, but wants the priorities named before picking the first project.
We take one annoying task your team does by hand over and over, and make the computer do the whole thing automatically, start to finish.
A painful process automated end to end, or your systems finally talking to each other so your people stop being the glue.

The shape that fits

  • One named process that's eating time ("this one thing is killing us")
  • Systems that don't talk to each other, with the same data typed into two or more tools by hand
  • Work that crosses departments with manual handoffs in between
  • It runs daily or weekly, so the payback is real

How it works

  • A short scoping call maps the whole chain: every system, every handoff, every edge case
  • You get one fixed price and fixed deliverables in writing before anything starts
  • 50% deposit at kickoff, 50% when you sign off on the finished build
  • 1-4 weeks depending on scope, then a demo and your sign-off

After delivery

Optional maintenance keeps it running (see the Maintenance stop). Or run it yourself; the handoff package gives you everything you need.

  • Someone fills out the form on your website. It instantly texts the on-call tech, emails the office, and creates the job in ServiceTitan. Nobody re-types a thing.
  • Every morning, AI reads yesterday's completed work and flags anything missing a time entry or an invoice, so nobody is checking each one by hand.
  • When a tech closes a pest-control job, the service report gets built and emailed to the customer automatically.
We build you a simple app or chatbot your people (or your customers) actually open and use, with AI doing the work behind the screen.
A tool your people actually open and use, built around how your organization works, with AI under the hood.

The shape that fits

  • It needs an interface: someone opens it and works in it
  • Multiple users: a team, a department, or your customers
  • Chatbots, internal agents, customer-facing tools, full web apps

How it works

  • Scoping gives you an honest price range; then we write the requirements doc together, every screen and feature in writing, and your signature locks the final number
  • You review and test it before launch. Nothing ships without your acceptance.
  • 50% deposit at kickoff, 50% at launch. Typically 4-8 weeks; bigger builds run longer, and the requirements doc locks the timeline too.

Good to know

You own everything we build. No vendor lock-in. Hosting and third-party subscriptions run in your name and are disclosed before you sign anything.

  • A "which water heater do I sell" helper the tech runs right in the customer's home: answer a few questions, get the right unit to quote. (Building this now.)
  • A private, company-branded version of Claude so your whole team can use AI without paying for everyone's individual subscription. (Built for Edelman.)
  • A chatbot on your website that answers customer questions and books the appointment. (Building one for a client in Ohio.)
An AI assistant set up next to each person, trained on your business and plugged into the tools they already use, so they can just tell the AI to do the work instead of clicking through every app themselves.
A working AI agent next to every person who needs one, trained on your business and connected to your real tools.

How it works: Assess, Connect, Train, Support

  • We learn your team and tools, then connect AI to the systems you already run
  • Every agent user gets 3 group training sessions on the AI platform (Claude or ChatGPT) and a one-on-one session where we build their personal agent together, set up for their role
  • Your company gets up to 5 custom connectors to your business tools, a shared company brain every agent taps into, and 3-5 AI skills your whole team can use
  • Everything tested and verified before launch

Pricing: one flat rate

$3,000 to set your company up: connectors, the shared company brain, the starting skill set, and launch verification. Then $500 per person, flat, whenever the seat is added. A person you add on day one costs the same as one you add next year, live training included, no backfill charge.

Quick quote

A flat company setup fee, then a flat per-user rate. Start with one user or fifty. We'll walk the numbers together.

Optional monthly support

One simple plan, $75 per active user each month: next-business-day response, troubleshooting and agent updates, proactive connector monitoring, and a monthly check-in call with your team lead.

One simple per-user monthly plan: next-business-day response, connector monitoring, and a monthly check-in call with your team lead.

Add-ons

  • Additional AI skill (company-wide or personal): $500
  • Additional 5-connector pack: $500
  • Extra group session $750, extra one-on-one $950

Extra skills, extra connectors, and extra sessions are available as flat-priced add-ons.

AI platform seats and hosting are billed by those providers directly. Sessions are in person or virtual, your preference; locations 60+ miles from Bloomington-Normal, IL add travel (mileage plus lodging) at cost.

  • Instead of opening ServiceTitan and checking each job, the dispatcher tells her AI: "go through today's plumbing jobs and flag anything missing a payment or summary." (About 60% of her job at Edelman.)
  • An office manager says, in one command: "reply to this email, make a task for it in our system, and put a follow-up on my calendar in three days." Done while she moves on to the next thing.
  • A service manager asks his agent to pull this week's numbers from three different apps into one summary, instead of logging into each one.
We keep everything we built for you running. Software changes, things break, your business shifts. We watch it and fix it so you never get a nasty surprise.
What we built never quietly breaks. Tools update, APIs change, your business shifts. We watch it so you don't have to.

What's covered

  • Monitoring on everything we built for you
  • Break-fix included: if it's covered and it breaks, fixing it is the retainer doing its job. No emergency invoices, ever.
  • Small tweaks and adjustments as your needs shift
  • A monthly status report: what ran, what was fixed, what was tuned
  • A quarterly review call where we walk the log together and surface improvement opportunities

The price

5% of the project price per month, $250/mo minimum. A $6,000 workflow is $300/mo. Multiple builds combine into one simple monthly bill.

Quick quote

A simple monthly percentage of the project, with multiple builds combined into one bill. We'll walk the numbers together.

One honest rule

We only maintain what we built. We stand behind every piece of our own work, and we can't promise that for someone else's.

  • Your management software changes how part of its system works, which would have quietly broken your automation. We catch it and fix it before you ever notice.
  • Your form-to-text automation stops firing on a Saturday. It's covered, it gets fixed, and there's no emergency invoice.
  • Your business adds a second location, so a report needs to split by branch. That's a small tweak the retainer handles.
Your path

Navigate

Know where AI fits

We learn your organization and tell you where AI fits, what to prioritize, and what to skip. No building, no implementation. Just the roadmap, and an expert beside you while you read it.

Right, and that's the point. This path exists to decide what to do and what to skip. Most companies lose their first AI money on the wrong project, or on a tool a salesperson talked them into.

One month here costs less than one bad build.

For general questions, absolutely, and we'd tell you to. What it doesn't know is your team, your software, what you already tried, and which of your people will actually adopt something new.

That context is the whole product, and it's why the Snapshot comes first.

We quote it as a project, or we talk about going all in. This path stays advice only on purpose, so our recommendation is never a pitch for our own build work.

"If the answer is that you don't need us to build anything, I'll tell you that."

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We study your business, hand you a list of where AI actually saves you money, then stay on as your AI advisor every month. We tell you what to do. We don't build it for you.
Two to six weeks to map your top opportunities, then an expert beside you every month. You're never deciding about AI alone.

Step one: the AI Snapshot

  • You pick how deep to go: $1,000 is one focused conversation, usually with you, up to two weeks. $2,000 covers up to 3 people, up to four weeks. $3,000 covers up to 5 people, up to six weeks. More than that, we quote it custom.
  • You pick how deep to go: one person, up to 3 people, or up to 5 people. Two to six weeks depending on the depth you pick.
  • The report is the same shape at every level: one page, your top AI opportunities, in the order we'd go after them. More interviews just make the list deeper.
  • Delivered live at a readout meeting

The structure

  • The Snapshot is $1,000, $2,000, or $3,000, priced by how many people we interview, due at booking. The retainer is one flat rate: $2,000 a month. Six-month minimum, then month to month. No new contract to re-sign.
  • A one-time Snapshot priced by how many people we interview, then one flat monthly rate with a six-month minimum. We'll walk the numbers together.
  • Move into Transform within 90 days and half the paid Snapshot price credits toward onboarding.

Then, every month

  • A 90-minute call: what changed in your organization, what's new in AI that matters to you, your opportunity list re-ranked, and a deep dive on the top item
  • A recap email the same day, and email and phone access between meetings (up to 2 hours a month; past that it waits for the next call or becomes its own quote)

Every 90 days

  • A written one-page plan: your top AI projects ranked, what changed, the next step for each, and the skip list, the things we looked at and told you not to buy. That skip list is half the value.

Good to know

Talking is the retainer; building is a quote. When something on your list is ready to be built, we price it as its own fixed-scope project so this fee never creeps.

  • An HVAC owner knows he "should be doing AI" but has no idea where to start. After a couple of weeks he's got a ranked list: fix dispatching first, then automated review requests, then inventory. No more guessing.
  • On a monthly call, a plumbing company mentions a vendor is selling them a $20k "AI scheduling" add-on. We tell them to skip it and fix their callback process instead. The skip list pays for the retainer.
  • A multi-location restoration company wants to move on AI but needs a steady hand in the room for every decision. They get an expert on call every month instead of hiring a full-time tech person.
Your path

Transform

Your part-time AI department

First we get your team set up and trained with a one-time onboarding engagement. Then we keep projects moving, support the tools we build, and help your team use AI for a monthly fee. Choose one, two or three active projects. When one is finished, we start the next.

Your plan sets how many projects move at once. Each has a written outcome and a clear finish line. When one finishes, we start the next priority. A complex tool can take longer than a focused automation, so we agree scope and timing rather than promising a fixed yearly count.

Routine upkeep, monthly training, launch instruction and ordinary new-hire setup are included alongside those projects.

Choose one active project if your priority list can move one item at a time. Choose two or three when you have several priorities and people available to work with us.

Monthly packages are $4,000, $7,000 and $10,000. One-time onboarding is separate.

We will walk through the onboarding fee and the monthly package together.

Onboarding comes first. Then the initial monthly service commitment is six months, followed by automatic month-to-month continuation. After the initial commitment, cancellation or a downgrade requires 30 days’ written notice at a monthly renewal boundary.

We assess your business and tools, map the agreed initial workflows, set up context and access, and deliver the initial team rollout and training. We finish with a prioritized roadmap and a documented handoff. Detailed engineering for later projects happens during monthly service.

Smaller rollouts usually take about three months; larger ones take about four to five. We agree the scope and client responsibilities before starting.

No. Your company or department’s total employee count sets the one-time onboarding band. Monthly pricing depends on how many projects you want moving at once. A department engagement uses that department’s headcount.

Yes. Onboarding includes the agreed initial training. Monthly service includes one live group training session each month, plus instruction needed to launch delivered tools. A broader department adoption program can be an active project.

Yes. We maintain one prioritized project list with your agreed contact. New projects within the signed scope enter that list without a new sales proposal. Material scope expansion is agreed before we take on the extra work.

At the monthly check-in we review what shipped, what your team is using, measured results, current work and the next priority. Every third check-in includes a quarterly roadmap refresh.

Monthly service continues automatically. You can also agree a move to systems maintenance, add user support, or discuss training your own AI champion through Empower. Routine continuation does not require buying a new project each time.

Pay half of onboarding at the start and half at its documented completion. Monthly service and its first recurring charge begin at handoff. Software licenses, usage and applicable travel are separate.

An eligible paid Snapshot credits half its price toward onboarding when Transform is signed within 90 days of the readout. We split the reduced onboarding fee into two equal payments.

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Choose how much moves at once. We work from the same list month after month, with no new sale for each project within your agreed scope.

Monthly project packages

Package Monthly Small requests
Three active projects $10,000 6/month
Two active projects $7,000 4/month
One active project $4,000 2/month

Choose one, two or three active projects, with two, four or six small requests each month.

Monthly pricing is the same at every company size. Every completed project frees a place for the next priority. A small request is a contained adjustment that needs no separate project specification; unused allowances do not accumulate.

Included with every monthly plan

  • Custom AI tools, automations and adoption projects from one agreed list
  • One monthly group training session, plus instruction for delivered tools
  • One monthly check-in, with a roadmap refresh every third month
  • Maintenance, monitoring and routine fixes for covered systems we build
  • Ordinary new-hire and backfill setup within the agreed company or department
  • Business-hours support through your agreed contact; acknowledgement by the next business day

Software licenses, usage and applicable travel are separate. Projects can span multiple months; each has a written outcome and completion criteria. Four or more active projects require a custom agreement.

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We learn the part of the business we are supporting and agree a focused launch. The onboarding fee is based on your company or department size.

Onboarding by company or department size

Employees in scope One-time fee Estimated rollout
1-10 $5,000 About 3 months
11-25 $10,000 About 3-4 months
26-50 $15,000 About 4 months
51-100 $20,000 About 5 months
101+ Custom Agreed

The onboarding fee follows your company or department’s employee count. Allow about three months for smaller rollouts and four to five for larger teams; over 100 employees is a custom scope.

Half is due at the start and half at documented completion. Count the employees in the agreed company or department, not just AI users. A 20-person department inside a 200-person company uses the 11-25 band.

  • Business and tool assessment
  • Mapping the agreed initial workflows
  • Company context, access and tool setup
  • Initial team rollout and training
  • A prioritized roadmap reviewed with your team

We agree the workflows, tools, training groups and client responsibilities before kickoff. Timing depends on access and team availability. Later project engineering belongs in monthly delivery.

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We put the agreed tools in your team’s hands, train them, and confirm the setup works before ongoing project delivery begins.
  • Set up the agreed company context and access
  • Train the initial groups on the tools in scope
  • Verify the launch, provide documentation and review the roadmap
  • Record the completion handoff together

The remaining half of onboarding is due at handoff. That is also when monthly project service starts. The two charges are shown separately.

4
After handoff, we work down your prioritized list. When a project finishes, the next one starts.

Each active project has an agreed outcome, boundaries and completion criteria. It might be a custom tool, an automation or a program to help a department use AI consistently. We review progress monthly and refresh the roadmap quarterly.

The initial recurring commitment is six months after handoff, then month-to-month. Upgrades have an agreed fee and effective date. After the initial commitment, cancellation or downgrade requires 30 days’ written notice at a renewal boundary.

5
Keep projects moving with automatic monthly continuation, or agree a smaller service once your delivery priorities are complete.

Systems maintenance covers monitoring, routine fixes and updates to systems we built. New projects require continuing a delivery package. An optional people plan covers user support and refreshers.

Systems maintenance is 20% of your monthly package: $800, $1,400 or $2,000 per month. The optional people plan is $75/user/month; post-service new-hire setup is $500 per person.

Systems maintenance is a percentage of your monthly package, with an optional people plan priced per user. New-hire setup after service is separately priced.

You can also discuss Empower if you want to train an internal AI champion. Existing agreements keep their signed terms.

Your path

Empower

Own it in-house

Most of the menu is us doing the AI work for you. This is the opposite. You put one person in the seat, someone already on your team or someone we help you hire, and we train them to do what we do. When they graduate, your company has its own AI person.

It's a real risk and we won't pretend otherwise. Training a replacement is full price, because the work is the same the second time.

If that risk is the thing keeping you up, it's an argument for having us run it instead. Our team doesn't quit on you.

Because AI changes weekly. A champion who stops learning is out of date within a quarter, and then you've paid for training that quietly expired.

The monthly keeps them current and keeps us on call for the hard questions. It's part of the program, not an add-on we hope you buy later.

Yes, it's priced per person. Groups cap at five so everyone gets real review time on their own builds.

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Over 8 weeks, in a small group of five max, we train one person on your team to do the AI work themselves. They don't sit through a course, they ship a real build for your company while we review their work. When they graduate, you've got your own AI person.
You're paying to own the capability instead of renting it: an in-house person who can build, maintain, and evaluate AI without a monthly agency bill, and who can act the day an idea comes up.

How the program works

  • A fixed 8-week program in a small group, five champions max, with a weekly 2-hour working session. Everyone ends on schedule, and new groups open as seats fill.
  • Up to 2 hours a week of our review time on their work in progress between sessions
  • The curriculum is taught by doing: the Claude platform first, then Claude Code (the builder's tool), plus automation tools, how to judge an AI vendor pitch, and the data and security ground rules from day one
  • At least 1 real build shipped by your champion for your own company, spec-approved by us before building starts and reviewed before it goes live. The build is the graduation exam and the proof you can point at (most champions ship two).
  • Graduation is demo day: your champion demos the live build to you, with it documented and running its own maintenance loop
  • Want it fully private? A 1:1 version of the program is available, all sessions one-on-one and starting any time, at $40,000

Don't have the person? We help you hire one.

  • Job description and skills profile for the role
  • Resume screening, plus a practical AI assessment for shortlisted candidates: we watch them actually work a problem, not talk about one
  • A seat in the final interview. You make the hire, and the program starts after their start date.

The price

  • $25,000 to train someone already on your team (group seat)
  • $30,000 if we help you hire the person first
  • $40,000 for the fully private 1:1 version
  • 50% at the start, 50% at program completion

A one-time program price, half at the start and half at graduation. Hiring help and a fully private version are available for a bit more. We'll walk the numbers together.

What you commit

Your champion needs roughly a day a week during the program. We say that out loud on the sales call, because a champion who can't get the hours is the number one way this fails.

How this differs from the other paths

  • "Train my team to use AI" is the Personal AI Agent Implementation stop on the Execute path. This trains one person to do the AI work itself.
  • "Run the whole thing for us" is Transform. Here, your person does it at their pace.
  • We review your champion's builds, we don't do them. Anything beyond their skill level gets quoted as its own project, and that's a feature: they'll know exactly what to hand off.
  • An HVAC company's office manager is already the unofficial "tech person." Eight weeks later she's shipped an automated dispatch summary and a review-request workflow, and she's the one fielding every new AI idea in the building.
  • An owner compares the math: a monthly engagement forever, a $90K+ specialist salary, or a one-time program that turns an employee they already trust into that person.
  • A company finishing a Transform engagement wants independence instead of another term, so we train their person to take over everything we built and documented.
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AI changes weekly, and a champion who stops learning is stale in a quarter. After graduation, a monthly program keeps your person current, so the investment you made in them holds its value.
The insurance policy on the upfront investment. AI moves too fast for a one-time training to hold value on its own, so your champion keeps learning after they graduate.

One simple plan, $2,000 a month per champion

  • A monthly 90-minute group session, virtual, with every other champion we've trained. Two parts: what changed in AI this month and what it means for their builds, then an open build clinic where champions bring what they're working on.
  • A monthly 60-90 minute one-on-one with your champion: review what they built, unblock what's stuck, plan the next builds
  • Access to us for questions along the way. Guidance is included; anything that turns into real build work gets quoted as its own project.

The structure

$2,000/mo per champion, one plan, part of the program from day one. It starts the month after graduation, six-month minimum, then month to month.

One simple monthly rate per champion with a six-month minimum. It's built into the program, because a champion who stops learning is stale in a quarter. We'll walk the numbers together.

  • A major AI platform update lands. At the group session that month, every champion learns what changed and what to update in their own builds, the same week.
  • A champion at a plumbing company hits a wall on an automation. She brings it to the build clinic and leaves with the fix, instead of the project stalling for a month.
  • An owner watches his champion's monthly one-on-one turn into a running roadmap: what shipped, what's stuck, what's next.

Not sure which path? Start with the AI Snapshot. It takes two to six weeks and starts at $1,000, and it ends with a one-page list of exactly what AI can do for your organization. Every path starts there anyway.