Turn on what you already pay for
Your field-service, dental or accounting software ships AI features. Most are switched off.
Nick Bryant · AI implementation for small business
You don’t need a software team. You need a company that can hand work to agents.
I help $1mm to $10mm service businesses move the manual work eating their margin to software, and train their own people to run it.
Then
First the process-driven company.
Write the procedure, hire someone to follow it. The call becomes a ticket, the ticket a quote, and the quote waits on one person.
Now
Now the agent-driven company.
Agents do the repeatable part of each handoff. A named person still owns every outcome. The software mostly exists; what’s missing is someone inside who can run it.
Who does the work
Your ops lead is your next solutions architect.
The person who knows where every job gets stuck is already on your payroll. I train them to design the fix, set up the agent and own it after I leave.
How it works
One fix at a time, with a number and a kill switch.
Diagnostic
Three to five fixes, ranked, each with a dollar estimate and a cost cap.
One pilot
One fix, one number it has to move, a spend cap. I measure the baseline first.
Keep, scale or stop
If the number moved, we scale it. If it didn’t, we stop at the cost we capped.
Keep it running
Your people run it. Then we pick the next one.
What I build
Cheapest option first. Build last.
Buy the proven tool
If someone sells the fix for a monthly fee, that beats anything I’d build.
Connect the systems you have
Enter a job once. The CRM, the schedule and the invoice agree.
Build the agent on top
Only when nothing off the shelf works, with a person who owns what it does.
An AI chief of staff
On your Slack and email. It tracks who promised what, drafts the follow-ups and preps the weekly meeting.
Example
Anything I promised this week that hasn’t happened?
Two. You told the Oak Street customer a revised quote by Friday; it isn’t sent. The draft is ready for you to check.
And you said you’d call back the supplier about the late parts. Want me to put it on your calendar for 9am?
Yes. Send the quote after I read it.
What it costs you
Mostly time, and less of yours than you’d think.
What I won’t do
- Sell you a transformation program.
- Bill by the hour.
- Leave you needing me to keep it running.
- You
- Two hours up front, then fifteen minutes a month.
- Your ops lead
- Four to six hours a week, on paid time. This is who I train.
- One number owner
- Fifteen minutes a week reporting one number.
- Cash
- Tools billed monthly and capped. My fee is fixed per stage, in writing.
I started in robotics, with internships at NASA Ames and Lockheed Martin, then spent fifteen years building software at startups. I co-founded SMB Investor Network and invest in small businesses through Search Fund Ventures, where I do this work inside the companies we back.
Tech-Enabled Operator is that work, written down. It fits owner-led service businesses: HVAC, landscaping, dental, distribution, light manufacturing, professional services.
How I think about it
From the operations desk
Start with the checklist.
Seven questions to answer before you add a tool, an agent or a vendor. It is the same first step I run with every company.