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Rob Howard – The AI Consultancy Project
The AI Consultancy Project
If this helps you land just one client, it pays for itself.
BIGGER QUESTION
Can you use it to generate $250K per year in profit as a solo consultant without working full-time hours?
To say if it’s probable, I’d need to know more about you.
That said…
AI Consultants already invoice these kinds of rates:
$530
per hour
Helping Non-Technical People Learn Tech
$10,000 per month
Helping Agencies Implement AI
$175,000 per project
Solving Critical Business Challenges
These results aren’t typical – many don’t do this, while for others, it’s easy.
To understand why, we need to talk about the unique market conditions that make AI consulting the most open playground it’ll ever be right now. I’ll show you the data so you can judge it for yourself.
Then, I’ll share the 3 factors that make things unnecessarily hard for aspiring well-intentioned AI consultants.
Once you have that, I’ll show you the success framework I’ve tested with 600+ AI consultants. It’s all on this page – even if we never work together, you can learn it once, then use it forever.
First things first though – the reason why starting and growing your AI consultancy is the easiest it will ever be, is math. Specifically, the kind that smart people call “The AI Economy”.
Let’s get into it.
NEW DATA ON THE “AI ECONOMY”
“AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion in 2030, more than the current output of China and India combined”
-PwC’s Global Artificial Intelligence study: Sizing the Prize1
That’s a big number and if you read their research notes, you’ll find another interesting bit:
They identified ~300 AI use cases across 29 industries around the world.
(translation: it’s easy to specialize and win).
PwC authored the study – they’ve got 223,000 people in 157 countries, so it makes sense that they have such high visibility into this.
That said, they’re not the only ones who see it.
New research from the 1,300 analysts over at the International Data Corporation (IDC) found this:
Global AI Economic Impact: $19.9 trillion by 2030 2
Meanwhile, the folks at McKinsey did their own research, but focused solely on the economic impact of generative AI. After number crunching, they internally circulated this stat (before making it public):
$2.6 – $4.4 trillion across 63 AI use cases 3
To put these ginormous numbers in perspective, the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the United Kingdom in 2023 was $3.3 trillion. I could go on, but I think you get the idea:
The AI Economy is real and it’s not going away.
It was true in 2024 – and it’ll be even more true through 2030 and beyond.
It’s why Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and others keep dumping big tech money into it. Heck, not just tech giants. Non-tech businesses of all sizes too – small, medium, enterprise-level. Everyone’s either going all in or trying to get in on it.
And yes, as you’d expect, a rapidly growing AI economy directly translates to a growing economy for AI consulting services.
We don’t have to speculate though. I have the inside data on that for you too.
1 PwC. (2025). Artificial intelligence study: Global economic potential and impact.
2 IDC. (2024, September 17). IDC: Artificial intelligence will contribute $19.9 trillion to the global economy through 2030 and drive 3.5% of global GDP in 2030.
3 McKinsey & Company. (2023). The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier.
EVEN MORE RELEVANT: THE AI ECONOMY FOR CONSULTANTS
AI consultants can invoice ~$3.82 trillion by 2030
This data comes from a study by Future Market Insights (FMI)4 and for nerds like myself, the title is hot stuff:
Al Consulting Services Market by Use Case, Enterprise Size, Vertical & Region I Forecast 2023 to 2033
That’s relevant.
Also relevant is what the principal author and FMI managing director said when Yahoo! Finance started asking questions about it:
“the demand for specialized [AI] consulting services is rising as organizations seek guidance in effectively implementing AI solutions”
Translation: you’re not imagining things — the thoughts you’ve had about AI consulting are part of a larger quantifiable trend.
And, because there’s so much opportunity, it’s easier now than it’ll ever be to own a sizable slice of the ‘blue ocean’.
Blue Ocean is a reference to Blue Ocean Strategy, the 2005 business management book by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne (professors at INSEAD, a non-profit business school based in France with, fun fact, an endowment of €370 million).
The Big Idea: Do business in ‘blue oceans’ where there is no competition, as opposed to red oceans (i.e. ‘blood red’ because of the ‘business shark’ types out there).
Key Takeaway: In a blue ocean, demand is created instead of fought over — which allows for rapid and profitable growth.
Just ask yourself, which of these industries or areas of business have you already worked in?
Here, I’ve broken down the AI Economic Opportunity by 21 Industries and 9 Business Functions for you
Altogether, this gives you 189 different niches you could specialize in (assuming you picked from all possible combos of ‘industry’ and ‘business function’).
Now, let’s say you picked a niche with the ‘smallest’ opportunity. That would mean potential clients in that niche would collectively stand to gain $10 billion from AI, which they could use to pay your invoices over whatever time period you have in mind.
On the higher end, it’s closer to $100 billion.
Because of this, you could even ‘hyperspecialize’ further and still do well.
AI Consulting isn’t just for the ‘big teams of suits’.In fact, being smaller gives you an unfair advantage.
Think about it.
If you’re able to deliver measurable client results as a small team, or even better, as a solo consultancy (i.e. team of one), that in itself shows just how efficient and effective you are – which is exactly what they’d be hiring you to help them with.
On top of that, it allows you to stay nimble – adapting the latest in AI without ever getting stressed about it.
Before we go any further though, I need to be honest with you.
Those consulting rates are biased.
Yes, they’re real, but when it comes to these sorts of stories, especially when it comes to courses/programs about AI consulting (yes, even the one on this page), there is a bias I need to call out:
The Survivorship Bias (for AI Consultants)
This happens when you only look at those ‘who made it’ (survived) and ignore everyone that didn’t.
While those AI consultant stories are inspiring and helpful, it doesn’t tell you anything about how many people failed at trying to start their AI consultancy.
More importantly, it doesn’t tell you why they failed (and that makes your life harder because the hardest problem to solve is one that’s invisible to you).
Not here — I want things to be easier for you. I’ll share what those invisible problems are right now. That way, you can spend less time figuring it out, and more time helping people you’re inspired to help.
(In a bit, I’ll also share with you real-world examples from students in our program who are actively invoicing clients for AI consulting services)
Why Do Some AI Consultants Fail?
SPOILER ALERT:THEY’RE MISSING ONE OF THREE KEYS
(and the ‘get rich quick in AI’ folks weirdly never seem to detail this out…and that’s if they mention it at all ?)
I call them keys, but functionally, they work like the legs of a tripod.
Remove one leg, and it crumbles because that’s how physics work.
Heck, if even a leg is just a bit unstable, then it’s only a matter of time before gravity introduces your face to the floor.
That said, the keys also work like the infrastructure of a beautiful home — they serve as the invisible foundation that’s necessary for years, and even decades of stability.
And, once you see it, you’ll be able to spot it everywhere — even in the AI consultancy examples I shared earlier. You’ll also be able to spot what’s missing from any course, coaching, or program that says it can help you.
Missing Key #1 – AI Skills
What is this?
AI skills = capability on the technical side of AI. Generally speaking, there are 2 sides to it:
(1) Implementation – proficiency in using the right tool to do the right ‘job’, project, or task. (2) Strategy – this is understanding AI tech at a categorical level. This allows you to organize teams of AI tools, AI agents, and humans to work on more complex nuanced projects.
Symptoms:
Existing clients are dissatisfied
“I don’t know what AI tools or skills to specialize in”
Over-reliance on ‘general’ AI concepts
Cookie-cutter solutions
Overwhelmed by “all the AI tools and innovation”
Potential clients are skeptical
Part of this key is missing when…
You notice implementation gaps: an inability to ‘get the job’ done or the job is done but the results are poor and it’s not because the underlying AI model or tool lacks the capability.
You notice strategy gaps: if you run into a ‘blank page syndrome’ when trying to brainstorm what an end-to-end project might look like. Or, you’re not sure about when it makes sense to use AI, human intelligence, or a hybrid.
Missing Key #2 – Client Skills
What is this?
Clients skills are the capabilities needed to deliver your service.
They include but are not limited to:
✔︎ Diagnosing client challenges
✔︎ Communicating AI’s value
✔︎ Guiding clients through implementation
✔︎ Measuring results
Symptoms:
No clear measures or metrics of success
Clients disengage or resist consulting recommendations
Difficulty building trust and rapport
“Lost in translation” communication happens more often that you’d like
Part of this key is missing when…
Potential clients know you’re ‘good with AI’ but still won’t work with you
There’s misalignment between ‘need assessment’ and what gets ‘delivered’
You never feel comfortable asking for referrals because something just feels ‘off’
Clients are feeling ‘iffy’ about ongoing engagements
Missing Key #3 – Consultancy Skills
What is this?
The art and science needed to structure, market, and run a consultancy profitably, including creating systems for lead generation, pricing, and scalability.
Without it, you could be great at AI, and delivering client impact, but feel trapped for years, never ‘getting ahead’ because you haven’t structured your business to work for you, instead of you working for it.
Symptoms:
“Feast-or-famine” revenue cycles
Torn between constantly looking for clients and delivering results
Poor work-life balance – overworking and getting underpaid
“I don’t know what to do next”
Part of this key is missing when…
Services are undervalued – resulting in low profitability and burnout
No clear path or structure to retain clients over the long-term
These are the keys, and now that you see them, you can solve the deeper problem…
How Do You Become Exceptional At This?
Few cover everything you need to do AI consulting well, and even fewer are daily practitioners, using, living, and doing this stuff on the front-lines.
Here, at Innovating with AI, we live it.
We’re an intentionally small 100% remote team of consultants, and we’re here to help you rock this.
I’m proud of our team, and none of us would be here without our students, who we’re honored to help. And, after helping over 300 of them become AI consultants, it’s made it obvious that we’re in a very special time with AI.
Truth being told, AI has allowed me to create my own personal picture of freedom:
Using my skills to support great causes – like increasing the accessibility of the web for people with disabilities and vision impairment.
Expanding my client services so I can offer the best benefits, work-life balance and lifestyle to myself and my employees.
Helping my local community by investing tens of thousands of dollars in important (but underserved) neighborhood projects.
Fund major non-profit initiatives, such as donating $10,000+ to help women and people of color attend career-changing tech conferences.
Share my AI knowledge at schools, colleges and via free educational material so that everyone can start their journey in this new chapter of computing.
Through all of this, here’s what I’ve found:
Teaching, sharing and helping others is where my real growth and happiness comes from.
For me, the second act of my career isn’t about escaping the grind to tropical island, it’s about helping our students create the kinds of lives that bring them more fun, fulfillment, and freedom.
If that sounds like your kind of party, then I’m proud to share everything we’ve prepared for you to win in the world of AI consulting.
It’s all happening inside…
Picture this: you and I work closely in…
The AI Consultancy Project—our online program to engineer the required skills & systems for your $250K profit per year 1-person consultancy.
How The AI Consultancy Project Works
As an AI Consultancy Project member, you’ll receive 4 layers of support and guidance from me:
The AI Consultancy Project System
A human-crafted, step-by-step guide to specialized AI skills, exceptional client impact, and predictable business growth on your terms.
With 9 proven project playbooks, you’ll engineer the systems for your own $250K profit per year 1-person AI consultancy.
Weekly Coaching & Consulting
Get live and direct feedback from me and my team.
To help you move faster, I’ll pull from my professional experiences generating $1.9M from a single client relationship, receiving $1,600 per hour for a single consult, $115K for a single project, and routinely retaining clients for multiple years.
“Done with you” and “done for you” options are available.
The AI Consultant Community
Even if you’re a solo consultant, you don’t have to go it alone.
Nerd out and partner up with over 300 fellow AI consulting professionals – from emerging consultants to established fractional C-suite consultants.
Non-technical and advanced technical professionals are all here.
AI Consultancy Kits
Get unlimited access to our existing and growing library of AI Consulting Tools.
Proven proposal templates, AI presentation templates, business growth calculators, custom GPTs, client outreach scripts, authentic follow-up messages, are a small slice of what’s available.
Why? Practicality: To grow my own consultancy to $2M/year, I had to build a ton of this from scratch. No need for you to re-invent the wheel – just use what’s already proven and working.
To maximize your results, it makes sense to see everything you’ll get in each of them — let me show you.
The AI Consultancy Project System
9 project playbooks to specialize your AI skills, deliver client results,
and grow an AI consultancy (on your terms)
How the AI Consultancy Project System is different…
You’ll never fall behind: Unlike many courses, trainings, and curriculum that struggle to keep up with the ever evolving world of AI, The AI ConsultancyProject System is different.
Instead of overloading you with content or busy work – we created a comprehensive, always-up-to-date, and time-efficient set of project playbooks.
PROJECT SET 1
Plan & Launch
Launch in 7 Days
Create Your AI Consulting Services
Specialize your AI Skills & Tech Stack
PROJECT SET 2
Sell & Deliver
Meet 100 Solid Leads
Make Your First (or Next) 3 Sales
Repeat Your Revenue
PROJECT SET 3
Grow & Thrive
Run a Tight Ship
Multiply Your Growth
Eat Dessert First
Comprehensive: They give you the step-by-step of learning AI, specializing your AI skills, enrolling clients, delivering results, and building a business that serves you.
Always-up-to-date: My team and I are experienced software developers – we update the playbooks with the same consistency that we push software updates to any client project.
Time-Efficient: To strike the delicate balance between being comprehensive and time-efficient, you get a personalized learning plan. That starts with you taking our AI consultant persona quiz – a quick yet rigorous way to assess your existing business and tech skills.
At the end of it, you’ll discover your AI consultant persona, along with your personalized plan to make the most of the program.
That said, preview the playbooks for yourself to see the ones that will help you the most right now:
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Launch in 7 Days
Start enrolling clients with our ‘Minimum Viable Consultancy’ framework.
What You’ll Create
Your Exclusive AI Niche: Craft an exclusivity statement to position yourself as the higher-end trusted advisor to sophisticated long-term clients. Then, understand the AI tech needed to do it.
Client Interest: Generate leads—or even land your first paid engagement—through proven outreach strategies, your 1-page ‘AI Advisor’ website, and your first Intro to AI Seminar.
Your Minimum Viable Consultancy: Understand, use, and re-use your MVC as the foundation for future growth.
Why It Works
The Launch in 7 Days project is engineered to take you from zero to your first client fast.
Instead of endless videos, pointless PDFs, and ‘busy work’ exercises, we’ve meticulously crafted a step-by-step process focused on results.
Whether you’re new or experienced with either consulting or AI, you’ll design and deploy your ‘minimum viable AI consultancy’ – within days.
All of this can be done quietly and privately, which is perfect if you’re in a situation where being ‘too loud’ could mess with what you’ve got going on right now ;-).
How You’ll Get There
1 — Position Yourself as the Go-To AI Consultant
□ Craft your exclusive AI niche and positioning
□ Master key AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney
□ Align technical capabilities with client needs
2 — Build Your Online Presence
□ Launch your 1-page website using our template
□ Deploy the “one-two punch” outreach method
□ Implement lightweight lead tracking system
3 — Deliver Your First AI Seminar
□ Use our proven “Intro to AI Seminar” framework.
□ Demonstrate AI tools live.
□ Naturally convert attendees into paying clients with our “no pitch” approach
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Create Your AI Consulting Services
Define your ‘Menu’ of AI services to simplify client enrollment, increase retention, and grow client lifetime value.
What You’ll Create
A Bespoke Menu of AI Services: Structure your offerings into accessible and scalable options, from quick-start trainings to premium, high-impact projects.
Presentation-Ready Service Descriptions: Define the deliverables, benefits, and outcomes for each service, ensuring clarity and confidence in client conversations.
A Systematic Approach to Growth: Design services that naturally evolve from entry-level engagements to retainers, ensuring long-term client relationships and steady revenue growth.
Why It Works
Instead of creating a ‘one-hit wonder’ service or ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ overwhelming set of offers, here, we create your AI Consulting Service Menu.
This is a collection of your ‘free to premium’ services across an intentional set of delivery formats (e.g. training, strategy, implementation) using our AI Service Matrix framework.
This simplifies the process of defining, refining and presenting your entire suite of AI consulting services.
Done right, this increases client acquisition, retention, lifetime value and your measurable impact on clients.
It also helps you avoid common consulting traps like ‘feast or famine’ cycles, bandwidth-intensive custom projects, and having to be on an endless hunt for new clients.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Define the Building Blocks
□ Map your offerings across the Offer Ladder (from free to premium) and the Offer Suite (training, strategy, and implementation).
□ Leverage the AI Service Menu Framework to organize your services into categories clients can easily understand.
2 — Align Services with Client Needs
□ Identify which no-code/low-code AI tools (e.g., Zapier, Airtable, or ChatGPT workflows) can be integrated into your services.
□ Use case studies and discovery methods to refine your understanding of client pain points and tailor services accordingly.
3 — Package and Present
□ Craft descriptions for your entry, core, and premium offers, clearly outlining outcomes and benefits to appeal to various client budgets and needs.
□ Build a portfolio-ready example or mock service to showcase your offerings with clarity and confidence during client meetings.
□ Use our professional Proposal Templates to close higher-end client deals.
A lot of the academic courses really are academic, but [this] bridges the gap of turning [AI] into something usable for your own business and your clients [with] practical use cases.
[Another] good thing…is the balance of group and self paced work. In my own life, [I’m] busy with [my] primary day-to-day [work and sometimes] just need to take a little time out. [This lets] you can do that”
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Specialize your AI Skills & Tech Stack
Learn the Tools, Select Your Skill/Tech Stack, and Deliver High-Impact Solutions.
What You’ll Create
Your Custom AI Tech Stack: Build a personalized stack by selecting one tool in each core category (Automation, Data Storage, LLMs, Chatbots, and Dashboards).
Client-Ready Workflows: Design, test, and deploy AI-powered workflows that integrate your tools seamlessly into client projects.
Specialized Solutions: Adapt your tech stack to unique client needs, enabling you to deliver automation, AI chatbots, data solutions, and more.
Why It Works
Instead of spreading yourself thin, you’ll focus on mastering just one tool per category, building a practical AI Tech Stack that delivers real value to clients.
This takes you from ‘talking about AI’ to ‘doing AI’ in a way that aligns with your expertise and your clients’ needs.
Whether you’re a beginner or a technical pro, you’ll deepen your AI skills with curated guides, tutorials, and hands-on workflows designed to deliver measurable client impact—fast.You’ll build practical expertise while staying agile, adaptable, and ahead of the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Learn | The 5 Categories of AI Tools:
□ Automation: Tools like Zapier, Make.com, or N8N to automate workflows.
□ Data Storage: Platforms like Airtable, Google Sheets, Supabase, or Zapier Tables.
□ Large Language Models (LLMs): GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini, and other models.
□ Chatbot/Agent Builders: Solutions like BotPress, CustomGPT.ai, or Retool.
□ Dashboards & Visualization: Tools such as StackerHQ to showcase data insights.
2 — Build | Select and Integrate Your Tech Stack
□ Explore tool differences based on personas: low-tech workflows for Zapier users, high-tech workflows for tools like N8N.
□ Choose one tool from each category to create a manageable, client-ready AI stack.
□ Follow step-by-step tutorials, from beginner to advanced, to set up each tool.
□ Test and refine your tools with guided exercises to ensure they’re ready for client deployment.
3 — Deploy | Deliver Real-World Applications
□ Implement AI workflows for your clients using your custom tech stack.
□ Specialize your solutions by adapting your tools to specific client needs, such as automation setups, chatbot integrations, or data visualizations.
□ Monetize Your Stack: Package your workflows and tools into scalable, premium consulting services.
□ Stay ahead of the curve with emerging trends and ongoing updates to tools and tutorials through our continuously expanding library – AI agents, OpenAI o3, and more are already on our tutorial roadmap for 2025.
□ Optional: Submit a request for tutorials on specific tools not listed here.
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Meet 100 Solid Leads
Engineer a Predictable, Authentic, and High-Value Lead Generation System
What You’ll Create
A Proven Prospecting Framework: Develop a scalable system for identifying and qualifying potential clients, ensuring a steady flow of high-quality leads tailored to your niche.
A Curated List of 100 High-Potential Leads: Pinpoint and pre-qualify 100 solid prospects using a strategic approach that maximizes relevance and fit.
Personalized Outreach Materials: Craft persuasive, customized outreach messages designed to initiate meaningful connections with your ideal clients.
A Predictable Lead Generation Routine: Establish repeatable daily habits for prospecting that drive consistent results without overloading your schedule.
Why It Works
Clients choose to work with people they trust—and trust is built through connection, clarity, and proof. This project removes the stress from selling by showing you how to create meaningful conversations that naturally lead to sales (in a way that strengthens your reputation).
Instead of traditional high-pressure tactics, you’ll learn how to establish trust, showcase your skills, and deliver proposals that clients quickly sign and submit payments for – fast.
By the end of this project, you’ll have the system in place to enroll your first or next three clients, a repeatable sales process, and the confidence to predictably grow your consulting business.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Define Your Ideal Clients
□ Use the Rockstar Client Framework to identify and refine your target audience based on revenue potential, industry, and business characteristics.
□ Pinpoint decision-makers using AI-powered and non-AI tools for efficient contact discovery.
2 — Build Your Prospect List
□ Use our ‘plug and play’ prospect worksheet to track prospects – an elegantly simple system I’ve personally used to find long-term clients – the kind who work with me for years instead of just a few months.
□ Apply niche-specific search strategies that I’ve tested and proven over 10+ years of running my own consultancy.
3 — Craft and Execute Outreach
□ Write compelling, personalized emails using the One-Two Punch Email Method to elicit quick and meaningful responses.
□ Use our templates, scripts, and examples to send professional messages that inspire trust and sincere inquiries about your AI services.
4 — Evaluate and Optimize
□ Track responses and use the Client Feedback Loop to refine your messaging and targeting.
□ Implement lightweight CRM tools to organize follow-ups and monitor lead engagement.
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Make Your First (or Next) 3 Sales
Enroll Clients With Simplified Sales That Grow Trust
What You’ll Create
A Proven, Trust-Driven Sales Process: Learn zero-pressure sales techniques to build trust and address client objections.
Almost-Instant Proposals and Risk-Free Offers: Write fast, persuasive proposals that simplify client decision-making and reduce hesitation.
A Client Reputation Framework: Build your credibility through testimonials, case studies, and clear outcomes that showcase your skills.
Client Enrollment System: Use it to close your first or next three deals – build momentum for sustainable AI consulting.
Why It Works
However you sell, is how you’ll have to deliver. Rely on high-pressure sales to ‘push’ them to buy, and then you’ll be stuck using high-pressure persuasion to get through client delivery as well.
That’s the dirty secret the outdated sales gurus don’t want you to know and it’s exactly what this project will help you avoid.
Instead of high-pressure tactics that drain the life out of you and your clients, this project removes the stress from selling with meaningful conversations that naturally lead to sales.
You’ll also learn to showcase your skills, even if you’re just starting out, through hybrid portfolios, case studies, and testimonials that demonstrate your value.
With tools like almost-instant proposals and risk-free guarantees, you’ll help clients confidently say “yes” while building your reputation as a results-driven consultant.
By the end of this project, you’ll have your first three clients, a repeatable sales process, and the confidence to grow your consulting business without ever burning out.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Master the Zero-Pressure Enrollment Call
□ Use the Zero-Pressure Sales Framework to focus on client needs and build authentic connections.
□ Address client objections naturally and confidently, removing doubts without pushing for the sale.
2 — Create Fast, Impactful Proposals
□ Use the Almost-Instant Proposal Writing framework to deliver clear, actionable proposals within hours.
□ Integrate small, medium, and large pricing options to give clients flexibility while increasing conversions.
□ Offer risk-reversal tools, such as 30-day guarantees and quick-start bonuses, to eliminate hesitation.
3 — Build Your Reputation Early
□ Develop a hybrid portfolio by creating sample projects or showcasing early wins.
□ Gather testimonials and case studies from even small, initial projects to build trust and proof.
□ Learn how to position yourself as a consultant focused on outcomes, not credentials.
4 — Close and Deliver on Your First Projects
□ Use trust-based follow-ups to ensure deals move forward without feeling pushy.
□ Deliver results quickly, document your successes, and leverage those outcomes to attract your next clients.
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Repeat Your Revenue
Turn One-Time Projects Into Long-Term Partnerships
(and build sustainable revenue streams with 5 kinds of retainers)
What You’ll Create
A Hybrid Retainer System: Offer a mix of proactive services, reserved support hours, and premium perks to create irresistible retainer packages for your clients.
Custom Retainer Packages: Develop tiered options such as Maintenance and Upkeep, Strategy, and Premium Fractional Chief AI Officer retainers.
Respectful Boundary Agreements: Establish clear expectations and boundaries to ensure smooth client relationships.
Recurring Revenue Streams: Convert existing and new clients into long-term partners, providing stability and growth for your business.
Why It Works
Unpredictable cash flow aka the “feast and famine revenue cycle” is one of the biggest challenges consultants and consultancies face.
By offering tailored retainer packages to your clients, you’ll secure stable income, deepen client relationships, and reduce the constant need for new sales.
This approach ensures you can focus on delivering exceptional results while building a scalable and profitable consultancy.
Even if you’re experienced with retainers, we cover 5 types so that you can optimize, or upgrade your revenue continuity strategy altogether.
It also helps you avoid common consulting traps like ‘feast or famine’ cycles, bandwidth-intensive custom projects, and having to be on an endless hunt for new clients.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Build Your Retainer Offering
□ Learn the Hybrid Retainer framework, combining proactive services, reserved hours, and priority access to create value.
□ Design Maintenance and Upkeep retainers for routine support, Strategy retainers for high-level planning, and Premium retainers for comprehensive leadership services.
2 — Craft and Present Proposals
□ Use templates to communicate your retainer packages clearly and persuasively.
□ Highlight the risks of not having a plan, such as delays, higher costs, or lower service priority.
3 — Set Boundaries and Terms
□ Define clear terms, such as how hours are used, whether they roll over, and what constitutes billable time.
□ Use “What If You Don’t Sign Up” messaging to reinforce the benefits of retaining your services.
□ Use structured conversations and pre-negotiated options to close new retainer clients.
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Multiply Your Growth
1-to-Many Delivery: Scale Your Expertise, Increase Your Revenue, and Serve More Clients—Without Scaling Your Team.
What You’ll Create
Turn Your Expertise into Scalable Offers: Convert your existing client services—training, strategy, and builds—into group programs and “one-to-many” solutions.
Productize Your Deliverables: Create recurring trainings, bootcamps, and workflow “in a box” solutions that maximize your impact without multiplying your time ‘on the clock’.
Master Group Delivery: Develop systems to confidently teach and engage multiple clients at once, ensuring a high-value experience that generates repeatable revenue.
Why It Works
Scaling your consultancy doesn’t mean scaling your team—it means scaling your time and expertise.
In this project, you’ll learn how to transform your existing services—trainings, strategy sessions, and builds—into scalable “one-to-many” offers that allow you to serve more clients, maximize your profitability, and reclaim your time.
We’ll show you exactly how to design, price, and deliver group trainings, bootcamps, and workflow products so you can multiply your impact while maintaining the premium experience your clients expect.
At this point, you will have mastered delivering exceptional value in one-to-one client engagements. Now, it’s time to take that expertise and scale it without burning out or hiring a massive team.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Identify Your One-to-Many Opportunities
□ Map out your service matrix to pinpoint which trainings, builds, or strategy sessions can be transformed into group formats.
□ Learn the difference between recurring memberships, bootcamps, and workflow products—then decide which approach fits your audience.
2 — Design and Price Scalable Offers
□ Use our Scalable Offer Planning Calculator to determine pricing, capacity, and delivery formats for group trainings, bootcamps, and productized solutions.
□ Build small, exclusive group sessions (5-10 clients) as your first step to scale while maintaining a high-quality, personalized experience.
3 — Deliver High-Value Group Experiences
□ Learn to effectively teach live group sessions, balancing content delivery and individual attention to build trust.
□ Offer recordings and resources to add long-term value while making the process seamless for participants.
4 — Productize and Sell Workflow Solutions
□ Identify repeatable, no-code or low-code workflows (e.g., AI automations) to package as “workflow in a box” products for clients.
□ Learn to scope and price productized builds, reducing delivery time while increasing profitability.
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Run a Tight Ship
Eliminate Overhead, Reduce Stress, and Maximize Your Cash Flow
What You’ll Create
Simplify Your Business Tech Stack: Set up the exact tools you need to run your consultancy efficiently and eliminate the ones you don’t.
Create a Simple Financial System: Establish a financial process that makes bookkeeping, paying yourself, and managing taxes effortless.
Streamline Your Hiring Process: Build a clear system to decide when and how to hire your first team member—without adding unnecessary overhead.
Why It Works
Complexity kills consultancies.
Early warning signs? Burning time, money, and energy on unnecessary tools, hires, and financial systems.
As someone that’s been both a solo consultant and responsible for 20 employees, I know first-hand how to stay lean, and how to scale up, all while protecting profit margins and quality of life for not just myself, but everyone I work with.
In this project, I’ll show you how to simplify operations while ensuring your consultancy is profitable and sustainable as a 1-person consultancy (and beyond).
You’ll establish lean systems for running your office, managing finances, and preparing for future growth. By cutting what you don’t need and setting up what you do, you’ll free up time, reduce complexity, and eliminate burnout—putting you on a path to long-term success.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Build Your Simple Office Stack
□ Identify the essential tools to manage emails, documents, and client projects without cluttering your workflow.
□ Use our Tech Stack Guide to set up Google Workspace, QuickBooks, Stripe, and password managers like 1Password—no more, no less.
2 — Design Your Lean Financial System
□ Learn how to separate personal and business finances with a simple checking account, credit card, and bookkeeping system.
□ Follow the Monthly Payout Workflow to pay yourself consistently while setting aside taxes and avoiding cash flow stress.
3 — Simplify Hiring Decisions
□ Adopt the Before You Delegate, Eliminate mindset to clear unnecessary tasks first.
□ Use our Simple Hiring Framework to determine the right time to hire and which role (e.g., bookkeeper, assistant) should come first.
4 — Cut What You Don’t Need Before $100K
□ Eliminate distractions like CRMs, project management tools, advanced bookkeeping, and payroll until they’re truly necessary.
□ Focus on getting clients and growing revenue—not “busy work” systems.
PROJECT PLAYBOOK
Eat Dessert First
Design Your ‘Freedom Business’—Eliminate The Risk of Burnout and Maximize Quality of Life
What You’ll Create
Define Your ‘Life Rocks’: Identify your most important life goals (family, travel, health) and set measurable milestones to achieve them.
Set Clear Client Expectations: Establish a system for mutually respectful boundaries that protect your time while delivering exceptional results.
Eliminate Burnout Risks: Learn strategies to prioritize your well-being and avoid the pitfalls that derail most consultancies.
Why It Works
Here, you architect your business for freedom without compromising your life rocks—the relationships, health, and all that brings you fulfillment in life.
No more being chained to a chair, disrupted sleep, burn out, or sacrificing time with loved ones.
The codeword for that is called failure and to that I say, not on my watch.
In the Eat Dessert First project, I’ll walk you through my framework and principles that allowed me to take a 2-week vacation and coming back to $500K+ worth of booked revenue within 4 weeks of being back in my virtual office.
By the end of this, you’ll redefine success on your terms, put healthy, unapologetic boundaries, and unlockthe most priceless win of all—a guilt-free peace of mind.
How You’ll Get There
1 — Redefine Your Metrics for Success
□ Identify what enough looks like for you—financially, personally, and professionally.
□ Use the ‘Life Rocks’ Worksheet to define categories (e.g., family, health), measurements, and frequencies that reflect your goals.
2 — Set Expectations—Not Boundaries—with Clients
□ Learn to replace boundaries with mutual expectations for client relationships.
□ Define commitments like turnaround times, response windows, and “no fire drills” policies to keep projects stress-free.
3 — Protect Against Burnout with Systems
□ Develop practical habits to maintain energy, such as work shutoff times and optimized weekly schedules.
□ Avoid common traps like hustle addiction and survivorship bias that push consultants toward burnout.
4 — Build a Business That Turns Off
□ Learn how to tier your services and implement premium “rush fees” for clients who require more access.
□ Create a plan to scale sustainably without sacrificing your ability to stop working.
This Is A Lot. That’s Why We Create a Personalized, Time-Efficient, Learning Plan For You
The 9 project playbooks can feel like an overwhelming amount of content – that’s why, when you join, we’ll give you a learning plan that’s like ‘Google Map directions’, but for growing your AI consultancy.
To make sure it’s accurate, first we invite you to take our AI Consulting persona quiz — a quick and effective needs assessment of your AI, client, and business skills.
Then, we use those data points to create your personalized learning plan that protects your time. Instead of going through each playbook sequentially, you’ll have a custom path that fits your needs. Also, like Google Maps, we can update the plan based on ‘new stuff’ that comes up on your journey.
All of this helps to answer two big questions that often cost folks a lot of time in these kinds of programs:
“Where do I begin?”
“What should I do next?’
In the AI Consultancy Project, you’ll focus on projects that matter the most for you right now — whether that’s learning the technical side of AI, client delivery, or growing your consulting business.
That said, playbooks aren’t the only thing we’ve created to help you move faster.
The Coaching & Consulting Philosophy Behind The AI Consultancy Project
At Innovating with AI, we’ve been in your shoes.
As fellow consultants, we know what it’s like to balance full-time 100% remote roles with a full family life – sometimes with crazy lovable pets barely hidden in the blurry background of our home office, living room, or kitchen.
While we’ve all achieved the kind of material success that allows us to enjoy guilt-free family vacations, it’s also led us to two very personal discoveries:
(1) Teaching, sharing and raising the people up around us is more fulfilling than any financial marker of success. Real growth and happiness comes from helping others.
(2) Business success is just a way to help as many people as possible.
That’s why, in a business world that’s often driven by profit and ‘cutting back’ – we ask ourselves a different question. How can we help even more?
That led us to come up with…
4 Layers of Live Support
LIVE COACHING: PERSONALIZED FEEDBACK
Dedicated live calls to get feedback on your AI consultancy projects – from specializing your AI skills, to client delivery, and growing your business.
LIVE COACHING: TECH IMPLEMENTATION OFFICE HOURS
Dedicated live calls where you can ask all your tech, implementation, and building questions. No question is too ‘beginner’, and no question is ‘too advanced’.
CONSULTING:
DONE FOR YOU IMPLEMENTATION
Dedicated hours from my team of senior developers to actually code, build, implement, or provide a “Chief Technical Officer” perspective on a major problem, solution, or opportunity.
CONSULTING:
ADVANCED ADVISORY
Consulting calls for advanced and/or privacy sensitive topics. These can be used to address everything from HIPAA compliance, ‘C-Suite only’ business issues, and NDA-level material.
It’s not just about ‘what’ we’ll do together though.
For coaching and consulting to be transformational, the ‘who’ you co-create results with is just as important. That’s why I’m proud to introduce you to the folks who’ll be by your side at every step of the way.
The bottom-line for you
Whether you’re new or experienced in the tech or business of AI consulting, we have decades of combined expertise to answer every question.
Growing your consultancy isn’t just about getting answers though. In our experience, we’ve found that there’s another secret element that inspires our students to create a consultancy they’re proud of.
That, my friend, is community.
The AI Consultant Community
Nerd out and partner up with over 300 fellow AI consulting professionals – from emerging consultants to established fractional C-suite consultants.
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$1,000.00Original price was: $1,000.00.$207.00Current price is: $207.00.
The AI Consultancy Project—our online program to engineer the required skills & systems for your $250K profit per year 1-person consultancy.
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