Part 1 - The Next Big Thing
Hey Prompt Entrepreneur,
At time of writing I’m back from holiday and raring to go.
Montenegro is amazing if you ever get a chance to visit.
Even so - I’m jazzed to be back to writing, recording and building. Here’s literally the first text I sent my business partner the moment I landed:
I’m super grateful that I have work that I genuinely want to do. Educating and implementing AI for business is the perfect “job” for me!
If you are looking for work that gives you this feeling then this playbook might be a step in that direction: how to become an AI expert.
Let’s get started:
The next big thing
- Consultancy companies are pivoting
- Plenty left for smaller outfits
- Be better than the average consultant
Right now there’s a huge opportunity in becoming an AI expert specialising in consultancy and advisory work for businesses.
AI is going to hit business in the same way the internet did. Businesses, industries and whole sectors who are unprepared will not survive.
As a result the smart companies are realising it’s time to get onboard with this whole “AI thing”.
And this means opportunity for those of us who know how to use AI in business settings.
This ain’t just me saying this. The BIG consultancy companies are all jumping on this.
Here’s a New York Times article on the shift that explains how massive the change is: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/26/technology/ai-consultants.html
If you can’t access the article here’s an important snippet:
The smart money is flowing hard and fast into AI. And the biggest consultancy companies in the world know this.
40% (!!!) of McKinsey’s business in 2024 is generative-AI focused. A focus that literally did not exist a couple years ago.
Here’s the rub though: not every company can afford McKinsey.
McKinsey, the company who just charged New York City $1.6m for a slide deck that suggested using bins rather than leaving trash on the street as a fix for the city’s rat problem.
In fact the vast majority of businesses cannot afford huge consultancy firms. McKinsey and similar companies work up in the top tier with FTSE100 and Fortune 500 companies. Big money, big contracts. And leaving the vast majority of the market to similar consultancy outfits.
This is where the opportunity lies for you. We don’t have to be McKinsey to do very well from this opportunity.
This playbook’s focus is on how to become an AI expert and how to get into consultation, advisory and implementation.
More than that though this Playbook will also counter my pet peeve about consultants.
When I was getting my MBA in New York I was around lots of consultants and even looked at moving into it myself. I’ve also had consultants come into my businesses and businesses I work as an advisor to.
What turns me off is the fact that many consultants talk the talk but do not walk the walk. They are great at giving advice that sounds valuable but it’s all smoke and mirrors.
Most (all??) consultants in the big consultancy firms haven’t actually started and grown their own businesses. So their advice comes from a theoretical place rather than one of experience.
Instead we are going to:
- gain AI expertise ourselves
- deploy our AI expertise
- then consult and advise using the expertise
This tweets sums it up for me:
We aren’t going to push services when we haven’t done it ourselves.
Bluntly : we’re not going to be bullshit artists. Shocking I know!
Through out the playbook I’ll talk about:
- how to acquire AI for business expertise
- how to deploy it on our own business
- how to publicly show that we know what we are talking about
Do this and doors will open.
An illustrative example.
I’ve publicly been an AI expert for less than a year.
Tomorrow I’m going to chat to Google about AI training and advisory.
Yes, that Google.
This is possible because the AI expert industry is very much in its infancy. Everyone (everyone) is scrabbling to work out what the future holds. And this means opportunity for you.
Sound good?
Couple of ways forward from here:
1.
Check to see if the AI Workshop Kit is open for applications - Workshops are the mechanism I personally use to open up clients for AI expert work (whilst getting paid $1000-4000/hour) - and now I’m licensing my workshop materials. Details and application here.
2.
More experimentally. I’m looking to put together a community of AI experts where community members can learn and build together. I’m currently surveying what people want this to look like - give feedback here to i) shape what the community will be ad ii) be the first to hear if/when this launches.
Keep working your way through the playbook and you’ll intuitively know what step is right for you.