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The AI revolution is not only happening—it’s already here, and it’s happening faster than anyone could have imagined.
According to data from 2024 McKinsey ReportIndustries like skilled services are racing to embrace AI, transforming workflows, streamlining processes, and shaking up how services are delivered. That includes my home turf, law, where hourly billing has been a cornerstone for many years. But it’s not only the legal world that’s feeling the shakeup. Accountants, engineers, consultants—anyone whose livelihood depends on the billable hour—are facing the same seismic shift.
The query isn’t whether AI will revolutionize your online business; the query is the way you’ll adapt before it does. Ready to future-proof your online business? Here are three strategies to make AI your best asset, not your best threat.
1. Stop selling your time
The hourly fee model has been the gold standard for advisors and consultants for many years. It’s easy: the more hours you’re employed, the more you earn. However, this traditional approach is becoming increasingly outdated in the face of rapid technological advances.
AI tools can now perform tasks in minutes that previously took hours, effectively separating the value of labor from the time spent doing it. This shift undermines the very foundation of the hourly rate model—making it less reflective of the true value professionals bring. Your hard-earned experience and expertise can’t be reduced to hours logged. Value lies in the quality of your strategic pondering—not all the time in the clock ticking on your desk.
The solution? Switch to flat rates or success fees. This lets you leverage AI technologies to extend efficiency without reducing profits. Transitioning to a recent pricing model requires a clear understanding of historical data. Analyze past transactions to set a fair price for your services based on actual value delivered, not hours logged. If precise data is not available, start with an estimate and refine it through an iterative means of trial and error.
Attracting customers to this recent model involves emphasizing the predictability and transparency it offers. Customers will appreciate knowing exactly how much they’ll pay up front, avoiding the dreaded black hole of rising fees. This change is a strong selling point in today’s volatile economic environment, where corporations are trying to higher manage costs and avoid unexpected expenses.
This shift away from hourly rates isn’t just about adapting to AI; it’s about rethinking the way skilled services are priced and delivered. Moving away from the traditional hourly model allows us to supply more progressive and customer-centric solutions, resulting in greater customer loyalty and long-term business success.
2. Stop wasting beneficial time on administrative matters
Administrative tasks are the kryptonite of productivity. Every skilled knows the frustration of being buried under paperwork, emails, and other unpaid tasks. These tasks are needed, but they drain your most precious resource: time.
Generative AI and other advanced technologies can prevent from administrative purgatory. Why manually schedule meetings, create documents, or reply to basic customer inquiries when AI can do it in a fraction of the time? Here are some concrete examples of how AI can prevent administrative time and improve efficiency:
Automatic scheduling: AI-powered tools like Calendly, Microsoft Bookings, and Clara can automate meeting and appointment scheduling, handling rescheduling and cancellation requests without the need for manual data entry.
Documentation creation and management: AI tools like Grammarly, Jasper, and OpenAI’s GPT-4o can aid you create documents, generate rough drafts based on your input, and assist with editing and proofreading. They may show you where to focus your time and energy. Look at 100% Adoption Rate for Moderna Lawyers with Chat GPT and other generative AI tools. The future is now.
Email management: AI assistants like Google’s Smart Reply and Microsoft’s Cortana can aid you manage your email inbox by delivering relevant replies to emails, sorting emails into categories, and more.
Accounting and financial management: Accounting software like QuickBooks and Xero have now been enhanced with AI – allowing them to automate a number of accounting tasks, equivalent to categorizing expenses, reconciling bank transactions, and generating financial reports. AI may help with forecasting and budgeting, providing insights based on historical data and trends, helping you make informed financial decisions without spending hours on tedious math.
Customer communication: AI chatbots and virtual assistants like Drift, Intercom, and Zendesk can handle basic customer inquiries and support requests. These tools can immediately answer common questions, schedule follow-up meetings, and even escalate more complex issues to human agents if needed. This reduces the variety of routine inquiries that have to be handled manually, freeing up time for more critical tasks.
Data entry and evaluation: AI-powered tools like UiPath and Automation Anywhere can automate repetitive data entry tasks. These tools use robotic process automation (RPA) to extract data from disparate sources, enter it into systems, and ensure accuracy. Additionally, AI analytics platforms like Tableau and Power BI can analyze large data sets, generate insights, and create visual reports, reducing the time spent on manual data evaluation.
The key to successfully implementing these AI tools is training yourself and your team to make use of them effectively. You and your team will need to know the capabilities of each tool, integrate them into your workflows, and continually refine your processes. It’s also vital to maintain a human in the loop to confirm facts and ensure quality, ensuring that the results generated by the AI meet your standards and requirements.
There are countless online resources that may aid you grow to be AI savvy. Platforms like Coursera and Udacity offer courses tailored to different skill levels. YouTube is also a treasure trove of tutorials—I recently spent a holiday weekend diving into rapid access engineering through various YouTube videos. By investing time in learning these tools, you’ll be able to unlock their full potential and significantly improve your productivity.
Adopting AI tools will prevent countless hours and can help you redirect your energy to activities that generate revenue, acquire customers, or simply spend more time with your loved ones. Embrace these technologies and watch your administrative burdens decrease.
3. Give your employees extra support
Large organizations often face the challenge of managing a growing workforce. However, many of the tasks currently performed by employees might be augmented with AI. Start by conducting a comprehensive audit of your operations to discover areas where AI might be implemented. This can aid you streamline processes and think strategically about your workforce. For example, this audit can reduce the need for future hires by effectively managing growth without a corresponding increase in overhead. Supercharging your current workforce with AI also helps redefine job roles and frees up employees to focus on higher-value tasks and strategic initiatives.
Protecting customer information is key with any technology. Compliance with all applicable ethical guidelines is paramount. Many industry programs are designed to be certain that customer information is not passed back into the system, and multilingual models are continually evolving to boost data security. Your customers rely on you to guard their information, so it is vital to thoroughly review any software you employ to make sure it meets the highest standards of knowledge security and privacy.
Integrating AI into your operations may help create a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. Employees who see the advantages of AI in reducing their workload and increasing their capabilities are more prone to adopt these technologies. This acceptance can result in a more dynamic, forward-pondering organization that is continuously looking for recent ways to enhance and innovate.
The key to not being “eaten alive” by AI is proactive adaptation. Use the tools available to you, rethink your online business models, and streamline your operations. Remember: the future belongs to those that are able to innovate and evolve.