Three Things to Do Before Hiring an AI Consultant

If you’re thinking about bringing in an AI consultant, a little preparation will make the engagement significantly more effective — and help you evaluate whether the right person is in front of you.

1. Write Down Your Top Three Workflow Headaches

Before any conversation, spend 15 minutes writing down the three processes in your business that consume the most time, cause the most errors, or frustrate your team the most. These are your raw material. A good consultant will help you figure out which ones AI can actually help with — but they need something to work with.

2. Estimate the Time Cost of Each Problem

For each headache, roughly estimate: how many hours per week does this consume? Multiply by an hourly cost (salary + overhead). This gives you a baseline ROI number. It doesn’t need to be precise — a rough estimate is enough to have a meaningful conversation about whether a project is worth it.

3. Know What You’ve Already Tried

If you’ve experimented with tools like Zapier, HubSpot, or an AI chatbot before, know what happened and why it didn’t stick. This tells the consultant where the real resistance is — technical, organizational, or both — and prevents them from proposing something you’ve already rejected.

Armed with these three things, a 30-minute discovery call becomes genuinely productive instead of exploratory. You’ll be able to tell within the first 10 minutes whether the consultant is asking the right questions.

Want to put this preparation to use? Book a free call.