You just finished Business Is Changing. Are You? — Matt Williams' plain-spoken guide to growing a business with AI instead of being replaced by it. This page is the next step: two simple ways to put the book to work in your business.
Start a conversation↗Reader resources · Business Is Changing. Are You?
Door one, and the one we recommend first: the Free AI Audit. Eleven quick questions, about three minutes, no sign-in. You get a scored report showing where your business systems may be missing opportunities — and what to examine first. It is the book's whole argument, run on your business instead of somebody else's. Take it today at theagencyllc.net/free-ai-audit.
The book opens with missed calls and what they cost. The audit checks how your calls get answered — after hours, at lunch, when the crew is out on a job — and what a caller who cannot reach you does next.Explore AI Phone & Receptionist →
Customers ask the same questions every day. The audit looks at how fast, and how well, your business answers them — and what happens to the questions nobody answers at all.
Follow-up is where good leads go quiet. The audit examines how new inquiries are captured, how fast they hear back, and whether anything falls between the cracks.
Every company has one person everybody goes to — and knowledge that lives only in their head. The audit asks where your team's answers live, and what happens on the day that person is out.
The repeat work: copying between tools, chasing appointments, typing the same information twice. The audit flags the tasks your people repeat every day that a system could carry instead.
Agents that act within rules — booking, routing, drafting — with a person approving what matters. The audit looks for a defined job an agent could safely take off your plate.
Sometimes the shelf tool almost fits. The audit notes where your workflow is unusual enough that something built around it would pay for itself — and where it honestly would not.
The backdrop, from the book
24%
of small employers surveyed by NFIB reported using AI for business activity in its 2025 technology survey.
The survey covered employers with at least one employee. Adoption figures depend on who is surveyed and what counts as AI; this is not a claim about every business.
NFIB · Small Business and Technology · June 2025 ↗15%
more issues resolved per hour, on average, with AI assistance in a study of 5,172 customer-support agents.
The results varied across workers. This was one company's support setting, not a guaranteed productivity gain for your team.
Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond · Quarterly Journal of Economics · 2025 ↗02 / AI customer service
In the book, Matt tells the story of the day the front-desk person called in sick — and the whole company's knowledge was suddenly unavailable. A useful assistant fixes that: answers built from your services, your policies and your prices, approved by you, with a person stepping in whenever an answer is not certain.
Gather the answers your team gives every week — services, hours, prices, policies — into one approved place. That single habit is worth more than any tool you could buy this year.
Complaints, exceptions and uncertain answers go to a person, every time. The goal was never fewer people. It is people freed for the work only people can do.
03 / AI sales
The book's follow-up chapters make one point: the business that answers first, and keeps answering, usually wins the job. Systems can organize inquiries, prepare what you need to know, and remind you before a lead goes cold — the relationship stays yours.
And when somebody says no — or asks you to stop — you stop, right then and for good. Good follow-up respects the answer. That rule is in the book, and it is how we work.
04 / AI business assistants
An internal assistant lets your team ask where things are, how a job is done, what a document says — and get the approved answer in seconds. For a growing business, that is the difference between knowledge that scales and knowledge that walks out the door.
Permissions come first: the assistant only ever shows a person what they are allowed to see. Ask us how we build that in — it is the part most tools skip.
05 / Automation
Eleven questions, about three minutes. You get a scored report on where your systems may be missing opportunities — free, and yours to keep either way.
If the report finds something worth fixing, start a conversation. We do our homework before we talk, so the first call is about your business — not a sales pitch.
Pick one useful job, build it, and measure it against your numbers. Small, testable, and owned by you — the same first step the book recommends to every reader.
06 / AI agents
The newest chapters of the book are about assistants that act, not just answer. An agent can prepare a follow-up, route a lead, or draft tomorrow's schedule. It acts within rules you set — and it shows its work.
In the book, an AI once reported a project finished that was not finished. Everything an agent does here is logged and reviewable, and nothing important happens without a person's approval.
One job done well beats ten jobs done almost-well. We widen the scope only after the first one earns it.
07 / Custom AI systems
The book also tells the demo story: a beautiful presentation, an impossible setup, and nothing worked. Shelf software fails that way more often than vendors admit. When your work is genuinely different, a system built around it — on your accounts, owned by you — can be the honest answer.
And when the shelf tool is fine, we will tell you that instead. Business first, technology second is not a slogan here; it is the order we work in.
Door two
Not an audit person? Fair enough. If you would rather describe your business in your own words and hear what Matt thinks, start a conversation. It is a few quick questions — about sixty seconds — so the first real talk is prepared, not generic.
Use the Start a Conversation button, or call (425) 504-7900 and ask for Matt. Mention the book — he will know exactly where you are in it.
Start a conversation↗
Keep listening
Scale with AI is The Agency's daily podcast for business owners — what is changing, what it means, and one thing to do about it. It is the book, continued a few minutes at a time. Find it on this site's podcast page, or wherever you listen.
New episodes every day. Start with whichever title sounds like your week.
Business is changing. Are you?
Take the free audit, or start a conversation. Either way, the next step is a look at your business — with your numbers, not a template.
Start a conversation↗