The number you call
You call your lawyer about legal questions and your accountant about tax questions. For software and AI, most owners have nobody to ask except the person selling it. I am who you call instead. And unlike your lawyer, when the answer turns out to be that something has to get built, or that your people need showing how to use these tools, I can go and do it. The first call is free and I spend it learning your business. After that it is $500 an hour, whichever of those it turns out to be.
What to call about
The one that comes up most is the contract. Somebody has quoted you, the salesman has answered every objection, and there is nobody in the room who does not get paid if you buy.
Should I be using AI for this. My competitor says he automated his intake, is that real. My office manager wants a new system, do we actually need one. Or nobody is selling you anything at all and you read something about AI and want to know what it comes to for a business like yours. You ask, I answer. Some of these take five minutes.
Send me the proposal, the contract, the statement of work. I read it and tell you on the phone what it actually commits you to, what is missing from it, and which parts you are already paying for somewhere else.
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, whichever one. I sit with the people who do the work and show them what it is genuinely good at for their job and what it will get wrong. Often that is the cheaper answer than buying anything, because you are probably already paying for one of these and nobody is using it.
I join the demo with you and ask the things you do not know to ask. Booked in advance rather than on the spot, because I need to read up first.
How it runs
The point of the free call is that the paid ones are short. If I already know what you run and who does what, you can call me with the actual question and get an answer inside a quarter hour.
Free, thirty minutes, and it is not advice. The form asks three things: what the business does, how many people, and what is on your desk right now: a quote you are looking at, a system somebody wants to replace, or just something you have been wondering about. I spend it learning what you run and who does what, so that when you call in eight months I am not starting with twenty minutes of background.
I tell you what is worth calling me about and what is not. Then you have my cell, and the terms in writing.
My hours are 8am to 5pm Pacific, weekdays. If you are in New York that is 11am to 8pm. If the phone rings in those hours and I am free, I pick up. Sometimes I am already on a call, and outside those hours I am not going to promise to answer a phone I am asleep next to. What I do promise is a call back the same business day. And if it is genuinely urgent and your morning starts before mine, text me before my hours and I will call you as soon as I am up. That is not a promise about every call, it is a promise about the ones that cannot wait.
I say the time and the number out loud before we hang up, and the card gets charged that day. Then a few lines in writing, same day, at no charge: what you asked, what I told you, what to do next. If part of the answer is that somebody in your office has to go and switch something on, the note says what to switch on, where to find it, what order to do it in, and what to check afterwards. It goes to them as well as to you.
What that looks like
This one is made up. Compical is new and I have not done it for a plumbing company yet. I am showing you the shape of the note so you know what you are buying before you buy it.
And if you already bought one
Also made up, for the same reason. This is the call that comes in more often than the other one, and nobody wants to make it.
What this is not
What I put at risk
Compical is new and I am taking my first clients now. I would rather say that than have you work it out. I cannot point you at one company like yours that I have already done this for, never mind ten. What I can do instead is put something of mine at risk on every single call, which is what the three commitments below are.
No referral fees, no reseller margin, no commission from a vendor. Nobody pays me to point you at their product. If the answer is that you already own the fix and somebody needs to turn it on, that is the answer you get, and the call ends there.
You hang up, you decide the call was not worth what I charge, you tell me. I do not send the invoice, and you do not have to argue about it. That is on every call, not once at the start. It is about calls. Work you have asked me to build is quoted and paid for before I start it, and that is a different arrangement.
If I tell you a contract is clean and you find out later that it commits you to something I missed, call me. I get on the phone with you and with the vendor as many times as it takes to sort it out, and none of that time is billed. That is not a refund of the call. That is me working the problem I caused.
Start here
The first call is free and takes thirty minutes. I use it to learn what you run and who does what, so the paid calls are short. I am not selling you anything on it, because there is nothing to sell you yet.
Already bought one and it is not doing what he said it would? That is a call too.
Book the free first call