In Sextas Ímpares #148, I talked about this shift in how we run service businesses. A tool that generates a report, a design draft, or a data summary in minutes changes the equation: the client never paid for the time you spend working, they paid to solve a problem without having to worry about the process.
Separate what technology absorbs from what still needs human judgment
To rethink a service, you need to look at every step of the process and figure out where automation shortens the time and where it still needs someone experienced to validate it. This separation stops you from charging as if you still did everything by hand when part of the work already runs at a different pace.
In the lecture, I mentioned the reduction of operational work in internal processes, where reports that used to take a full day got done in a Friday morning. But generating text faster doesn't validate the data at the source, doesn't confirm whether the numbers make sense for that specific business, and doesn't replace the critical reading of someone who has already seen dozens of similar situations.
Imagine, hypothetically, an agency that produces weekly traffic reports. Pulling metrics and building charts can become almost automatic. But figuring out why a campaign dropped 15% in a given week still requires someone who knows the business and the client's market. That's where the value concentrates now.
Before you touch your proposal, run this exercise:
- Data collection and organization: platform connections, metric extraction, meeting transcription.
- Initial processing: pattern detection, summaries, first drafts of reports or materials.
- Critical review: confirming the numbers make sense, catching errors the tool doesn't see.
- Advice and decision-making: what to do next, with what priority, with what risk.
The first two stages are, in many cases, faster today. The last two still depend on you.
Build recurring retainers instead of relying on one-off projects
If your business lives off closing one-off projects, you're always under pressure to find the next client. A recurring retainer model gives you predictability and lets you absorb better a client who takes months to show returns, because you know the relationship doesn't end after the first month.
In the lecture, I talked about businesses designed to generate value over time with the client, not just through a single isolated delivery. If you depend only on new contracts every month, you end up accepting misaligned clients just to fill your schedule, which usually costs you dearly in burnout.
To shift from one-off projects to retainers, there are three things to settle with the client from the start:
- What's included in ongoing support, not just in the initial delivery.
- How long it takes to calibrate the process before consistent results show up.
- How often there are touchpoints to review priorities.
Put in writing what's included, what depends on the client, and how you're going to review the work. When a question comes up, that agreement helps you see what was agreed and what needs to be discussed again.
If you want to work better on how these clients come in, it's worth revisiting how to turn more leads into clients without dropping your price at the first objection.
What still justifies hiring someone experienced
Having access to the same tools you do doesn't turn a business owner into a marketing, traffic management, or data analysis specialist. Most clients don't want to learn how to use these tools, they want someone who already knows where the common mistakes are and what usually works.
I talked about this in the session on the value of follow-through and vision over the project: whoever runs a store, a factory, or a sales team doesn't have the time or interest to test AI models every month. They hire someone for that the same way they hire an electrician instead of learning to do the wiring themselves.
Explain which decisions you will help the client make, what work you will handle and how you will assess the delivery together. Use examples you know and can explain, including the limits of what you did. The article on using AI in business beyond the chatbot develops this connection between tools and concrete work.
Use the capacity you've gained carefully, without inflating costs
Gaining time with tools isn't an automatic invitation to hire more people or take on more projects with thin margins. The priority, first, is to understand whether that capacity translates into better delivery, better margin, or simply more free time you don't yet know how to use.
Over the years, I've managed cash flow tightly more times than I'd like, and I learned to value having a few months of operating costs set aside before investing or hiring. When something saves you time, the first instinct shouldn't be "let's hire another person right away," but rather confirming whether margin per client has actually improved consistently.
Before expanding your team or your catalogue:
- Review subscriptions and tools nobody uses anymore.
- Only hire when the current team is genuinely stretched, even with processes optimized.
- Confirm the time saved shows up in margin, not just in shorter deadlines you gave away to the client for free.
To think through team structure and costs better as the business grows, the article on growing an online business and managing margin develops this point in more detail.
Put in writing what's included and what isn't
Without clear boundaries, every gain in speed turns into more requests, more revisions, and more expectation of an immediate response. If the client sees that a response takes minutes to generate, they assume they can ask for changes at any time at no extra cost, and that wears the team down fast.
A clear proposal avoids most of this friction, but not all of it. Still, it's worth spelling out:
- Which channel is the official one for communication, and what doesn't count as a valid channel.
- How much time the client has to give feedback before delivery moves forward.
- What counts as an informative report and what counts as a decision-making meeting.
- What happens if the client delays sending access or data.
None of these rules prevent conflicts, but they reduce the ambiguity that usually creates most of them.
Accept that not every client fits your process
No method solves a contract with a client who lacks the maturity to collaborate. In my experience with mentoring and services, I apply a simple rule: I deliver my part with maximum commitment, but I can't do the part that belongs to the client, like providing data, making decisions, or granting access on time.
Signs that usually predict problems:
- Expectations of fast returns without a budget or a minimal sales process.
- Lack of respect toward the team already in the first conversations.
- Refusal to share essential data or access.
- Excessive focus on secondary aesthetic details instead of business priorities.
Filtering out these cases before signing saves wear and tear, even if it means turning down immediate billing. If you want to structure this commercial filter better, the article on qualifying B2B opportunities before reaching out covers this in more depth.
Technology will keep shortening mechanical tasks, but the decision about what to do with that gained time is still yours. If you want to rethink your offer and your business positioning, check out our services for online businesses.