Great news, your AI Consulting persona is…
The Executive
You’ve already got the business experience (and/or an existing client-service company) to ensure you can dive right into selling AI consulting services to new and existing clients.
We’ll hook you up with a service menu that you can plug directly into your current business, help you (and your team) skill up on AI, and ensure you have everything you need to launch a new line of service to future-proof your company.
As an executive, you’ve already built a client-service business and have identified that AI is the future—so your goal is to add AI consulting as a new line of service to your existing business. You may already have a team to help you—whether employees, contractors or a mix of both—and you have plenty of experience making sales to clients in tangential industries, such as web design, software development, marketing, finance, and other client-service industries.
Your challenge is crafting the service menu that will meet your clients’ needs, be relatively easy for you and your existing team to deliver, and dramatically improve your profitability and bottom line.
You’ll start by building your AI consulting service matrix, where we’ll walk you through a simple and powerful process for identifying up to 12 project types that you can plug directly into your current business. Then, we’ll help you pitch AI projects to your current clients, define or clarify your niche, and build a prospect list so that you and your team can rapidly expand your business into the new AI frontier.
Along the way, you can brush up on our human connection sales strategies, and learn how to use AI to dramatically improve the efficiency of processes you’ve probably been doing for years, such as writing proposals and case studies. In short, you’ll plug an entirely new (and already thoroughly tested) set of service offerings into your existing business, then we’ll help you optimize your business to thrive in the “lean and mean” AI-powered future.
Join us on Slack:
Share your persona when you intro yourself to the Slack community!
Where to start:
Before you start down your path you’ll want to make sure you’ve knocked out these onboarding steps below. They’re quick (about 20 minutes total) and they’ll make sure you’re plugged into everything this course has to offer: the Slack community, the live sessions, all the resources you need. Once you’re done here, you’ll jump right into your personalized path.
First – create your AI consulting services
Because you’re coming in with excellent tech skills and an existing business (or corporate experience), we recommend starting with a quick overview of exclusivity statements and the AI Consulting Service Menu. This will give you an idea of what you’ll be able to provide to clients, and you’ll be able to start brainstorming your offerings right away.
Next – launch in 7 days
Then, we recommend launching fast by pitching basic AI training and/or strategy sessions to your current clients, or “dormant” clients who worked with you in the past but haven’t used your existing set of services recently. (If you have trouble finding these types of existing contacts, you can also use your personal network to find your first gig.)
To see what other consultants are doing (with far less business experience than you already have), start with our lesson on Real-World AI Consulting Businesses (that you can build right now). Then it’s time to Score Your First Gig.
As an Executive, you’re past one-off wins. Now it’s about durable, compounding revenue. This lesson shows you how to package ongoing value as a VIP assurance plan that blends proactive improvements, reserved attention, and priority access, so clients stick, trust deepens, and your income becomes predictable.
Then, learn how to position and price a Fractional CAIO retainer—structuring proactive improvements, reserved attention, and priority access—while handling common objections and offering tiers that range from lean pilots to premium executive engagements.
Build your ethical framework
Knowing how to use AI will get you in the door, but understanding its impact on society will make you invaluable. This section explores the bigger questions you’ll face as a consultant: How is AI reshaping industries? What are the copyright implications? How do you spot and address bias? This chapter gives you the context and frameworks to navigate these complex human and ethical dimensions thoughtfully.
Run a tight ship
At the Executive level, operational bloat is the enemy. This lesson shows you how to build a lean, high-performing consultancy by standardizing a simple office stack (Google Workspace), a clean financial stack (QuickBooks + Stripe), and a disciplined hiring approach—while deliberately avoiding CRMs, complex branding, payroll, and mailing lists until you pass $100K. The result: fewer distractions, stronger margins, and a business that’s easier—and more enjoyable—to run.
(Optional) Build a lean legal framework
Cut through legal noise with a pragmatic toolkit built for consultants: when simple, repeatable tasks can be handled with services or AI, and when “strategic and high-stakes” issues warrant a specialist attorney. This lesson covers contracts that actually protect you (against disputes, late payments, and scope creep), how to engage client legal teams confidently, and how to safely use tools like ChatGPT to customize and refine your agreements without adding cost or complexity.
Specialize your AI skills & tech stack
If you’d like, you can take a detour from business and level up your AI skills a bit more – or team up with the other “techie” folks on the IWAI team and in our student community to talk shop and experiment with the most cutting-edge tools. Our AI Skills & Tech Stack lessons will give you the framework you need to make great recommendations to your clients, and to level up so you can build even more complex tools as you grow your business.
Then dive into building some real, ready-to-sell client projects, following the guides in our Build It Together series:
Explore the full curriculum
Once you’ve completed your customized Executive starter path, explore the 100+ in-depth lessons in our full curriculum — we guide you through every step in building a thriving consultancy.
Suggested: Learn more advanced tech builds
What to focus on:
- There is a shockingly large amount of revenue just sitting there waiting for you in your list of past clients and business contacts. Before you do any “cold” outreach, work through your entire list of dormant clients, former associates and current business contacts and offer them basic AI training or strategy services.
- Don’t worry about changing your whole business positioning yet — your AI consulting services can just be an extra page on your existing business website for now. Expand / refocus after you hit $100k in AI consulting revenue.
Common challenges:
- If you have a team at your existing business, don’t worry about training everyone to be an AI consultant for now. Consider AI consultancy to be a one- or two-person “side project” until you get to $50k in revenue, and then you can start transitioning other team members over to the new line of business.
- If you have a full project load right now, you may need to put in extra time beyond your normal workweek to get rolling with AI consulting—it’s worth it, because you’ll likely be achieving much higher effective hourly rates from your new line of services in a matter of months.
If you find yourself struggling with either of these issues, consider reviewing the following lessons to get yourself back on track:
How to win big: Aim to join the IWAI Directory
Score your first gig (or 10 gigs!) from your current client network, then expand into more advanced strategy and implementation services after you’ve mastered the art of giving a great AI training. Onboard your team (if you have one) or consider where you might hire help to scale up, while keeping your business as lean as possible.
When you’re ready to scale up your conversations with potential clients, level up with strong proposals that will lead to closing more deals.
Once you’ve successfully billed 2-3 clients yourself, you can also apply to be listed in our directory as a trusted, IWAI-approved consultant.
Not an Executive?
You might also be an Engineer (less advanced business skills) or a Strategist (less advanced tech skills). Or, you can retake the quiz.