Accelerating Growth

Prompt of the Week: “Act like my Revenue Coach”

This week’s prompt highlights how AI can help you in your quest to drive more revenue.

Why it works:

Unlike a Google search, this prompt gives you advice tailored to your business, your audience, and your situation. You’re not just reading a list, you’re getting a revenue coach in your pocket.

Example for a Roofing Company:

1. What do you sell?

   Residential roof replacement and repair services, plus free storm-damage inspections.

2. Who are your customers?

   Homeowners in the Denver metro area, ages 35-65, mid- to upper-income.

3. What have you tried so far?

   • Word-of-mouth referrals

   • Small Google Ads test ($300)

   • Occasional Facebook posts

One-Week, Free-or-Low-Cost Growth Plan

Day 1:

• Fully update Google Business Profile: add 10 before-and-after photos, request five recent customers to leave reviews, set “Booking” link to contact form (45 minutes)

Day 2:

• Post a 60-second “How to spot hail damage” tip video on Facebook, Instagram, and Nextdoor; invite viewers to book free inspection (1 Hour)

Day 3:

• Join three HOA Facebook groups, answer homeowner roof questions for 20 min, add a helpful comment with free inspection link (30 Minutues)

👉 Try the prompt. Paste it into ChatGPT, answer the 3 questions, and let it give you a plan that fits your business.

Bonus: Ask ChatGPT to frame the response as a to-do list for the next week with step-by-step action items.

App of the Week: Smart Lead

We recently tested out Smartlead.ai, and for solo founders or small teams trying to do cold outreach without breaking the bank, it’s a pretty solid option. Instead of charging per user or locking key features behind premium tiers, it uses a flat monthly fee, which makes it cheaper than most of the bigger players. You do get a cap: 6,000 emails/month on the basic plan, so it’s not unlimited, but that’s still a lot of volume for most small operations.

What makes it stand out is how it leverages AI. You can spin up smart variations of your messages, personalize content automatically, and even generate follow-ups based on replies. It’s not just templates, it’s trying to help you write like a human at scale, which is what you need if you want to avoid sounding like a spam bot.

Some downsides? The interface isn’t super intuitive, and there’s a bit of a learning curve if this is your first time setting up an outreach campaign. But once it’s running, it hums along nicely.

If you’re looking for an affordable, AI-powered way to do cold outreach at scale, Smartlead.ai is worth checking out.

A civil engineer’s experience adopting AI

This week on Talk to Walk, we sat down with Thomas Stroh, a civil engineer who built and led multiple Professional Services firms through steep growth, including Elevation Land Solutions, which he grew from 7 to over 160 employees.

Thomas shares his candid take on how AI is (and isn't) being used in the world of engineering, why proposal writing is still a mess, and what it would take for AI to actually move the needle for small professional service firms.

Whether you're in engineering, real estate, or any labor-intensive service business, this conversation is packed with pragmatic insight. We talk about timesheets, RFPs, and the real ROI of AI tools and why many firms still struggle to implement them. Check out the full article here for the details on what we learned.

That’s it for this week.

Tell us what you want to see in the future. We would love to hear your ideas. Make sure to subscribe so you can join us in this journey of discovery.

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Until then,

The Talk to Walk team