Prompt Playbook: First Steps in AI Consulting PART 2

Hey Prompt Entrepreneur,

Here’s the sad truth: most people never start anything worthwhile.

They get stuck in preparation mode, reading more books taking more courses, endlessly tweaking, planning, refining offerings, polishing LinkedIn profiles... and never actually doing the darn thing.

It happens again and again in business. Too much chat, not enough doing.

We're doing something different.

We're going to use a strategy that's helped dozens of my students land their first consulting clients within a week.

It's not fancy. It's not sophisticated. Fancy and sophisticated just slow things down.

But it works because it removes every possible barrier to getting it done.

Let's get started:

The Zero-Friction Framework

In Mario 64 there’s a level with an ice slide.

Once you’re on the slide there’s no stopping. You just keep sliding - it’s ice, more or less frictionless.

We want to make our own ice slide.

Here's our strategy: We're going to offer short (15-30 minute) free consultations to charities and non-profits.

"But Kyle, why free? And why charities?"

Simple. We're removing every possible reason for someone to say no:

• Short time commitment? Check.

• No financial investment? Check.

Plus, by working with non-profits, you're not devaluing your time - you're doing pro bono work. I’m not asking you to work for free - I’m asking you to donate your time to a good cause.

I’m going to use charities/non-profits primarily here. But it can be any group you care about - local community group, church, government body…whatever is important to you!

Why do this at all? Because right now the only objective we have is to get you in the room giving your first AI consultation. We do not care about anything else. Nothing else matters.

This is because once you’ve got started you can build momentum. You’ll get social proof in the form of past client testimonials. You’ll be able to write up a case study. You’ll get referrals for more work (including paid). And, perhaps most importantly, you’ll build your own confidence that you can consult in AI.

We’ll cover all this later in the Playbook - don’t sweat it now.

We’ll basically get the flywheel up and running and parlay first (free, charitable) consultation up to paid …and then go from there. Your charity work might even lead directly to paid opportunities. Many (many!) non-profit executives have connections in the corporate world. When you demonstrate value in a pro bono context, paid work often follows naturally.

But first: step one!

Finding Your First Targets

There are three ways to approach this, depending on your industry and expertise:

1. Direct Industry Alignment This is gold if you can find it - charities doing work directly in your field. For example if you're in:

• Engineering → Organisations running engineering projects in developing countries

• Education → Non-profits focused on STEM education

• Healthcare → Medical charities and research foundations

Obviously there won’t always be groups directly connected to what you do - it’ll depend entirely on your industry!

2. Functional Alignment Charities have business functions. You may be able to transfer your industry experience to assist them. If you're in:

• Marketing → Help with their marketing operations

• Finance → Support their financial teams

• HR → Assist with their people operations

You’ll bring what you know about AI from your industry to their specific function.

3. General AI Support Sometimes there is no direct industry overlap. That’s fine - go broader and just find a charity. Don’t let the lack of direct overlap stop you. Focus on universal challenges like:

• Document processing

• Email management

• Content creation

• Data analysis

ALL organisations need to deal with this sort of stuff. And you can show them how AI can assist.

Here's a prompt to help you find targets based on your chosen path:

You are an AI assistant helping find initial consulting opportunities in the charity/non-profit sector. Your task is to help identify potential organisations for offering free 15-30 minute AI consulting sessions.

There are three possible approaches to finding targets:
1. Direct Industry Match: Finding charities working directly in the consultant's industry (e.g., engineering consultant → engineering education charities)
2. Functional Match: Finding charities that need help with specific business functions (e.g., marketing consultant → charities' marketing operations)
3. General AI Support: Helping any suitable charity with universal AI challenges like document processing, email management, etc.

Please ask the user for:
1. Their industry/professional background
2. Their location
3. Any specific skills or expertise they want to highlight

Then provide:
1. 5 specific organisations for each approach, with:
   - Organisation name
   - Brief description of work
   - Why they're a good fit
   - Name/title of potential contact person

2. 3 specific methods to find more similar organisations, including:
   - Relevant directories
   - Search strategies
   - Professional networks

3. Exact search strings to use on:
   - Google
   - LinkedIn
   - Charity databases

This’ll get you started but obviously supplement with other techniques as and when needed.

You are looking for 10 potential outreach targets. We want 10 to increase our chance of a hit. Once you have 10 you are going to hit them up with a brief outreach message.

This does not need to be complex.

Why? You’re offering something free (no financial commitment), short (low time commitment) and high value.

Hi [Name],

I've spent [X] years working in [industry/function] and I'm reaching out to local non-profits to offer free pro-bono 15-minute AI consults this month.

If your organisation is currently working out how to use AI I'd be happy to help out. 

Would you be interested?

Best,
[Your name]

Sprinkle in details about what they do and any background that’s relevant here. Done stuff with them before? Even better. Add that.

And…that’s it. For real.

Your next steps:

1. Run the target-finding prompt

2. Find ~10 organisations

3. Send them a quick message

No fancy website needed. No detailed consulting packages. No pitch deck. Just get in front of someone who could benefit from your expertise.

What's Next?

In the next Part, we'll cover what happens after someone says yes. How to prepare, what to know, and how to deliver real value in that first consultation.

The beautiful thing about this zero-friction approach? You may even have your first "yes" before starting the next Part. It’s fast. That means you can apply what you learn immediately.

Keep Prompting,

Kyle

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