AI consultant for small business

Answers · Getting started

An AI consultant for a small business finds the work that repeats in your week, tells you honestly which parts AI can do, and sets it up on your own accounts. Westward is an AI consulting and software firm in Venice, California that does this for small businesses. The first call is free, and a first build takes about a month.

What a consultant does for a small business

A consultant looks at how your business runs and finds the work that repeats: the same email answers, chasing past customers, copying details from one tool to another, writing quotes that look alike. Then they sort those jobs into three piles. AI can do it, AI can help with it, or a person should keep it.

A good consultant also tells you when AI is not worth the money. That is part of the job, not a failure of it.

You do not have to start big

One job is enough. If client email is piling up, a system that reads it and keeps each client’s to-do list current may be the right first step. If nobody finds you on Google, an agent that works on that every day may be. If the job is not on any list, it can be built for you.

Westward offers all of these: a custom AI CRM and email system, an SEO agent, an agent that works on getting you named by ChatGPT and AI search, a website that improves itself, and custom builds.

What to ask before you hire anyone

Ask how it is priced and whether that is in writing. Ask who approves what the AI does, whose accounts it runs on, and what happens if AI cannot help with your problem.

At Westward the answers are short. Pricing is quoted in writing before anything is built. A person approves anything important or public, and anything the AI wrote is marked as AI-written. Accounts and passwords stay yours. If AI will not help, we say so.

Do you need someone local

It helps but is not required. Westward works in person across Los Angeles and Orange County and remotely across the United States.

Step by step

A free 30-minute call with the founder, Orion Jones.
Week 1: an audit of the work that repeats, with a preview and a written quote.
Weeks 2 and 3: we build it and test it on your real data.
Week 4: we set it up on your accounts and train your team.

Who can do this for you

Westward builds these and sets them up. Each page shows what it does and what it has done.

Custom AI CRM and email

Knows every client and reads the email

Reads each client’s email and keeps their brief and to-dos current.

See what it does

Found on Google

An agent works your Google ranking every day

Checks eight things a day and writes down what it did.

See what it does

Custom software

Platforms, internal tools, dashboards

Deal engines, leasing platforms, private portals, dashboards.

See what it does

The rules that apply, in their own words

“intended for voluntary use and to improve the ability to incorporate trustworthiness considerations into the design, development, use, and evaluation of AI products, services, and systems.”

NIST, AI Risk Management Framework. A good build keeps a person in charge of anything that matters and records what the AI did.

Sources

NIST AI Risk Management Framework: The U.S. standards body’s framework for using AI responsibly.
15 U.S.C. § 45 (FTC Act, Section 5): The federal ban on unfair or deceptive business practices, ads included.
SBA: stay legally compliant: The Small Business Administration’s checklist for licenses, taxes and rules.

Questions

Is my business too small for an AI consultant?

Size matters less than whether you have work that repeats. If you can name a job that eats hours every week, there is something to look at. The free call is the place to find out.

Do I need to know anything about AI?

No. You describe the work in your own words and we do the rest. We keep the language plain on purpose.

How is it priced?

In writing, before anything is built: a fixed price for each build, and a monthly plan if you want us to keep running it. There is no hourly billing.