October 19, 2026
How I ran my firm then. How we run it now.
AI took about 40% of the admin and operational load off our firm.
Beth Mazza is co-founder of Retrevia Advisory and co-author of Entrepreneur Like a MOTHER. She built and sold two consulting firms.
At my last firm, Monday started with a spreadsheet.
We checked forecast against signed revenue every week, prospect by prospect, by hand. Someone chased every invoice past 30 days. Someone scanned industry news first thing every morning. Research was built by analysts, one client at a time. Invoices went out after the kids were in bed.
It worked. We built and sold two firms that way. It also cost us. Our pipeline once fell to a quarter of normal before anyone noticed, because nobody had time to count first meetings. It took nine months to climb out.
Today we run our firm differently. When we ran the checklist below on ourselves, we estimated AI had taken about 40% of the admin and operational load off our plates.
| Then | Now |
|---|---|
| A person chased late invoices. | AI flags every invoice past 30 days on Monday morning and drafts the follow-up. |
| Fifteen minutes of news scanning before coffee. | A digest of our clients’ industries is waiting when we sit down. |
| Forecast versus actual, rebuilt by hand every week. | The cash view updates when a deal closes or slips. |
| Research took an analyst a week. | It takes an afternoon, and the week goes to the thinking. |
| Nobody counted first meetings. | Meetings booked sit on the dashboard next to revenue. |
Same founder. Same instincts. Different staff.
Most Founders Are Still Running the Old Version
A Babson College survey of 1,256 owners in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, run in early 2026, found 76% use AI. Only 14% have it built into how the business runs. Everyone else treats AI like a part-time intern: an email here, a LinkedIn post there, nothing that touches money.
That gap hides because nothing breaks. The forecast is just a few weeks stale. Invoices age a little. Then one quarter it shows up in the bank account.
Start With Fifteen Questions
We turned the difference into an audit, built on the five Power Moves from Entrepreneur Like a MOTHER, the rules we used to build, scale and sell two businesses without venture funding. The Power Moves AI Quick Score takes ten minutes: three yes-or-no questions per move. A taste of each:
- Prioritize the right idea. Find the next market your business needs to tap into to scale. Ask AI to map the options: buyers who already need what you sell, or the related service your clients keep asking for. Pick the strongest one and run the 1% test. How many buyers realistically exist there, and what does each spend a year? Multiply, then take 1%. If that number doesn’t clear seven figures, it isn’t your next market.
- Build a Kitchen Cabinet. Ask AI to list the skills it takes to win that market: pricing, sales, delivery, legal, hiring. Then hold the list up against your own. The skills you don’t have yet are the ones that will stall you. That’s what your Kitchen Cabinet is for. Find the person who has already done it, and ask for one specific thing they can answer in under three minutes.
- Make the money moves that matter. Think of cash like a bathtub. Revenue is the faucet, expenses are the drain, and most founders only watch the faucet. Ask AI to build a month-by-month view of both: when money comes in, when it goes out, and the month the tub runs dry if your biggest client pays 60 days late. Run it before your next hire, not after.
- Start before you’re ready. List every feature you want in your next offer, then move 85% of them to a “Future Plans” file. Test what’s left with a ten-person pilot before you build anything.
- Respect the pivot. If the same problem comes up five weekly meetings in a row, stop pushing harder and do the opposite. Put meetings booked on your dashboard next to revenue, so you see the slide a quarter early.
Why It Works
- It starts with the work, not the tools. In the same survey, 48% of AI users said they struggle to choose tools and 49% said they lack the expertise. Buying software first is how you end up with six subscriptions and no change. The audit finds the undone work, then matches the tool to the job.
- It ranks by payback. You start with the quick wins that put cash in the bank or hours back on your calendar, and schedule the bigger builds after.
What You Walk Away With
Score 0 to 5 and AI is sitting idle in your business. 6 to 10, it’s still your part-time intern. 11 to 15, it’s full-time staff.
Your lowest-scoring Power Move is where to start. If you want to go further, the full Power Moves AI Audit runs all 50 points across the five moves, and we help you put the fixes in place: a Monday list of who owes you money, a cash view that shows the dry month before it arrives, a dashboard that counts meetings, not just closed deals.
Want to run the audit on your business? Start with the free 15-question Quick Score.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Power Moves AI Audit?
It’s a free, ten-minute check of where AI is sitting idle in your business, built on the five Power Moves from Entrepreneur Like a MOTHER. You can start with our first 15 questions here.
How do I know if AI is actually running in my business?
Look at the work that repeats every week: collections, forecasting, research and pipeline tracking. In a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses survey, 76% of owners used AI but only 14% had it built into core operations.
Where should a founder start with AI?
Start with the work, not the tools. The audit finds the undone work first, then matches a tool to the job. In the same survey, 48% of AI users said choosing the right tools was a challenge.
How do I get 40% of the operations work off my plate?
Start with the work that repeats every week: late invoices, forecast versus actual, industry news and meetings booked. Score yourself on The Power Moves AI Audit, start with your lowest-scoring Power Move, and put the quick wins in first. When you are ready to build the bigger workflows, AI for ROI picks up from your plan. The 40% is our own estimate from running the checklist on our firm, so your number depends on where your hours go.
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