What Happens in an AI Working Session
A Working Session is the first meeting of MKTNG’s six-step process. We ask where you want the company to go, how the work happens today, and how your team feels about AI tools. You do most of the talking. There’s no demo and no pitch deck. What we learn sets up the systems audit and, after that, a roadmap with a fixed price for the first build.
Why the first meeting isn’t a demo
Most AI sales calls open with a product. You watch an agent do something impressive with someone else’s data, and then you’re asked what you’d like to buy.
We can’t recommend anything until we know what the company is trying to do. So the first meeting is about your goals and your workday.
Who should be in the room
Two people at minimum. The owner, or whoever decides where the company is headed. And the person who knows how the systems really work, who is rarely the same person. That’s often an office manager or an operations lead, the one everybody asks when the CRM does something strange.
If a department is the obvious starting point, bring whoever runs it.
What we ask
The questions are simple. The answers usually aren’t.
- Where do you want the company to be in two years, and what’s in the way?
- Walk us through a lead, from first contact to signed work. Where does it wait?
- What does a new hire have to learn that isn’t written down anywhere?
- Who are the two or three people the company couldn’t run without, and what do they know?
- Which software do you pay for that nobody likes?
- Who on the team already uses AI, for what, and who refuses to?
- If one thing ran itself by this time next year, what should it be?
That last set about the team matters more than people expect. How comfortable your staff is with these tools sets how fast anything can roll out and how much training it needs.
What we don’t do
We don’t install anything. We don’t ask for logins. We don’t hand you a price at the end of the meeting, because a price quoted before anyone has looked at your systems is a guess.
You’ll leave knowing what happens next and roughly what range to expect. You should also leave feeling heard.
What comes after
Step two is the systems audit. We document what you run: the CRM, the shared drive, the spreadsheet everyone’s afraid to touch. It takes as long as your systems require, so we set that schedule once we’ve seen them.
Step three is the roadmap. It names what gets built first, what needs plumbing before it can take an agent, and a fixed price for the first leg. It starts with a Groundwork foundation for one department: your company written down once, in files you own.
Most firms would call those three steps an AI readiness assessment.
How to prepare
You don’t need to. If you’d like a head start, try this beforehand: ask two people on your team to have their usual AI tool answer “who are we, and who’s it for?” Bring both answers. The gap between them is a good place to begin.
Questions we get
What is an AI Working Session?
It’s the first meeting in MKTNG’s process: a structured conversation about company goals, how work happens today, and the team’s comfort with AI. It leads into a systems audit and a priced roadmap.
Who should attend an AI strategy session?
The person who sets company direction and the person who knows how the day-to-day systems really work. Add the head of whichever department is likely to go first.
Do we need to prepare anything?
No. Optionally, run the five-minute test: have two people ask their AI tool to describe the company and bring both answers.
Will we get a price at the Working Session?
You’ll hear a range. A fixed price arrives with the roadmap, after the systems audit.
Is the session in person?
For companies in the Sacramento region, yes, at your office. Elsewhere we meet by video.
What is Groundwork?
Groundwork is the structured record of your company that everything we build reads from. The roadmap begins with it, scoped to one department, in open-format files you own.