Take back the hours that disappear into paperwork.
Quotes, invoicing, follow-ups, reports. You might already know where it jams, or you might just feel that things should move faster. Both get solved the same way. We look at your week together for twenty minutes and you’ll know whether there’s anything worth going after.
Book a 20-minute call →This is the work the audit does on your operations: separating the repeated motions from the high-value tasks, and putting a cost on the green blocks. All of it to tell you where it’s worth going after time.
Greater Montréal
I've worked inside small businesses, and I've been the operator.
Every time, I ended up knowing exactly where the time was going. I just never found the time to do anything about it.
And every tool that was supposed to fix it came with a learning curve you pay for while still running the business. So it stayed on the to-do list.
In the past two years I’ve worked on reshaping processes with AI inside companies. Today I run my own practice, pointed at local SMBs: every intervention always starts by understanding how the work actually gets done, not how it’s supposed to get done, and on giving you your time back.
Working with someone you trust matters.
It's also why the first conversation is free and takes twenty minutes. You have no more time to spare today than I did back then.
What owners tell us, and what it turns into
None of these six is a technology problem, and none of them needs you to know AI in advance. That part is my job.
The question isn’t which of the six applies to you. It’s which one costs you the most right now.
See what this would look like for you Nothing to prepare. If nothing here is worth doing, I'll tell you.A question of time, not a question of technology.
The shift is real. For a small business, though, it isn’t a question of strategy. It’s a question of which parts of your week this can take off your hands, and which parts it can’t.
Every small business runs on a set of repeated tasks: quotes, taking on files, scheduling, reporting, chasing. Most of them were built while the company grew, held together by one person’s memory and a lot of copy-paste. It works until the business gets big enough that it stops working.
You don’t need to know what AI can do to have this conversation. The useful question is never “where can we put AI”. It’s which of your tasks still need a person’s judgement and which ones only cost you time. Sometimes the answer is software, but often it’s a change in how the work moves.
That’s what the first conversation is for. Twenty minutes, plain questions about how your week runs, and a clear read at the end. If there’s something to do, you’ll know what. If there isn’t, you’ll know that too.
Just starting out with Claude and could use a hand? Or already using it and want to get to the next level? Read the full guide — free, fifteen sections.
What you can expect to come next
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01
A conversation
Twenty minutes, free. Plain questions about how the work moves through your business. Often that’s the whole thing: you get a clear read and go do it yourself.
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02
An audit
A close look at how your work runs, over 1 to 3 days, at a fixed price known before we start. You get back what’s worth fixing, ranked, with what each one is costing you now and what it would take to solve. The report is yours and you can act on it with anyone.
Credited at 100% against any project signed within 30 days. If you go ahead, the audit will have cost you nothing; if you don’t, you keep the report.
Audit — summaryExampleWhat was looked at What it costs What's recoverable Verdict ✓Quotes written by hand 9 h / wk ~7 h / wk Kept ✓Re-entry between CRM and invoicing 6 h / wk ~5 h / wk Kept ✓Follow-up done from memory 3 h / wk ~3 h / wk Kept ×Customer service 11 h / wk — Ruled out Customer service is ruled out because every call needs judgement nobody should automate. Three kept, one ruled out, and the report says why in both cases. -
03
Systems, once the data underneath makes sense
Nothing worth automating runs on information nobody trusts. So the first job is usually understanding what your business really holds: where it lives, what shape it’s in, what contradicts itself. That part is unglamorous and it is often most of the work.
Once the information underneath is sound, the system on top gets straightforward. Depending on what the audit found, that takes the shape of a targeted automation aimed at one specific pain, a website, or a custom web application. What gets built follows how you already work instead of the reverse, it lives in your own accounts, and it’s yours to keep. You watch it produce a real result before you take it over, and you can run it without anyone’s help.
And it’s guaranteed. If what gets delivered doesn’t solve the problem we defined together, you don’t pay. That’s written down before the work starts.
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04
A weekly hand on it
Systems drift. The business changes, the tools update, and what fit in January stops fitting by June. Some clients take a 3 to 6 month engagement to keep improving their operations week to week instead of letting things slide back. It’s where people end up. It never gets signed on day one.
What gets built is yours
When one of those six is worth solving for good, it gets built around the way you already work. A targeted automation, a website or a custom application: usually a lot smaller than people expect, and pointed at one thing.
Scoped and priced in full before any work starts.
Built inside your own accounts, not someone else’s.
Guaranteed: if it doesn’t solve the defined problem, you don’t pay.
Yours to keep, with no monthly fee needed to keep it running.
A word on grants. Some automation and digital-transformation projects qualify for Québec programmes like ESSOR, Offensive Tr@ns Num or tax credits. Amounts and conditions change, and I’m not an accountant. What I do: tell you before you spend anything if your project looks eligible, and point you to the right resource to confirm it properly.
The size of the problem
saved per week, per person, by small businesses using AI. For owners and managers it’s over seven.
Business.com, 2026 SMB AI Outlookof US small businesses now use AI, up from 55% a year earlier. This stopped being early.
Thryv, 2026 AI & Small Business Adoption Surveyof owners don’t fully trust AI with low-level tasks, the exact ones that would save them the most time.
Bluevine, 2026 Small Business AI Trends Reportof small businesses using AI say they have seen no return on it at all.
Bluevine, 2026 Small Business AI Trends ReportThe last number is the one that matters most. What separates the businesses that recover hours from the ones that get nothing isn’t the tools they bought. It’s the work they pointed them at.
12 signs you’re losing hours without knowing it
These go unnoticed from the inside, because they’ve been part of the furniture for years. Read the list thinking about your week rather than your business in general.
The same information gets entered twice, in two different formats.
Someone re-types by hand what already exists somewhere else.
Quotes go out late, or not at all, when the week gets busy.
You have software you use about 20% of.
Only one person knows how the whole process actually works.
You’ve considered hiring someone “just to handle the paperwork”.
The monthly report gets rebuilt by hand every time.
Follow-ups happen when somebody remembers.
Information lives in four places that don’t talk to each other.
People ask you for numbers you should already have at hand.
“We’ve always done it this way” comes up often in the answers.
You’ve wondered whether AI could help, without knowing where to look.
The rule of three. If three or more apply to you, there are probably recoverable hours in there, enough to make the twenty-minute conversation worth it. If only one applies, you’ll likely fix it yourself without me, and that’s a perfectly good outcome.
What happens if you book
Nothing
No form to fill in, nothing to prepare. Pick a time, or write me two lines about what’s eating your week.
You talk, mostly
Plain questions about how the work moves through your business. There’s no presentation and no pitch. The point is to understand your week.
You decide
You leave with a clear read: whether there’s anything here worth doing, and what it would look like. Or a straight “not yet”.
You don’t need a specific problem in mind to book. “I don’t even know if AI applies to my business” is a normal way to start. About half of these conversations end with no next step, and that’s a normal outcome too.
The questions that come up
Is a 10-person company too small for AI?
No. Businesses of 5 to 30 people are often the ones that recover the most time, because their processes were built by hand while the company grew. What matters is the volume of repeated motions each week, not the size of the company.
I don’t know enough about AI to know where to start.
That’s the most common starting point, and it isn’t a problem. You don’t need to know what AI can do. You need to know where your week goes. The 20-minute call starts from how you work, not from a tool.
My team re-types the same information in three places. How do we fix that?
That’s manual re-entry across systems, with no single source of truth. The fix is usually one point of entry that feeds the other tools, not another piece of software.
Off-the-shelf software almost fits. What then?
Often the problem isn’t the software but the gap between its logic and yours. A small system built around your existing flow usually costs less than switching tools entirely.
How much does a process audit cost for a small business?
MAZ AI works at a fixed price, set and known before the work starts. The audit takes 1 to 3 days and the price doesn’t change based on what’s found. It’s credited at 100% against any project signed within 30 days.
What if what you deliver doesn’t solve my problem?
You don’t pay. The problem being solved is defined and written down before the work starts, which is what makes the guarantee checkable on both sides.
Do I have to commit to several months?
No. Each step is priced separately and most clients stop after one or two. The 3-to-6-month engagement exists for those who want it, and it never gets signed on day one.
How do I know if my business is losing hours without knowing it?
There’s a list of 12 signs further up this page: manual re-entry, quotes going out late, software used at 20%, monthly reports rebuilt by hand, follow-ups done from memory, information split across four tools. If three or more apply, there are probably recoverable hours.
Is it better to hire someone or to automate?
It depends whether the task needs judgement or only time. Moving information between tools automates well. Tasks that need a decision stay human, sometimes with an assisted approval step.
Twenty minutes, and you’ll know.
Describe how your week runs. You’ll get a straight answer on whether there’s anything here worth your time, and “not yet” is a perfectly good thing to walk away with.
Book a 20-minute callPrefer email or phone? denis@maz-ai.ca · 418 933-0683 — replies within one business day.