AI Tools for Consultants

I recently presented a list of AI tools at a computer consultants meeting (OCCA) and my research revealed several new ways of quickly setting up an online business presence, preparing marketing materials to present to potential clients, and even virtual assistants to handle routine tasks. What impressed me most was how these tools eliminate traditional barriers to entry while allowing consultants to focus on what they do best—solving clients' computing problems. Here's what I discovered, organized by business function.

Professional Presence

LinkedIn Profile Creation

Your professional image matters, and AI tools handle both visual and written aspects effectively.

For headshots, you have several specialized options:

• MagicStudio.com excels at background removal and cleanup
• instaheadshots.com generates multiple professional headshot variations from a single uploaded photo using AI styling
• headshotpro.com creates corporate-quality portraits with customizable backgrounds and lighting effects

Once you have quality images, Seekario.ai optimizes your LinkedIn profile content. While there are many profile sites that focus primarily on resume building, Seekario adds the capability to take that information and build a compelling LinkedIn profile. It also supports several other professional services, making it a versatile tool for consultants who need to maintain presence across multiple platforms.

Website Generation

If you don't have web development skills or don't have the time to learn and build your own site, these simple AI-powered site builders can get you up and running quickly—and they look nice as well.

• Tilda.cc combines intuitive visual design with AI content generation, to quickly build a new website, online store, landing page or blog.
• Lovable.dev is an AI-powered platform that enables users of any skill level to create full-stack websites through natural language. Simply describe what you want, and Lovable builds it for you.
• Pagey.xyz focuses on creating portfolios and CVs, allowing you to keep a collection of profiles for freelance, job seeking, or personal projects.

For developers comfortable with command line tools, Claude Code running in WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is one of many AI code-generation tools that can create websites. These tools can produce pure HTML/JS/CSS sites, or use familiar frameworks like React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, or Next.js. They can even set up the structure for static site generators like Hugo if that's your preference.

Content and Presentation

Once you've established your online presence, you can focus on preparing marketing materials to attract and engage potential clients.

Technical Blogging

Use your favorite AI chat engine to help you write a blog; this one was written with Claude but ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, or Copilot will work as well. Select your technical subject, request detailed paragraphs, then through conversational interaction with the AI, reorder, modify, add content, and polish your blog to your liking. Finally, export it into a format that you can upload to your website, whether that be complete with all the HTML tags, in Markdown format, or simply as a Word document where you can convert it to a PDF suitable to publish on the web.

Client Presentations

When pitching computer services, to potential clients, you may want to use SketchBubble.com's free AI presentation maker to transform your talking points into professional slide decks. The service generates a complete, downloadable PowerPoint presentation based on and expanded from your simple prompts that you can then customize and publish anywhere you want.

Video Marketing

Video is becoming a commonplace, and often expected, means of marketing tool for a business. Veo is a Google tool that creates compelling video advertisements . Here's how to get started.

You've probably seen several advertisements that have been made with Veo, possibly without even realizing it. Here are some samples that were created with Veo; a quick search will show you many more possibilities:

• Sample: From IKEA box to complete bedroom.
• Sample: Has video creation gone too far?

These examples illustrate that as a small business owner, you too can create amazing marketing videos without much effort or money.

Business Operations

As your business gets going, you can make use of many tools to help your business flow and assist you in various ways.

Phone Systems

Bland.ai creates automated phone attendants, handling initial client contact and routing calls appropriately.

Workflow Automation

Eliminate repetitive tasks with automation platforms. Zapier and Make.com connect different apps to create seamless workflows—automatically moving data between your CRM, email, and billing systems. For Microsoft-centric businesses, Power Automate integrates deeply with Office 365. Open-source option n8n gives you complete control over your automation workflows.

Virtual Assistants

AI-powered scheduling tools like Calendly handle appointment booking automatically, while Clara acts as an AI meeting scheduler that communicates directly with clients via email. Motion combines AI project management with intelligent scheduling, optimizing your calendar based on priorities and deadlines. Otter.ai captures meeting transcripts and generates actionable notes, ensuring nothing gets missed.

Document Management

PandaDoc streamlines proposal creation and contract signing with automated templates and e-signatures. Notion AI serves as both knowledge base and project tracker, helping organize client information and project documentation. Tome creates professional presentations using AI, perfect for client pitches and technical documentation.

Customer Relationship Management

HubSpot's AI features help track leads and automate follow-ups, while Pipedrive focuses on sales pipeline automation. For larger operations, Salesforce Einstein adds AI-enhanced insights to customer data, predicting sales opportunities and customer behavior.

Financial Operations

QuickBooks AI automates bookkeeping tasks like expense categorization and invoice matching. Receipt Bank (now Dext) eliminates manual expense entry by automatically processing receipts and bills. FreshBooks combines time tracking with automated invoicing, essential for consultant billing accuracy.

Implementation Strategy

The key to leveraging these tools effectively is understanding their strengths:

• Use AI for rapid prototyping and initial creation
• Apply your technical expertise for refinement and customization
• Maintain quality control through testing and validation
• Integrate multiple tools for comprehensive solutions

Remember that asking a good question will get you a better response from any AI tool. Use promptessor.com to help analyze your prompts for clarity and completeness—better prompts lead to more useful results across all these platforms.

This toolkit transforms the traditional barriers to consulting—professional presence, content creation, marketing, and business operations—into manageable, AI-assisted tasks. If used effectively, they can keep costs down, increase productivity, and allow you to focus your expertise on your business!