AI for SME's

Stop hearing about AI and start using it to reclaim your workweek. Cut through the jargon and learn exactly how artificial intelligence can streamline your daily operations. About This Workshop: Running a small to medium-sized business often means wearing multiple hats and battling the clock. This hands-on, one-day workshop is designed specifically for SME owners and managers who want practical, immediate results. We will focus entirely on accessible, everyday AI capabilities that can instantly reduce administrative heavy lifting, accelerate content creation, and organize your workflows. Because we remain platform-agnostic, you will learn the fundamental skills of working with AI that apply regardless of which specific software or assistant your business chooses to adopt. In the final session, you will use modern no-code AI builders to generate a working, standalone app tailored to your own operations. No coding experience or advanced technical knowledge is required. Bring your laptop, a charger, and your biggest operational bottlenecks, and we’ll tackle them together to elevate the Herefordshire business community. Who Is This For? This workshop is built for professionals who want to work smarter, not harder, whether you are a beginner or have dabbled. You will get the most out of this day if you are: • An Overwhelmed Founder or Business Owner: You are tired of spending your evenings doing admin instead of growing your business, and you need ways to scale your operations efficiently. • An Operations or Admin Manager: You manage the daily friction of the business and need a way to automate reports, meeting agendas, and standard emails to free up your schedule. • A Marketing or Communications Lead: You are expected to produce high-quality newsletters, social posts, content calendars, and visual assets on tight deadlines. • Non-Technical (No Coding Required): You do not need to be a software engineer or an IT expert. If you know how to write an email and browse the web, you have all the technical skills required to build your own AI app in this workshop. What we Hope to Achieve (Core Objectives) By 5:00 PM, every attendee will leave having achieved the following: • Clarity over Hype: A clear understanding of what generative AI can and cannot do for a small business right now. • Prompting Proficiency: The ability to confidently write effective prompts that generate usable, high-quality outputs across any language model. • Tool Familiarity: Hands-on experience integrating text, data, and image generation into standard workflows. • A Custom App & Action Plan: A working, standalone business application (such as a custom dashboard or internal workflow tool) built using prompt-to-app platforms like Zite or Blink, serving as the active foundation of their 30-day implementation roadmap. Delivered on behalf of the Herefordshire Growth Hub by Mike Sandiford.