AI setup for small businesses in Charlotte, NC. Hand the repetitive work to AI. Keep the part only you can do.
Marathon Consulting sets up AI to handle the invoicing, follow-ups, scheduling, and data entry inside small Charlotte businesses. We come to your office, build it ourselves in the tools you already use, and stay until it works.
No pitch, no homework. If AI isn't worth it for your business yet, we'll say so on the call.
Examples
What we'd build for you.
Six example projects, drawn from the businesses we talk to every week. Real client stories will replace these as we finish them.
HVAC & plumbing Quote follow-ups that send themselves ~3 hrs back / weekAbout $240 at the founding rate
Today
A tech sends a quote. Nobody follows up unless the owner remembers on a Sunday night. A third of quotes go quiet.
What we build
Any quote with no reply gets a friendly nudge on day two and day six, written in your voice, queued for one-click approval each morning.
What it takes
Your quoting tool and email. About 12 hours of our time, then an hour of training for the office manager.
HOA & property management A resident inbox that sorts itself ~6 hrs back / weekAbout $400 at the founding rate
Today
Eighty emails a day, all in one inbox: maintenance, dues, violations, and questions you've answered a hundred times.
What we build
Every incoming email gets tagged by type, routed to the right person, and the routine ones arrive with a reply already drafted for review.
What it takes
Your shared inbox. About 20 hours of our time, including a week of watching it run in the background before anyone relies on it.
Any business with vendors Bills in, QuickBooks entry done ~4 hrs back / weekAbout $300 at the founding rate
Today
Vendor bills arrive by email and photo. Someone types each one into QuickBooks by hand, and codes half of them to the wrong account.
What we build
Bills are read, matched to the vendor, coded to the right account using your chart of accounts, and staged for a two-second review before posting.
What it takes
QuickBooks and your bills inbox. About 15 hours of our time. This is where our accounting background earns its keep.
Trades & field services Estimates from a voice note ~3 hrs back / weekAbout $280 at the founding rate
Today
You walk the job, scribble notes, and write up the estimate at the kitchen table after dinner. Some never get written.
What we build
You record a voice memo in the truck. It comes back as a formatted estimate in your template, with your line items and pricing, ready to send.
What it takes
Your phone and your estimate template. About 14 hours of our time.
Gyms & studios Renewals and win-backs, handled ~2 hrs back / weekAbout $200 at the founding rate
Today
Memberships expire quietly. Lapsed members never hear from you because nobody has time to pull the list.
What we build
A weekly list of expiring and lapsed members, each with a short personal message drafted from their history, and a log of who came back.
What it takes
Your membership software export and email or text tool. About 10 hours of our time.
Every owner Month-end close in a morning, not a week ~5 hrs back / monthAbout $360 at the founding rate
Today
Closing the books means a checklist in someone's head, a dozen reconciliations, and a surprise every quarter.
What we build
A close checklist that runs itself: reconciliations pulled and compared, anything unusual flagged with a note, and a one-page owner summary at the end.
What it takes
QuickBooks and your bank exports. About 18 hours of our time. Built by someone who has closed books for a living.
Hours and prices are estimates for a typical business of this kind. You'll get numbers specific to your shop after the visit.
How it works
Two weeks from first call to live.
A typical first project. Bigger jobs run longer, and you'll have the plan in writing before we start.
First call
Thirty minutes, free. We figure out what eats your week and whether it's worth automating at all.
Site visit
We sit with whoever does the work and map it as it really happens. You get a one-page plan and a fixed hour estimate.
Build
We set it up in your tools and test it on real work. You see progress every few days, not a reveal at the end.
Live
We train your team in person, hand over the documentation, and step back. Everything is yours.
Support
Optional. A simple monthly plan for changes and the next task, or nothing at all. It keeps running either way.
Thirty days of fixes after go-live are included in every project.
Built in the tools you already use
You never touch a line of code, and everything lives in your own accounts. Nothing to learn, nothing to babysit.
Founding-client rate
$20 an hour for our first Charlotte clients. Then never again.
We're new here, and we'd rather earn your trust than charge for it. The first 5 businesses that sign before November 30, 2026 get their whole first project at $20 an hour.
Our regular rate is $100 an hour. The founding rate is a one-time offer for a client's first project. When the spots are gone or the date passes, it's gone.
Every founding project includes
- The first call and the site visit
- The full build, tested on your real work
- In-person training for whoever runs it
- Plain-English documentation you own
- Thirty days of fixes after go-live
What we ask in return
- Let us write up the project as a case study. You approve every word before it's published.
- Tell us honestly how it went, good or bad.
After the founding window
- Standard rate: $100/hr, quoted as a fixed number of hours before we start
- Retainer: $600/month for up to eight hours of changes and support
The founding rate applies to a client's first engagement only. Follow-on projects and retainers are billed at the standard rate in effect at the time. Hours are quoted before work begins and you approve any change to the estimate.
Do the math
How much is the repetitive work costing you?
Two sliders. Start with the one task you'd most like to never do again.
Assumes a typical 15-hour first project at the founding rate, with AI taking over about 70% of the task. We'll swap in your real numbers after the visit.
What this work costs you every year
Hours you'd get back over a year
What a typical first project costs at $20/hr
Until the project has paid for itself
Why us
What's different about two people who show up.
Three in four small businesses have tried AI. About one in seven has it doing real work. The difference is somebody sitting down and setting it up.
We come to you.
Nearly everyone selling this works remotely or sells you software. We drive to your office, meet the people doing the work, and build it there.
We build it. We don't just recommend it.
Assessments and roadmaps are what big consultancies sell. You get working automation, tested on your real work, and the training to run it.
Numbers people.
Adam spent his career in finance, accounting, and credit. Brenden came up through consulting and process improvement. Invoicing, collections, and month-end are where the hours hide, and we speak that language.
You own everything.
It runs in your accounts, on tools you already pay for. Nothing sits behind a login we control, and nothing stops working if you stop working with us.
Source: Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses survey, 2026. 76% of small businesses use AI in some form; 14% have it embedded in how the business runs.
Who we are
Two people who've worked inside small businesses, and got tired of watching them miss out.
Adam Barry
Co-founderAdam comes from finance, accounting, and credit, which means he's spent years inside the exact processes that eat a small business's week: invoicing, collections, reconciliations, month-end.
LinkedInBrenden Hennessy
Co-founderBrenden started out in consulting, advising large companies on risk and finance, and now works in process improvement inside a big organization, where the job is finding slow, manual work and fixing it. He has coached youth sports on the side.
The name is a promise about pace. We're not here for a quick win and a disappearing act. We're here for the long run.
Is this you?
Honest about who this is for.
Automation only pays when the task is repetitive enough. We'll tell you on the first call which side you're on.
A good fit if
- You own and run a business with fewer than thirty people
- Someone on your team does the same task every day or every week
- The work lives in email, spreadsheets, QuickBooks, or a scheduling app
- You're within driving distance of Charlotte
Probably not yet if
- The manual work is rare, or different every single time
- You need custom software or a mobile app built from scratch
- You want an AI strategy for a two-hundred-person company
- You'd rather buy a tool and figure it out yourself (fair enough)
Questions
Things owners ask us on the first call.
Do I need to know anything about AI?
No. You need to know your business. We'll ask a lot of questions about how the work gets done today and translate the rest. When we're finished, whoever runs it will understand it well enough to explain it to someone else.
What tools do you actually use?
Mostly Claude, connected to the tools you already have: QuickBooks, Gmail or Outlook, Google Sheets or Excel, your scheduling or membership software. We set it up in accounts you own. The monthly cost of the AI itself is usually less than a lunch.
What happens to my data?
It stays in your accounts. We don't keep copies of your customer or financial data, we'll sign a confidentiality agreement before the site visit if you'd like one, and we'll tell you in plain terms exactly what information goes where before anything is switched on.
What if it turns out AI can't help me?
Then we say so, on the call or at the visit, and you owe nothing. Automation only pays off when a task is genuinely repetitive. We'd rather turn down a project than build something you won't use.
Why is the founding rate so low?
Because we're new in Charlotte and want a handful of projects we can point to. The founding rate buys us case studies and honest feedback. It's for a first project only, and it ends when the spots are filled or the date passes.
Isn't this just ChatGPT?
Typing questions into a chatbot is where most owners have stopped. What we build is different: AI that's connected to your actual tools, runs on its own schedule, follows your rules, and hands you the result. That's the part almost nobody has set up, and it's the part that saves the hours.
Where we work
Charlotte first. Everything within a reasonable drive.
If your business is somewhere near this list, we'll come to you. If it isn't, ask anyway. We've been known to drive.
Start here
Tell us what eats your week. We'll tell you if we can fix it.
A thirty-minute call, free, with one of the two people who'd do the work. We reply within one business day.
- hello@marathon-consulting.com
- Phone or text
- (704) 555-0139
- Prefer to pick a time?
- Book straight onto the calendar
Based in Charlotte, NC. We work with businesses across the metro and drive to you.