Start with a business task rather than a tool.
An AI agent needs a purpose, useful information and boundaries. Choosing a tool before understanding the work can create another system to manage. Write down the task you want to improve, who does it today and what a satisfactory result looks like.
John Wicks uses AI and agents extensively to run The Green Agents with a small team. His practical experience informs these starting questions. They are a way to evaluate a workflow, not a promise of staffing savings or new clients.
For SME owners in Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Kent, the starting point might be preparing material, organising information or supporting prospect research and follow-up. Choose a task whose output a person can check, and avoid giving an agent broad access simply because a tool makes it easy.
Define one task
Specify the input, the expected output and the person responsible. Break a large process into smaller steps so you can see where the agent helps and where it struggles.
Check the information
Use current, relevant material that you are entitled to share with the chosen system. Decide what must stay private and what access the workflow actually needs.
Keep consequential actions under review
Distinguish preparing a message from sending it, drafting a page from publishing it and suggesting a decision from approving it. Set review points that match the task.
Compare real effort
Include time spent checking and correcting outputs. Faster first drafts alone do not establish that the whole process saves time or produces better work.
Qualify sales opportunities
If the workflow supports outreach, agree what makes a suitable buyer and a qualified conversation. A sent message, an open or a click does not establish a lead.
Plan exceptions
Decide what happens when information is missing, output is wrong or an action fails. Give a person ownership and keep a record of the next step.
Discuss one business task with The Green Agents. John can help you assess practical AI support alongside your sales and new-client process, then agree a manageable starting scope.
John Wicks
Founder of The Green Agents, with commercial experience since 1996, more than 20 years focused on SMEs and hands-on use of AI and agents.
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