A lot of small business owners I talk to around the Triad tell me AI sounds expensive.

I get it. Most of the headlines are about companies dumping six figures on custom models. But there are cheap tools that actually move the needle. I use these myself. Total cost for all five is less than a nice dinner for two.

Make.com (starts at $9/mo)

This is the one I'd start with if I had to pick. Make connects your apps and automates the boring stuff.

Here's how it works. Someone fills out a Facebook Lead Ad for your open house. Make can instantly send you a text with their info, add them to a Google Sheet, and drop them into a follow-up email sequence. All while you're doing something else. No coding required. You build it with drag-and-drop blocks.

I set one of these up for a listing workflow recently. Took about an hour. Now it runs itself.

That's the tool. Here's the rest, fast.

ChatGPT Plus at twenty bucks a month gets you the actually-smart version. I use it to draft cold outreach and rewrite property descriptions. Otter.ai is around eight bucks and transcribes meetings with speaker labels. Useful for listing appointments or shift meetings where you actually want to remember what was said. Canva Pro at thirteen gives you background removal and brand kits. I see a lot of local businesses using it to knock out social posts without hiring a designer. Loom is twelve fifty for quick screen recordings. I send proposal walkthroughs instead of scheduling calls. People watch. They respond faster.

Quick hit:

If you're already using one of these, hit reply and tell me which. If there's one I missed that actually saves you time, I want to know about it.

— Eric

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Talk soon,

Eric

Founder: YourBrandedAi.com

Kernersville, NC — Serving the Piedmont Triad