Professional Services Tech Talks

Garwood Growth
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Business

Professional Services Tech Talks is about what actually happens when you put technology to work in a professional services firm. Garwood Growth’s Adam Maze and George White share what they’re trying, why they’ve made particular choices, what’s worked, what hasn’t and what they’d do differently. They’re starting with AI, before getting into the wider technology questions facing professional services firms. Practical, honest and based on what they’re actually doing.

Episodes

  1. 3d ago ·  Video

    Professional Services Tech Talks Episode 6: How We Automated Our CRM with AI

    Since September, we've added 236 contacts and 44 companies to our CRM at Garwood Growth, with AI doing much of the work. For a professional services business, where relationships play such an important role in winning work, that's a significant improvement. It gives us a more complete picture of who we're talking to, which businesses we're building relationships with and where there may be opportunities to develop those relationships further. It also means that valuable information is available across the team, rather than sitting in individual inboxes and meeting notes. In the final episode of the first series of Professional Services Tech Talks, Adam Maze and George White explain how we've built an AI workflow that identifies contacts and companies from our emails and meetings, checks them against our existing CRM records and prepares additions for human approval. George takes us through how the workflow operates, the challenges of making it reliable and the lessons we've learned from putting it into practice. They get into: How AI identifies new contacts and companies from Outlook, Teams and meeting transcriptsConnecting our existing systems to the CRM using MCP connectorsWhy human approval remains an important part of the process, alongside data security and rules about which contacts to excludeWhat happened when the workload proved too much for a single AI agent, and how George addressed this using multiple agentsThe practical challenges of running the workflow reliably, including scheduled tasks and dependencies on individual computersWhat other professional services businesses can learn from our experience, and where to start with similar automationAdam and George also reflect on what we've learned across the six-part series. From selecting an AI platform and establishing governance, through to developing client-facing tools and automating internal processes, Tech Talks has followed our own experience of introducing AI into Garwood. The series has been deliberately practical, focusing on things we've actually built and used rather than hypothetical applications of AI. This final episode of the first series brings several of those themes together. It shows how AI can reduce routine administrative work while also helping a professional services business make better use of the information and relationships it already has. Explore the series This is the final episode of our first six-part Professional Services Tech Talks series. Catch up on earlier episodes covering AI platform selection, governance, building Claude skills, meeting transcription and creating an AI-powered lead magnet. For more conversations about growing professional services businesses and building value, listen to Unlocking Value, hosted by John Howard.

    Professional Services Tech Talks Episode 6: How We Automated Our CRM with AI

  2. Oct 20 ·  Video

    Episode 5: Building an AI-powered lead magnet

    There's a lot of valuable expertise sitting within consulting firms, often captured in frameworks, methodologies and other IP. But what if you could use AI to turn some of that knowledge into interactive tools that clients and prospects can use for themselves? In this episode of Professional Services Tech Talks, Adam Maze and George White take us through how we've used Claude Code to build our new online Value Builder assessment. The tool draws on Garwood's existing IP to assess a professional services firm's maturity across eight business domains and generate a personalised report with observations and recommendations. George shares how he approached the build, from getting started with Claude Code to working out which systems needed to connect behind the scenes. They also discuss what it took to move beyond an initial working version to something ready for prospective clients to use. They get into: How to turn your firm's existing expertise and IP into useful AI-powered toolsWhere to start with Claude Code or ChatGPT Codex, and how AI can help you plan the buildWhy a clear idea of what you're creating and well-documented IP make a differenceWhat we learned from testing and improving the AI-generated reportsHow we've built in checks to keep recommendations consistent with Garwood's approved IPThe practicalities of hosting, integrations, data security, GDPR and insuranceChoosing different AI models for different tasks and keeping running costs manageableThere's plenty of practical advice here for anyone considering building something similar, including some of the things George discovered through trial and error. It's a useful reminder that while AI can now handle much of the technical work, building something you're confident sharing with clients still takes thought and testing. And it helps to have a clear idea of what you're trying to achieve. Next time Adam and George look at how we're using AI to automate some of the manual work involved in keeping our CRM up to date.

    Episode 5: Building an AI-powered lead magnet

  3. Oct 9 ·  Video

    Episode 4: Who’s taking the notes?

    Meeting transcription tools are hardly new. But automatically producing a set of notes after a call is only part of what they can do. In this episode of Professional Services Tech Talks, Adam Maze and George White talk through how Garwood chose its meeting transcription platform, Fellow, and what they wanted from it beyond transcription accuracy. They also look at what becomes possible once meeting content is connected to the rest of your technology. George shows how he can use a conversation captured in Fellow as context in Claude, while Adam explains how he sends actions from meetings straight into Microsoft To Do. They get into: What we looked for when choosing a meeting transcription platformWhy security, GDPR and data ownership were important parts of the decisionBot versus botless recording and where each approach worksWhy we chose Fellow from the platforms we assessedHow meeting transcripts can become context for ClaudeTurning feedback from a meeting into a plan for the work that followsMoving meeting actions into Microsoft To Do and the daily digest George is buildingThere’s also a brief detour into George’s autonomous stock-picking experiment, followed by Adam putting him on the spot with a problem from Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. George handles the pressure rather well. Next time Adam and George get under the hood of Garwood’s Value Builder Diagnostic, looking at how we’ve turned our own IP into an interactive lead magnet and how other professional services firms could approach something similar.

    Episode 4: Who’s taking the notes?

  4. Sep 22 ·  Video

    Episode 3: Getting AI to follow your brand – and why tone of voice is hard

    Creating a client deck often starts the same way: find an old one, strip out the content and spend far too much time getting fonts, colours, logos and layouts where they’re supposed to be. We’ve been experimenting with a different approach. In this episode, Adam and George go behind the scenes of the AI skills we’ve built at Garwood. George opens up our branding skill in Claude, shows what sits behind it and demonstrates how we can turn unformatted content into a branded PowerPoint or Word document. They get into: What an AI skill is and where it can be usefulHow we’ve combined instructions, brand assets, templates and referencesHow we decide when the skill should automatically kick inWhat the first output actually looks likeHow feedback helps improve the skill over timeWhy replicating tone of voice has proved much harder than visual brandingHow we’re using Claude and ChatGPT for different parts of the jobIt’s not a case of pressing a button and sending the result straight to a client. The output still needs human review and refinement. But as George puts it, if the first attempt gets you 60% of the way there, that’s already time saved. And for anyone wondering whether AI has finally cracked tone of voice: not quite. That one is still very much a work in progress. Next time Adam and George look at meeting transcription tools: how we chose ours and what becomes possible when meeting content connects into the rest of your technology stack.

    Episode 3: Getting AI to follow your brand – and why tone of voice is hard

  5. Sep 22 ·  Video

    Episode 2: AI at work - What are the rules?

    You’ve chosen your AI tools. Now comes the bit that probably didn’t feature in the demo: policies, data protection, security and working out what people should actually be allowed to do with them. In this episode, Adam and George talk through the AI governance Garwood has been putting in place, from what we expect from our technology providers to the policies and controls we need internally. The challenge is getting the balance right. You need to protect client and company information without putting so much friction around AI that nobody actually uses it. They get into: Why business AI accounts matter when handling client informationWhat to check in vendor terms, DPAs and security assuranceWhere your data is stored and processedThe risks that come with connecting AI to other systemsDPIAs, legitimate interests and acceptable use policiesBeing transparent with clients about AIWhy human review still mattersThere’s also a cautionary tale involving someone using their company ChatGPT account to redesign their garden and apparently racking up thousands in additional usage fees. The garden may have been cheaper. Next time Adam and George get more hands-on with the AI skills we’ve built at Garwood, including how we’re getting AI-generated documents to look and sound more like us.

    Episode 2: AI at work - What are the rules?

  6. Sep 22 ·  Video

    Episode 1: Choosing our AI Platform

    ChatGPT? Claude? Copilot? Something else entirely? When we started looking at which AI platform to use across Garwood, we didn’t begin with a comparison of models and features. We started by looking at how our team actually works. Where were people losing time? What were they already using AI for? What information would we need the platform to handle? And what would make people actually use it once we’d chosen one? Adam and George talk through the process, from surveying the team and turning the findings into a set of requirements through to researching the market, making the choice and working out how the different pieces of our setup would fit together.  They get into: Where our consultants were actually losing timeWhat people were already using AI forHow the need to protect client and commercially sensitive information shaped the decisionWhat we needed from an AI platformWhy Claude Team came out on top for GarwoodWhere Microsoft 365 and meeting transcription fit alongside itWhat we’d already do differently if we ran the exercise again todayA choice for now, not forever We carried out the assessment in May/June 2026 and landed on Claude Team as the best fit for Garwood. But we’ve deliberately built the wider setup so we’re not too dependent on any one model. The market is moving quickly, and some of the factors that shaped our decision have already changed.  That’s part of the point of the episode: not why every firm should choose Claude, but how we went about making the choice.  Next time Choosing the platform is one thing. Then you have to work out how people can actually use it safely.  Adam and George will be talking governance, acceptable use, data, policies and training – including what you really need in place without making AI so difficult to use that nobody bothers. Follow the series We’ll be adding new episodes of Professional Services Tech Talks regularly, starting with AI and then moving into the wider technology questions that come with running and growing a professional services firm. Follow the series to catch the next conversation. And if there’s a technology problem you’re currently wrestling with in your firm, let Adam and George know. It might just make its way into a future episode.

    Episode 1: Choosing our AI Platform
  • 6 Episodes

About

Professional Services Tech Talks is about what actually happens when you put technology to work in a professional services firm. Garwood Growth’s Adam Maze and George White share what they’re trying, why they’ve made particular choices, what’s worked, what hasn’t and what they’d do differently. They’re starting with AI, before getting into the wider technology questions facing professional services firms. Practical, honest and based on what they’re actually doing.

Information