Practical AI adoption in the real world
How I've helped leaders, owners and teams turn AI interest into clearer decisions, stronger capability and action.
Practical workshops built around real business work
Designed and delivered multiple hands-on, in-person and online webinar and workshop programmes to over 270 businesses over the last three years, including ChatGPT and Generative AI for Business, AI as a Marketing Assistant, and tailored AI for Sales and Value-Based Selling.
Each engagement worked from real business workflows: live customer personas, role-plays, end-to-end sales and customer journeys, reusable prompts, responsible-use considerations and clear next actions for adoption.
Bringing practitioners, business leaders and policy voices together to help Irish SMEs adopt AI safely, responsibly and effectively
Ireland has over 300,000 SMEs, but business owners face no shortage of conflicting AI advice. Many struggle to determine where AI could genuinely add value, whether their business is ready for it and how to adopt it responsibly. Strong practitioners are already helping, but much of that expertise remains fragmented.
I initiated and helped establish the SME AI Implementation Alliance, bringing together AI practitioners, SME leaders, technologists, change experts and policy voices. I helped lead the initial roundtables and shape the working groups, turning a shared ambition into a practical programme of action.
The Alliance is now developing practical guidance across five priority areas: awareness and education; SME readiness and adoption; pilots and case studies; governance, trust and safety; and funding and business supports. The intended output is a practical SME AI adoption toolkit, helping business owners understand where they stand, what to do next and where to find appropriate support.
Converting scattered ideas into an achievable plan
A growing organisation wanted better use of AI and automation but had too many tools and use cases competing for attention.
I reviewed its systems, workflows and priorities, then built a phased implementation plan.
It gained clear priorities, an achievable route forward and a stronger basis for deciding what to pursue or drop.
Applying AI to real customer and revenue activity
Commercial teams needed better targeting, preparation and sales execution without losing the human judgement complex sales rely on.
I combined AI with 30+ years of commercial experience to redesign prospect research, account planning and sales preparation.
Teams gained repeatable ways to use AI in existing sales activity while keeping human oversight and judgement.
I’m very thankful for how you helped us see our AI technology value in terms of time and money saved and revenue generated. Your business strategy idea pushed us towards adding an ROI calculator to our website, and I will use the logic you suggested.
Declan’s craft for commercial strategy, coupled with his knowledge of finance and AI for business, has helped our salespeople make most decisions a no-brainer for the customer. He has made a huge difference to the proactive conversations we are now having internally and with the customer.
Declan has been a fantastic AI and commercial strategy sounding board, helping me understand AI, sales, listening and understanding the needs of my clients in creative and proactive ways. He is great to work with and always has good suggestions of ways to think about things.
Working with Declan on commercial strategy and sales coaching gave me the confidence to get on the phone and converse more consultatively with my clients. His mentoring enabled me to get 10x ROI within just two weeks and accelerate time to value on a large key sale by 50%. In just five days of work he also helped me accelerate future pipeline by three months, with a few small tweaks to my sales approach.
Does one of these challenges sound familiar?
Every engagement begins with the business problem, not an assumed AI solution.
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