A bigger team, without the payroll.
AI is a force multiplier. Used well, it drafts the proposal while you're out on the site visit, works through the contract you've been putting off, and answers the customer who emailed at nine at night. The businesses already getting that kind of return mostly found it through a year of trial and error. The AI Advantage is a structured path through the same ground — understanding, then action, then integration — so you get there in eight sessions instead. It's eight live workshops from SCORE Nebraska that teach you to put AI to work in your business, and to keep it working as the tools change.
Register today →Three out of four small businesses are using AI. One in seven is getting the full return.
Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs' 10,000 Small Businesses Voices survey found that 76% of small businesses now use AI, and 93% of those say it has had a positive impact on their business. The same survey found that only 14% have worked it into their core operations. Most owners are somewhere in the middle, with a subscription or two, a few tasks that go faster, and a sense that there's more available than they're getting. The reasons they gave will sound familiar. Too many tools making the same claims, not enough technical know-how to judge them, and real concern about where their data ends up.
That middle is where competitive position is decided. The businesses pulling ahead aren't the ones with the most subscriptions. They're the ones that figured out what to hand off, what to expect back, and what to check before it reaches a customer, and they can size up a new tool in an afternoon because they understand what's underneath it. That's the ground this series covers. Module 1 gives you the working knowledge to evaluate any tool — how these systems generate an answer and why they sometimes invent one, what a plan is actually charging for, where the information you type in goes and who can see it. Module 2 helps you choose a first project that will pay off and bring your team along with it. Module 3 turns writing, research, and delegation into daily habits. Every session ends with something you can put to work the next morning, and the understanding underneath it doesn't expire when a vendor ships an update.
If you want the full multiplier, take the full series. If you've hit one specific wall — the proposal that eats every afternoon, the team that won't touch it — pick the session that solves it.
See sessions and register →Business advice owners have trusted since 1964.
SCORE was chartered by Congress in 1964 to put experienced businesspeople in front of owners who needed straight answers, and it has done that job ever since. More than 10,000 volunteer mentors now provide free, confidential mentoring and low-cost workshops in every state, and SCORE Nebraska carries that work across the state.
This series is built on the same footing. The people teaching it have run businesses, the advice is plain, and the decision stays with the owner. Every tool covered gets the same treatment — what it does, what it costs, where it fails — because the only outcome SCORE is measuring is whether your business does better. To lead the series, SCORE Nebraska went looking for someone who has done this work himself.
Zach Nelson
Zach has founded and run two small businesses, a fractional marketing firm and a strategy and operations consultancy, so he has been the owner who evaluates a tool, buys it, sets it up, trains the team on it, and still covers the phones when someone calls in sick. Over his career he has led four major technology overhauls across multiple industries, in organizations where money was no object and in bootstrapped ones where every subscription had to earn its keep. He knows what a good technology decision does for a business and what a bad one costs, in dollars and in the months spent unwinding it.
He uses the major AI platforms every day, but his understanding of them goes further than the subscription. He runs open-source models on his own hardware, builds his own tools on top of them, and has studied how these systems turn a question into an answer. That's why he can explain, in plain language, why a tool will confidently make something up, what a vendor means when they say a product is “powered by AI,” and what a pricing page is really charging for.
He also spent years running technology in organizations where mishandling sensitive data was a reportable event, and he brings that caution into the room. He has seen what goes wrong when a chatbot tells a customer something false or hands out a discount nobody approved, and what happens when a client's records get pasted into a system the business doesn't control. He has built the guardrails for both, and he'll show you how to see those problems coming before they cost you a customer.
Today he is Vice President of Operations & IT Solutions at Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, running technology and operations for a statewide organization, and he has been a SCORE mentor since 2018.
Spend your time on the work that builds your business.
Every owner keeps a list of projects that would move the business forward if they ever got done — the pricing review, the referral program, the process that would let you take on a bigger client without hiring first. They stay on the list because customers, invoices, and this week's fires are always more pressing. AI doesn't do those projects for you. It takes enough of the pressing work off your desk that you finally have the hours to do them yourself. That is where the multiplier actually pays out, in the strategic work that builds an advantage your competitors can't copy by buying the same subscription.
Twelve hours of live instruction for less than most places charge for one.
The full pass covers all eight workshops for $160 — $20 a session, from AI fundamentals through implementation, team adoption, and daily skills. Individual modules run $45–$60, and every session is available on its own.
| Option | Typical cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| University continuing-ed AI course | $1,000–$1,200 | 7–8 weeks, online, general business audience |
| Self-paced online courses (Coursera, LinkedIn Learning) | $50–$600/yr | Video lectures, no live instruction |
| Private AI workshop for your team | $950 and up | One session, one consultant |
| Executive AI programs (MIT, Stanford) | $5,000+ | Three days, built for enterprise leadership |
| The AI Advantage | $160 | 8 live sessions, small groups, in person |
Take the full series for $160.
Eight sessions from understanding to action to integration, with 20 seats per workshop. Your competitors are already using AI. This is how you use it better.
Only need help with one thing — writing, research, getting your team on board? Single sessions and modules are available too.
Register today →