Energía que ValeENERGÍA
QUE VALELet's talk ↗
VALE ALDAMUY · CONSULTING FOR SERVICE BUSINESSES

People.
Processes.
AI with purpose.

Help your business sell better, your team move forward with clarity, and technology take work off your plate.

I work with service businesses to understand how they operate, develop their people, and prepare to use technology with purpose—starting with one focused, manageable step.

Find your first step ↓Talk about your business ↗
PEOPLE · PROCESSES · PRACTICAL AI
Vale Aldamuy, consultant and host of Energía que Vale
EXPERIENCE FROM THE FIELD
▶FROM THE PODCASTListen to the conversations behind the method↗
A SMALL WIN STARTS HERE

What is slowing
your business down?

Choose what feels familiar. Get an action to try and a way to measure it—before sharing any contact details.

Try it with your team. When you want support, we can help you implement it.

BEYOND THE MICROPHONE

Experience to share.
Guidance that stays with you.

I also work with service businesses to understand how they operate, develop their people, and prepare to use technology with purpose.

01 / PEOPLE

Teams that learn

Sales conversations, coaching, and clear responsibilities so knowledge no longer depends on one person.

02 / PROCESSES

A visible path

From the first inquiry to delivery: follow-up, CRM, and agreements among the people serving the customer.

03 / TECHNOLOGY

AI with purpose

Understand the task before automating. Then test, review, and measure with your team.

Tell us where work gets stuck ↗
FROM THE MONOLOGUE TO YOUR OPERATION

Choose your
next improvement.

Check what you can already verify in your business. The first unfinished task suggests a starting point for your team.

This is a working guide, not an AI readiness certification.

AN IMPROVEMENT YOU CAN REPEAT

Make your
next step small.

Choose a clear cue and an action that's easy to begin. Open the record, write down the agreement, and complete what's missing. The first two minutes help you get started.

After finishing a customer conversation: I record the next step, the date, and who is responsible.

Make your practice visible · 7 days

0 of 7 days marked

If you miss a day, return at the next opportunity. Mark only when you had a chance to practice. Your plan and checkmarks appear in the PDF; here they reset on reload. One week is a chance to learn and adjust.

Inspired by Atomic Habits, by James Clear ↗. An original Energía que Vale application.

Read the monologue on architecture ↗
What we already have clear

0 of 6 points reviewed

ONE ACTION FOR THIS WEEK

Choose ten recent inquiries and record who handles each one and their next action.

Get a PDF guide with your assessment, one priority action, and a seven-day plan.

ENERGÍA QUE VALE × ABBA NEXUS

Your business.
Your knowledge.
AI built around you.

Bring the capabilities of a connected business within reach. Our partnership combines Energía que Vale’s process design and implementation guidance with ABBA NEXUS’s proprietary AI software and hardware approach.

The goal: help small businesses respond faster, put their knowledge to work, and compete with the consistency of a larger operation—starting with a focused, manageable project.

A WORKFLOW WE CAN START WITH

A customer conversation becomes a clear next step.

After an appointment, an assistant could draft the agreed next steps from approved notes. Your salesperson reviews the draft before it enters the customer record. We would test completeness, time spent, and corrections with your team.

01 / Understand the task02 / Draft and review03 / Measure and adjust

Illustrative workflow. Connections and capabilities are confirmed for each project.

Explore the technology and how we implement it
HARDWARE + SOFTWARE + IMPLEMENTATION

A business-specific setup, shaped around your workflows, team, and existing systems. We assess the right local or connected approach before selecting equipment or deploying agents.

MEET NEXUS COMPANION

Your environment. Your memory. A connected AI workspace.

NEXUS Companion is the technology at the center of our partnership: a modular approach to connecting business information, applications, AI models, and agents. Together, we shape its use around the work your business needs to get done.

Persistent business context

Organize approved knowledge so agents can work with relevant business context. Define what may be retained and who may access it.

Connected tools and sources

Explore connections to folders, CRM, databases, and applications, based on compatibility and approved permissions.

Coordinated agents and models

Choose purpose-specific agents and compatible AI models. Define the handoffs between reading, proposing, and taking approved actions.

Local, cloud, or hybrid

Evaluate the deployment that fits your data needs and operations. Hardware requirements and available modules are confirmed for each project.

01 / ORGANIZE

Make your knowledge usable.

Bring your documents, customer questions, and operating procedures into a clear structure. Define the source of truth and who keeps it current.

02 / CONNECT

Build a connected operation.

Map how information moves between your team and tools. Select compatible integrations and give each workflow a clear owner.

03 / DEPLOY

Give each agent a clear job.

Start with one defined task, approved data, and a measurable outcome. Test it with your team, review exceptions, and expand when the evidence supports it.

Control is part of the plan.

Before deployment, we define what an agent may access, what it may do, and which actions need human approval. Data storage, access, export, and technology licensing are agreed for your project.

Built around your business knowledge.

Your processes and approved knowledge shape the implementation. Energía que Vale guides the business application; ABBA NEXUS supplies its technology. The scope and available capabilities are confirmed during assessment.

Explore my first AI task ↗

Tell us where work gets stuck. Your next step starts with the business problem.

Learn to serve better.Connect to grow together.Share what matters.
YOUR NEXT STEP

Let’s start with
the business problem.

Tell us where work gets stuck: follow-up, team ownership, or where AI could actually help. We begin with one focused project you can measure.

TALK ABOUT YOUR BUSINESSEducation, processes, and AI adoption↗CONNECT ON LINKEDINVale Aldamuy on LinkedIn↗LISTEN TO THE PODCAST14 conversations about sales, leadership, and AI↗
FROM THE MONOLOGUE TO YOUR PRACTICE

What stayed with you?

Tell us what caught your attention and what you intend to put into practice. Vale reads every reflection, and the best questions become future episodes and monologues.

WHEN YOU WANT A SECOND PERSPECTIVE

Let’s think it through.

We help service businesses improve sales, develop their teams, organize operations, and implement useful AI. Start with the situation you want to improve.

One conversation to understand the problem and decide whether our support would help. Any scope and fees are discussed before a commitment.

Connect with Vale on LinkedIn ↗

Review version: contact requests are not sent yet. You can use LinkedIn to reach us. Your free plan works without submitting this form.
← Back to the blog
ENERGÍA QUE VALE · EPISODE 9

AI for Sales: How to Get Started in Your Business

Episode thumbnail 9: Miguel Bethamcourt

Organize your CRM, improve follow-up, connect sales to delivery, and start using AI with a clear process.

VALE ALDAMUY · 5 MIN READ

You can invest in advertising, hire salespeople, and buy a CRM. But if a prospect reaches out today and nobody knows who should respond, you still have an opportunity without an owner.

Before asking which artificial intelligence tool to buy, answer something more basic: What happens in your business from the moment a potential customer reaches out until they receive what they purchased?

In Episode 9 of Energía que Vale, we discussed growth, technology, and the importance of bringing sales information together. One idea runs through that conversation: technology should make the salesperson’s job easier and give people visibility into the customer’s journey.

For owners of solar, roofing, HVAC, and remodeling businesses, that idea provides a practical starting point.

Keep your contacts in one place

One prospect comes through WhatsApp. Another fills out a form. A salesperson saves a conversation on their phone. The owner receives a referral and writes it down for later.

When information is scattered, answering simple questions means chasing people: Who called? What did the customer need? Did they receive the proposal? What happens next?

In the episode, we discussed bringing that information into a CRM: a system for managing customer relationships and sales opportunities.

As a starting point, every opportunity should include a name, contact information, requested service, lead source, assigned owner, current stage, and next step with a date.

Try this: pick ten recent opportunities. Can you tell what happens next with each one without calling the salesperson? If you cannot, you have identified a useful first improvement project.

2. Choose one specific task for AI

“I want to put AI in my company” is an intention. “I want to prepare a summary of every meeting and record the next step” is a project you can evaluate.

Our podcast conversation explored freeing salespeople from administrative work so they can give customers more attention. Building on that idea, you can evaluate tasks such as summarizing conversations, drafting follow-up messages, and flagging missing information.

It helps to distinguish between tools. Capturing a form submission, assigning a contact, or creating a reminder may be handled through CRM automation. Interpreting a conversation or preparing a personalized draft may call for AI.

Start with a frequent task that is easy to review. After each meeting, for example, prepare a summary of the customer’s needs, questions, and agreed next step. The salesperson reviews it before saving or sending it.

3. Decide when a person needs to step in

In high-value projects, a fast response needs to be accurate.

If you sell a roof, a solar system, or a remodeling project, some decisions depend on an inspection, a technical assessment, or a third party’s approval.

Before activating a workflow, define which approved information it can use, which messages need review, which questions require a handoff, and who handles exceptions.

The system could draft a request for missing documents. An installation date or savings commitment needs the appropriate supporting information and approval.

Also limit access to the data each task needs. Designing the process includes deciding who can view and change customer information.

4. Connect the sale to delivery

One especially useful part of the episode explored visibility into project progress. Customers still need answers after they sign.

Did you receive my documents? Has the site visit happened? What needs to happen before work begins?

When the salesperson cannot see that progress either, every answer requires another chain of messages.

The practical application is to record verifiable stages, each with an owner and a clear condition for moving forward: contract signed, documents complete, site visit completed, assessment approved, and work scheduled, for example.

With that foundation, you can evaluate automatic updates or team summaries. Every message should reflect confirmed progress so faster communication does not create inaccurate expectations.

5. Measure before expanding the investment

Choose one stage and observe how long it takes, how many opportunities get stuck, and how much manual work it requires. After the pilot, compare the same process and review the quality of the responses.

You can start with four indicators:

• Time to first contact.

• Opportunities with an assigned owner and a recorded next step.

• Proposals awaiting follow-up.

• Administrative time per opportunity.

These are suggested indicators for your own test; the episode does not present a pilot measured against them. Changes in sales can also depend on your offer, your prospects, and your team.

How to start this week

Bring your team together and map what happens from the first message to delivery. Choose the point where the most information gets lost or the most time is consumed.

Document who receives the information, where it is recorded, who takes action, and how you confirm the task is complete. Test one improvement at that stage and review the mistakes before expanding it.

That gives you evidence from your own operation to evaluate the investment.

Here is the question to take with you today: If you received twice as many inquiries tomorrow, would your team know what to do with each one?

Your answer may show you where to begin preparing your business to grow with AI.

This article develops ideas from Episode 9 of Energía que Vale and adds practical recommendations from the author. Watch the full conversation: Watch the full episode ↗

← All monologues
AI IN PRACTICE

Before you automate, organize your business

Start with one real opportunity: complete information, a responsible person, and a visible next step.

VALE ALDAMUY · 4 MIN READ

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are. Grab a coffee and let's talk about a question I hear often: “Vale, where do I start with artificial intelligence?”

I invite you to start with something you can review today. Choose one person who asked your business for information. Just one. Where did their message go? Who answered? What did they need? When will someone speak with them again?

If answering takes three phone calls, a chat search, and a notebook, you've already found important work to do.

An opportunity needs an owner

In service businesses, we sell trust before delivering the work. Someone is considering letting us into their home, improving something important, and guiding them through a decision that can take time.

That relationship starts with the first message. Every opportunity therefore needs a record that makes it understandable: who the person is, how to contact them, what they want, where they came from, who serves them, and the next step.

You don't need twenty fields that nobody completes. You need the information your team actually uses to continue the conversation.

Try this exercise: take ten recent opportunities. Count how many have an owner and a next action with a date. That number tells you something concrete about your follow-up.

Describe the work before asking AI to help

“I want AI to help with sales” is an intention. Now let's turn it into a task.

After an appointment, for example, the salesperson prepares a summary. It should record what matters to the customer, which questions remain open, which documents are missing, and what everyone agreed to do.

That task can be explained. We know when it starts, what information it needs, and what result we want. AI can help prepare a draft, and the salesperson can review it before saving it.

Defining the work this way may also show you that some things only need simple automation. A recorded date can generate a reminder. AI becomes useful when you need to interpret a conversation or prepare a response using approved information.

Give it a reliable foundation

The team needs to know where answers come from. Which document explains the service? Who keeps the terms current? Where are the frequently asked questions we've already reviewed?

Imagine someone promising a date they heard two months ago, while someone else uses a different process version. A tool connected to both sources can face the same problem.

That's why reviewing information, removing outdated versions, and assigning someone to maintain it are worthwhile. You also need to decide which data each task can access.

We remain responsible for what we tell the customer.

Test something small you can observe

Choose a frequent task that's easy to review. Observe how your team handles it for a few days: how long it takes, what information is usually missing, and what mistakes need correction.

Then test the tool's help on that same task. Compare time, certainly, but also quality. A quick summary that invents a commitment can create more work later.

Initially, a person should check the result. If there's an exception, the team needs to know whom to involve. If the process starts failing, they must be able to stop it and return to the familiar way of working.

Start this week

Bring together the people who receive inquiries, sell, and deliver the service. Map what happens from the first inquiry through support after delivery.

Choose a point where information gets lost. Define who receives the case, what they need to work, and how they confirm completion.

Then test an improvement and review what you learned.

This is leadership too: making work clearer for the people who execute it. Technology can help you maintain continuity.

Here's a question: if twice as many inquiries arrived tomorrow, would your team know what to do with each one?

The answer may show you where to begin.

← All monologues
AI IN PRACTICE

An architecture to connect your business

Connect your CRM, people, and agents with defined data, verifiable events, and clear responsibilities.

VALE ALDAMUY · 5 MIN READ

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Today I want to go a step further. You've started organizing your processes. You know who serves the customer and what needs to happen next. Now comes an important question: how do you connect it all?

An inquiry can arrive through one channel, end up in a CRM, generate a proposal in another system, and reach operations through a message. Every handoff is an opportunity to lose something important.

Let's think about that connection through the customer's journey.

Define where each piece of data lives

The first agreement is deciding where each type of information is recorded and updated.

The CRM can hold the contact, opportunity, owner, and follow-up. Another platform can store the design or proposal. An operations system can track project execution.

What matters is that the team knows which record is authoritative for each detail. If the customer's phone changes, where is it corrected? If the proposal changes, how does sales know which version to present?

You also need a consistent way to recognize the same case across systems. A shared identifier helps connect the opportunity, proposal, and project. A person's name alone can be ambiguous.

That agreement prevents two teams from working on different versions of the same story.

Connect facts you can verify

Consider a proposal ready for review.

That phrase should mean something: the necessary information is present, someone reviewed the assumptions, and an identified version exists. Once those conditions are met, the system can notify the person responsible for presenting it.

The same applies to a completed visit or received documents. Every stage needs a clear condition for advancing.

Before connecting a notification, ask: what fact triggers it, what evidence confirms it, and who needs to act?

If an update triggers on incomplete information, the team may communicate progress that hasn't happened yet.

Give each agent a task with limits

Imagine an assistant that helps prepare follow-up. It can consult the approved appointment summary, identify open questions, and suggest a message.

Its work has an input, an output, and a reviewer. It also has a limit: it must not invent prices, approve exceptions, or promise unconfirmed dates.

Another assistant might detect missing documents. That doesn't mean it should also have access to every company file.

Connecting tools includes deciding what each task can read, what it can change, and which decisions require a person.

Those permissions need testing. Writing them in a document is only the beginning.

Design what happens when something fails too

Take a simple case: a summary is sent to the CRM and the connection fails. Who sees it? Is it retried? How do you avoid saving the same summary twice?

A workflow needs to recognize what it has already done, record errors, and notify someone when it cannot continue. If two people receive the same case, responsibility must be clear.

Keep a change history too: what was updated, when, and with what review. That helps correct mistakes without reconstructing the conversation from memory.

These questions seem technical, but their effect is very human. Behind a duplicate case is a person receiving two calls. Behind a lost update is someone waiting for an answer.

Test the complete journey

Before expanding a connection, follow a case from beginning to end.

Check that it arrives with its information, reaches the right person, preserves the customer's questions, and records what happened. Introduce an incomplete case too and see whether the workflow stops and asks for help.

Initially, you can work in observation mode: the tool proposes and the team reviews. That lets you compare its results with the real process before giving it more ability to act.

Define in advance what you'll review: response time, missing information, repeated work, and necessary corrections. Keep tool costs visible. More automated activity can also consume more resources.

A team conversation to get started

Bring together sales, operations, and whoever manages the systems. Choose a single journey, such as from completed appointment to recorded follow-up.

Document five things: what triggers it, what information it needs, where it's saved, who reviews it, and what happens if it fails.

That gives you a small working agreement between people and systems.

Architecture becomes useful when it lets a good conversation continue without losing context. That's the result worth pursuing.

Your next task is concrete: choose a handoff that currently requires chasing someone. Write it down, clarify it with the team, and test how to maintain continuity.