The 7-Day Small Business AI Survival Check: 12 Things to Fix Before Customers Ask a Bot Instead of Google

This is not an AI transformation plan. It is the stuff a small business can actually do while still operating the business, because apparently customers, employees and bills refuse to suspend themselves for digital strategy week.

Day 1: Ask AI what it thinks you are

1. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and search engines to describe your business without giving them your website first. Record what is right, wrong, missing and outdated.

2. Ask each system who your business is best for and why someone should choose it. If the answer sounds like it could describe twelve competitors, your differentiation is not publicly legible yet.

Day 2: Fix your source of truth

3. Put one plain-language explanation on your website that says what you do, who you do it for, where you operate and what outcome you create.

4. Make contact information, location, service area, hours, leadership and primary offers consistent across your website and major listings.

Day 3: Give the machine proof instead of adjectives

5. Replace vague claims like best, premier, innovative and trusted with things that can be verified: years, certifications, outcomes, specialties, case examples, customer evidence, awards or documented expertise.

6. Strengthen reviews and third-party mentions. Your own website saying you are wonderful is useful information. Other credible people saying why they chose you is evidence.

Day 4: Make your offers understandable

7. Give each important offer a clear name, audience, problem, result and next action. If a customer has to decode a clever service menu, an AI system will not magically develop telepathy.

8. Publish the questions customers repeatedly ask and answer them clearly. Those questions are already becoming conversational-search prompts.

Day 5: Stop using AI like a slot machine

9. Before asking AI to create something, provide the business context, customer, goal, evidence, boundaries and decision you are trying to improve. That is the practical core of Promptology™.

10. Do not paste sensitive customer, employee, financial, legal or proprietary information into random tools because the interface has friendly rounded corners.

Day 6: Decide what AI is not allowed to decide

11. Write down which actions require human approval: pricing exceptions, customer promises, legal language, sensitive messages, hiring or firing decisions, payments, data sharing, public claims and anything else that could become expensive while you sleep. That boundary is Human Algorithm™ in practice.

Day 7: Test again

12. Repeat the same discovery questions. Do not celebrate one flattering answer. Track whether the systems identify you correctly, preserve your evidence, distinguish you from competitors and route people toward the correct next step over time. That is the beginning of Machine-Readable Authority™ measurement.

Small businesses do not need to win an AI arms race. They need to stop being passive participants in how machines interpret and recommend them. Seven days will not solve everything. It will move the business from unaware to observing, from observing to correcting, and from correcting to learning.

Created by Heather Fricke through Frick-E Energy™. This public checklist is educational and intentionally practical. First published August 7, 2026.