Practical AI for ambitious businesses

Audit, train and build the AI capability your business actually needs

We help SMEs and professional teams cut through AI hype and build something that actually works. No lock-ins, no retainers, no ten-tool stacks.Just a clear audit, proper training, and tools you control. Delivered from our private Lancashire venue or at your own site.Built for founders and MDs of 10–50 person businesses who know AI matters but don't want to bet the farm working out how.

Book a discovery call

Free 20-minute call. No sales pitch. If we can't help, we'll tell you.

We shape every engagement around what you actually need, but most work falls into one of three patterns.

Three ways to work with us

AI Readiness Audit: A structured review of where AI and automation can realistically help your business. We map your workflows, identify the highest-value opportunities, and give you a prioritised roadmap with costs and expected returns. Half-day or full-day. Can be delivered remotely or at our Lancashire venue.Best for: leadership teams who want a clear answer before committing to spend.

AI Champion Programme: Hands-on training that turns your key people into confident, internal AI users. We cover practical prompting, workflow redesign, agent-based tools, and ethical use — tailored to your specific business. Delivered as a 1 or 2-day residential at our private training venue in the Ribble Valley, or on your own site.Best for: teams who want lasting internal capability, not external dependency.

AI Operating System: A full engagement: audit, build, train, handover. We redesign one or more core workflows using the simplest credible stack — often just Claude, a spreadsheet, and a scheduled agent — then train your team to run it without us. Typically 6–12 weeks.Best for: businesses ready to make AI part of how they actually operate.

Book a discovery call

focused on tools you control - no lock-ins

Direct, practical, and built to hand back

Our process is simple: understand, build, hand over.

1. Discovery call (free, 20 minutes)A short, honest conversation about your business and whether we can help. If we can't, we'll say so and point you elsewhere.2. Paid audit (half-day or full-day)We map your workflows, identify where AI and automation can realistically add value, and give you a written roadmap with costs, risks, and expected returns. You own the output whether or not you work with us afterwards.3. Build, train or bothDepending on what the audit shows, we either build a specific workflow, train your team, or do both. We use the simplest tools that will do the job properly, no lock-ins, no monthly SaaS sprawl.4. HandoverEverything we build comes with plain-English documentation and training so your team can run it independently. We're not a retainer business, our job is to make ourselves unnecessary.

Turn key team members into AI users who multiply your efficiency gains.

Our private training venue in the Ribble Valley

We deliver residential training and strategy days at The Out Barn at Clough Bottom. A 200-acre private estate in Lancashire that's been hosting corporate training for over 30 years. Past guests at our venue include a FTSE 250 chemicals group, a national bakery, a high street retailer, and others.A genuinely distraction-free environment with exclusive use, fresh catering from our onsite kitchen, and comfortable accommodation for up to 27 guests.It's not a hotel meeting room. It's the opposite of one which is exactly why it works for the kind of focused, honest sessions where real decisions get made.

See the venue

Who We Are

A family business that's been training teams for 30 years. OptimiseFlow is run by a small team with a long heritage in both corporate training and operational efficiency.

Henry Backhouse

Henry: Trained as a mechanical engineer and spent five years at Jaguar Land Rover stripping waste out of press production lines. In 2017 took over the family training venue and applied the same mindset. Linking smart tools to simple workflows so businesses run leaner and smoother. Now focused on helping other SMEs get the same results from AI without the hype.

Amy Backhouse

With a marketing degree and 15 years leading client services at agencies like Fat Media, CTI, Dept, and Reason, I’ve spent my career turning messy processes into profitable, data-driven results. My strength is in high attention to detail and designing clear, repeatable processes that anyone on the team can follow. Bringing that same clarity to workflow projects so the right tools fit perfectly, deliver measurable savings, and allow one person to handle multiple roles efficiently without added complexity.

Train your people from the bottom up. Build capability that stays.

The AI Champion Programme

Most AI training gets forgotten within a week. Slides, generic prompts, nothing actually changes on Monday morning.We take a different approach. Bring your Champions to us for a residential training day in the Ribble Valley and they'll leave with real working tools built for your actual workflows, plus the confidence and materials to train the rest of the business themselves. It's the most practical way to get AI capability into an organisation without external dependency.We work hands-on with the same tools we run our own business on. Claude for everyday thinking and writing, Claude Cowork for agents that work in the background, and a few specialist add-ons where they genuinely help. Delegates leave with two or three working tools built for their own role and a plan for week one. Other frontier models can be requested and explained.

1 or 2 day format. Up to 20 delegates for hands-on training. Exclusive use, your team only.

Book discovery call

small tweaks yield big wins.

Find out how we can help you

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens on the free discovery call? ↓

A short, honest conversation about your business. We'll ask about your team, your current tools, and what's prompted you to look at AI now. If we think we can genuinely help, we'll suggest a next step. If we can't, we'll say so — and usually point you somewhere that can.

What's the difference between the audit and the Champion Programme? ↓

The audit is diagnostic — it tells you what's worth doing and in what order. The Champion Programme is training — it builds internal capability so your own team can run with the results. Most clients do the audit first, then decide whether to book training or a build based on what it shows.

Do you offer retainers or ongoing support? ↓

No. We're deliberately project-based. Our goal is to make ourselves unnecessary as quickly as possible — we'd rather you come back in a year for a new project than pay us every month for something you don't need. If something breaks or you need help after handover, we'll sort it.

What tools do you actually use? ↓

We lean heavily on the simplest credible stack — most of our own work runs on Claude (including Claude Cowork for scheduled agents), Google Workspace, and a handful of specialist tools where they genuinely earn their place. We avoid SaaS sprawl on principle. If the right answer for your business is a different stack, we'll tell you.

Why train at your venue instead of remotely? ↓

Because training that changes how people actually work needs protected space and time. An afternoon on Zoom doesn't land the same way as a day away from the office, with proper food, proper breaks, and nowhere to hide from the conversation. We've been running corporate training days at Clough Bottom for over 30 years and the residential format consistently delivers better outcomes — especially for leadership and whole-team sessions.

What's the AI Champion Programme and why does it matter? ↓

It's tailored training that turns one or two of your team members into confident everyday AI users who can then train colleagues and drive ongoing improvements internally. The business case is simple: external AI consultants are expensive and temporary. Internal champions compound. Most of our clients tell us this is the part that actually sticks.

What does it cost? ↓

Every engagement is fixed-price — no retainers, no hourly rates, no hidden extras. Indicative pricing for the Audit, Champion Programme and AI Operating System is included in our brochure, or we can talk through it on a discovery call. The shape of the work determines the number, which is why we don't publish a rate card..

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Thank you – your enquiry has been received

Thanks, we've got your details and will be in touch within 48 hours (usually sooner) to set up a discovery call. We'll use that conversation to understand your business and work out whether we're the right fit. If we're not, we'll say so.In the meantime, have a look at the AI Champion Programme below or read more about how we work.