AI training for lumber and building materials dealers
Your people already use AI to write faster. Almost none of them use it to think.
That gap is where the money is, and closing it costs you no software, no IT project, and no ERP integration. Three sessions, built for lumber and building materials dealers, run by someone already on your payroll.
- 75 minutes for the first session
- Six documents, ready to run as written
- Licensed per company, not per seat
Why most dealers stall out
Nearly seven in ten dealers on the LBM 100 say they use AI. Very few can point to a dollar it earned or saved. The tools are not the problem. What is missing is a method: how to ask a question that gets a useful answer instead of a generic one, how to give the tool enough context that the output sounds like your company instead of anyone’s company, and how to check what comes back before somebody quotes off it.
The other reason it stalls is that nobody at the top ever made the company-level decisions. Where should you go deep, who owns it, what tool do you standardize on, what does the policy say, and what do you measure? Interest without those five decisions turns into a handful of people quietly using ChatGPT on personal accounts, which is the worst of both outcomes.
This program fixes both, in that order.
Three sessions, three different rooms
Starter Training stands alone and is free. Sessions 2 and 3 are sold together as the AIGP Rollout Kit.
1
AIGP Starter Training
Free
The desks: inside and outside sales, sales management, finance and credit, purchasing, HR, marketing, plus the owner or GM.
Seventy-five minutes that teach people how to ask. How to write a prompt that returns something usable, how to feed the tool enough about your business that the answer fits your market, and how to check the output before anyone acts on it. Nothing is typed live and computers are optional. It ends with adopting a written AI use policy, so your people get the rules the same day they get the skills.
Length
75 minutes
Materials
Six documents
Sold together as one product
The AIGP Rollout Kit
Sessions 2 and 3 are not sold separately. The build hour without the decision meeting is a training event. The decision meeting without the build hour is a plan nobody knows how to execute. One price, one company license.
$995
Opening October 2026
2
The Build
Same room, with laptops. Twelve to twenty people. Hands on keyboards the whole hour.
Everyone leaves with one real, saved prompt for a task they do every week, plus the two-layer context system: one company block the owner writes once, and a three-line desk block each person writes for their own role. That second piece is what keeps twenty people from building twenty habits that do not match. When your priorities change, you update one block and every prompt in the company gets better the same week.
Length
75 minutes (55-minute run sheet included)
Materials
Five documents
3
The Decisions
Owner or GM plus three to five named point people. Best run about sixty days after The Build.
Ninety minutes that turn interest into implementation. It runs on an honest audit of what actually stuck, and it ends with five written decisions and a ninety-day rollout plan: where to go deep, who owns it, what tool you standardize on, what the policy says, and what you measure. This is the session that separates the dealers who got a training hour from the dealers who got a capability.
Length
90 minutes
Outcome
Five decisions, 90-day plan
What is in the free Starter Training packet
Six files. One person on your payroll reads the facilitator guide, prints five pages per attendee, and runs it.
| File | What it is | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|
| Start Here | What is in the folder and the seven steps to run it | Owner or GM |
| Facilitator Guide | Run sheets, slide-by-slide notes, and the questions you will get | Whoever presents |
| Deck | 26 slides, including three alternate examples for different rooms | Presenter |
| Participant Notes | Five-page handout with the frameworks, the rules, and space to write | Every attendee |
| Workbook | 15 pages: both methods, six worked examples, ten ready-to-use prompts | Managers and presenter |
| AI Use Policy | Starter policy with four blanks. Fill them in, have counsel review, adopt | Owner or GM |
What it does not require
- No outside trainer
- No IT project or ERP connection
- No new software purchase
- No AI experience from whoever runs it
- No computers in the room for Starter Training
What your people learn
- CARGO, for building a prompt that returns something usable
- SHIFT, for fixing a first answer that came back generic
- Business context, so the output sounds like your company
- Four checks before anybody acts on an answer
- The written rules, handed out the same hour
Built for the desks where the work is words, numbers, and judgment
Outside sales, inside sales and sales support, sales management, finance and credit, purchasing, HR, marketing, and the owner or GM. If you run multiple branches, run it per branch rather than once company-wide. Two of the slides ask the presenter to point at the desks actually in the room, and that only works if those people are there. The same presenter can run it at each location, and it gets easier every time.
Also free: the AI Operator Toolkit
The Toolkit is built for one person working alone. Moving a whole company is a different level of work, and it is where most AI efforts stall. That is what the sessions above are for.
Pricing
Both are sold to the company, not to the seat. One price covers everyone on your payroll, at every branch, for as long as you want to run it. Train twelve people this winter and another nine next year and you pay once.
AIGP Starter Training
Free
The method. Six documents, run in-house in 75 minutes, as many times as you want. Comes with the AI Operator Toolkit and the Field Card on the same free form.
AIGP Rollout Kit
$995
Opening October 2026
Sessions 2 and 3 together. The hands-on build hour that sends everyone home with a working prompt and a shared context system, then the owner-level session that ends in five written decisions and a 90-day rollout plan. One company license. No per-seat charge, no headcount to report, no expiration, no renewal.
Starter Training may be distributed by dealers and associations as written, with attribution retained; associations may add their logo. It may not be resold or repackaged as a commercial training product. The AIGP Rollout Kit is licensed to the purchasing company and is not for redistribution or resale.
Questions dealers ask first
Who should run it?
An HR lead, a sales manager, or the GM. Someone senior enough that people show up and close enough to the work to answer questions. Not the person who likes technology most, and not an outside trainer. Reading the facilitator guide takes about twenty minutes plus a fifteen-minute rehearsal it walks you through.
When should we schedule it?
Winter or first quarter. Nobody gives up an hour in the middle of building season. The Build works best within a few weeks of Starter Training while the method is fresh. The Decisions needs about sixty days of real usage behind it, because it runs on an audit of what stuck.
We have not adopted an AI policy yet. Is that a problem?
No. The starter policy is in the free packet with four blanks to fill in, and it can be adopted as written after your attorney reviews it. Hand it out with the training rather than after it. People need the rules before they need the skills.
Do we have to buy AI licenses first?
Not for Starter Training. For The Build, every attendee needs a working laptop and a confirmed sign-in to whatever tool you use. Verify individually, one person at a time. An email asking people to make sure they can log in is not verification, and it is the one prerequisite that quietly ruins the hour.
Do we pay per person?
No. Both are licensed to the company. One price covers every employee at every branch, with no seat count to report and no renewal. Run it again next winter for the people you hired since, and run it at each location, at no additional cost. What you are buying is the right to teach your own people, not a number of chairs.
Can we run this at an association meeting?
Starter Training, yes. It may be distributed as written with attribution retained, and your association can add its logo. It may not be resold or repackaged as a commercial training product. The AIGP Rollout Kit is licensed to the purchasing company.
Who built this
John Marshall spent more than 40 years running businesses before he ever wrote a prompt, including as President and COO of Wilson Lumber during the run that made it ProSales Dealer of the Year. AI Growth Partners exists because he kept watching capable operators buy AI seats and get nothing back for them.
This material is written the way an operator would run it, not the way a technology vendor would sell it. If a step requires a consultant, it did not make the cut.
- 500% revenue growth as President and COO of Wilson Lumber
- 450% growth as President of AllTemp Windows
- Chairman of the Board, Tara Manufacturing
- Three-time C12 Member of the Year
- Written and spoken for LBM Strategies, hbsdealer.com and C12 Business Forums
Training material only. Not engineering, legal, or code guidance. Have your own counsel review any policy before you adopt it.
