2026-09-22T12:54:23-04:00

AI SERVICES BY EPM

AI Training and Implementation for Business Teams

Your competitors use AI to save a little time. Your whole team will use it to get ahead.

We train your people to use AI on their real work, then build it into how your business runs every day. Every person gets hours back each week. You decide what those hours go toward.

Charlotte business owner holding a tablet, ready to bring AI training to her team
Logos of popular AI tools including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and Canva, showing the crowded landscape business teams face

The Problem

AI Is Moving Fast. Every Month You Wait, a Competitor Pulls Ahead.

Everybody’s talking about AI. Far fewer have turned it into something that saves real time or wins them business.

The problem usually isn’t interest. It’s direction. There are too many tools, too much hype, and no clear plan for what to do first.

So most teams settle for efficiency. One or two people use AI to clean up emails and draft content a little faster, and the rest never touch it. That helps a little, but when everyone in your market is doing the same thing, no one actually gets ahead.

That’s where we come in. We get your whole team using AI well, then put the hours you get back to work on the decisions and relationships that separate you from the competition.

Escape Plan Marketing logo

What Makes This Different?

We Don’t Teach AI Tricks. We Build You an Advantage.

A lot of AI advice stops at efficiency. Write the email faster, summarize the report, automate the busywork. It’s useful, but everyone has the same tricks, so nobody pulls ahead.

We work one level up. We help your team use AI to think better: to pressure-test ideas, see what your market is really responding to, and sharpen strategy before you commit to it.

And we do it with your people, not around them. AI is the tool. Your team’s judgment and relationships are the advantage. We make both stronger.

That’s the idea behind AI Services by EPM, and it’s how we run our own business. Our operations run on Skyler, a dedicated AI collaborator we built for ourselves. Escape the busywork, and turn the time you get back into a real edge over the competition.

Practical, not hype

Augmentation, not replacement

Advantage, not just efficiency

Ways to Work with EPM

Level Up as Far as You Need.

Most people meet us at a free talk, or at a $97 Level Up session where they build their own AI setup in the room. From there, a half-day workshop gets your whole team using AI on their real work. When you want it built in and kept running, we do that too: a dedicated AI collaborator for your business, or a fractional AI director who plans it, builds it and runs it with you. You choose how far to take it.

Train Your Whole Team

AI Team Workshop

Hands-on AI training for your employees, on their real work. Half a day at your office, and everyone leaves with hours back each week.

Best for: teams of 5 to 15 that want everyone using AI, not just one or two people. Corporate AI training built around your roles and your tools.

  • Pre-workshop intake so every example fits your tools and roles

  • Live prompt and workflow building, over-the-shoulder coaching

  • Custom Team AI Playbook delivered within 48 hours

  • Optional 30-day follow-up session

Half day $3,500 · Full day $6,000
Founding rate $2,500 / $4,000 for the first three companies through Dec 31, 2026, in exchange for a testimonial and case study. Travel at cost.

Drew Horine leading hands-on AI training for employees during a team workshop in a Charlotte-area boardroom
Skyler, the dedicated AI collaborator Escape Plan Marketing built to run its own operations
Build AI Into Your Day

Your Own Skyler

A dedicated AI collaborator, built for your business and kept running. The same setup that runs ours, named for your company and trained on your work.

Best for: one desk, usually the owner’s or the office manager’s. AI implementation for the person who carries the most.

  • Written business context and operating rules, so it knows your company

  • Three skills built on your real recurring work

  • Up to four of your tools connected, plus a weekday morning brief

  • Training, 30 days of tuning, then a monthly retainer that adds one skill a month

Scoped on a free strategy call
Three-month retainer minimum after the install.

Let Us Plan, Build and Run It

Fractional AI Director

We plan it, build it and run it with you. Think fractional CFO, for AI: a director-level partner who owns AI for your business a few days a month.

Best for: companies that want it done for them, across the whole team. AI implementation services and leadership in one seat.

  • Month one: your AI Opportunity Blueprint, included

  • Workflows built in priority order, team trained as you go

  • Monthly working sessions plus priority async support

  • Quarterly impact review tied to time and money saved

Starting at $4,500 a month
Three-month minimum. Scope scales with team size and how many workflows we build at once; we size it on the call.

Drew Horine, fractional AI director and founder of Escape Plan Marketing

How It Fits Together

You Don’t Have to Commit to Everything Up Front

Most people meet us at a free talk, a $97 Level Up session, or a strategy call. A workshop gets your whole team moving. Your own Skyler builds AI into the way you work. A fractional AI director plans it, builds it and runs it with you.

Start where it makes sense and go as deep as your business needs.

Step 1

Meet Us

A free talk, a $97 Level Up session where you build your own setup, or a free strategy call.

Step 2

AI Team Workshop

Your whole team gets hands-on and confident using AI on real work.

Step 3

Your Own Skyler

A dedicated AI collaborator, built for your business and kept running.

Step 4

Fractional AI Director

We plan it with a Blueprint, build it, and keep the advantage growing.

Who is this for?

Built for Leaders Who Want a Real Edge

We’re a fit for owner-led and leadership-led businesses that are past the early scramble and ready to put AI to work in a real, practical way. Most of our clients are teams of five to fifty in manufacturing, construction, industrial and regional services, and we work with companies up to 200-plus. Whether you’re a small shop or an established local company, there’s a right-sized starting point.

You’ll get the most out of this if you:

  • Want a strategic advantage, not just faster busywork

  • Want a clear plan over a pile of disconnected tools

  • See AI as a way to strengthen your team, not shrink it

  • Are ready to actually implement, not just talk about it

  • Prefer plain English over buzzwords

Not sure if you’re a fit? That’s exactly what a free strategy call is for.

Business owner weighing whether AI training and implementation is the right fit for his company

Run a Group?

Book the AI Talk Your Members Are Asking For

Lead a Rotary club, chamber, association, or team? Drew gives a practical, jargon-free talk on how businesses are really using AI to get ahead, customized to your audience, with clear takeaways they can use Monday morning. It closes with a simple, no-pressure next step for anyone who wants help in their own business.

It’s the same talk that’s opened doors across the Charlotte area, and it’s free.

Drew Horine presenting the Leveling Up with AI talk to a business group in the Charlotte area

Leveling Up with AI has been presented to Rotary clubs, chambers of commerce, and business associations across the Charlotte area.

Two colleagues discussing what AI-assisted market analysis revealed about their customers
Uncovering Advantage: A Charlotte Manufacturer

They Thought Their Edge Was Being the Most Technical. AI Revealed More.

One Charlotte-area manufacturer we worked with believed their edge was technical excellence. Their messaging leaned on certifications and complexity.

When we layered AI-assisted search and review analysis over their market, a different truth emerged. Customers weren’t choosing them for being the most technical. They were choosing them for being the least stressful to work with: clear communication, predictable timelines, a process that felt stable.

AI revealed a better strategy. And real qualified leads continue to come in month over month.

Why AI Services by EPM?

Thirty Years of Spotting the Shift Early

AI Services by EPM is led by Drew Horine, who’s been helping businesses grow with technology since the mid-1990s.

He’s watched the same pattern play out with the internet, Google, social media, and smartphones. Every time, the businesses that pulled ahead weren’t the ones who panicked or dismissed it. They were the ones who leaned in early enough to turn the shift into an advantage. AI is the next one.

We speak regularly to Rotary clubs, chambers, and business groups across the Charlotte area on practical AI. This isn’t theory. Our own business runs on Skyler, the AI collaborator we built for ourselves, and everything we teach and build for clients is the same approach we use every day.

Drew Horine, founder of Escape Plan Marketing, who has helped businesses put new technology to work since the mid-1990s

Let’s Talk

Let’s Turn AI Into Your Strategic Advantage

You don’t need to have it all figured out. Book a free strategy call and we’ll talk through where you are, where AI could give your team an edge, and what a smart first step looks like for your business.

No hype. No techno-babble. Just a clear conversation about where you want to go.

Questions we hear often

2026-09-22T12:54:00-04:00

Most teams use tools like ChatGPT for efficiency: cleaning up emails, drafting content, summarizing documents. That’s a fine start, but it’s the same thing your competitors are doing. The advantage comes from using AI to sharpen strategy and decisions before they get expensive, and from getting your whole team to actually adopt it. That’s the hard part, and it’s what we build with you.

2026-09-22T12:54:02-04:00

No. We do the opposite. We train your team to use AI as a tool so they spend less time on busywork and more on the work that actually needs a person. The goal is a stronger team with a sharper edge, not a smaller one.

2026-09-22T12:54:03-04:00

Skyler is the AI collaborator we built to run Escape Plan Marketing. It has a name, a job description, a set of operating rules, and a working knowledge of our business, and it handles drafting, planning, reporting and follow-up work every day. When we build one for you, it gets your company’s name, your context, your rules and your tools. It drafts, you decide. It never replaces a person; it gives each person hours back.

2026-09-22T12:54:04-04:00

Skyler is one dedicated AI collaborator for one desk, usually the owner’s or the office manager’s. We install it once, train the person who’ll use it, and keep it running on a light monthly retainer. Fractional AI Director, sometimes called a fractional chief AI officer, is us working across your whole company, month after month: we start with a Blueprint of where AI fits, then build workflow after workflow and train the people who use them. If you want one person’s week back, start with Skyler. If you want the whole company moved, that’s the director seat. Plenty of clients start with one and add the other.

2026-09-22T12:54:04-04:00

Level Up Training sessions are $97 a seat. Team workshops are $3,500 for a half day and $6,000 for a full day, and the first three companies through December 31, 2026 get a founding rate of $2,500 and $4,000 in exchange for a testimonial and a case study. Your own Skyler is scoped on a free strategy call, since every build is different. Fractional AI Director starts at $4,500 a month with a three-month minimum and includes your AI Opportunity Blueprint in month one; larger companies with more workflows in flight should expect a higher number. “Leveling Up with AI” talks are exactly that, free.

2026-09-22T12:54:06-04:00

Not at all. Early is the best time. We’ll help you skip the expensive trial-and-error and put your effort where it pays off first, instead of chasing every new tool. The businesses that lean in early are the ones that pull ahead.

2026-09-22T12:54:07-04:00

Not in the usual sense. Most AI consulting ends with a report and a recommendation. We train your team on their real work, build the tools into how you operate, and stay to keep them running. You get a plan, but you also get the people who carry it out with you. If you’ve been searching for an AI consultant and what you actually want is a team that uses AI well, this is that.

2026-09-22T12:54:07-04:00

We’re tool-agnostic. We recommend what fits your business and your budget, and we’ll work with what you already have. The goal is capability that sticks with your team, not dependence on us or any one vendor.

2026-09-22T12:54:08-04:00

Not at all. We’re based in Gastonia and love working with businesses across the Charlotte metro, but distance isn’t a problem. Skyler builds and Fractional AI Director work run remotely, and for workshops and on-site training we’ll travel anywhere in North America, with travel billed at cost.

Map of the Charlotte, NC metro area, where Escape Plan Marketing provides AI training and implementation for business teams

Escape Plan Marketing is headquartered in Charlotte, NC, serving small businesses throughout the Carolinas and beyond.

Escape Plan Marketing - Digital Marketing Agency in Charlotte, NC

  • Community Involvement

Charlotte Area Chamber of Commerce
Gaston Business Association Member
Rotary International Member
Gastonia Concert Series
Dream Center Academy of Gaston County
Escape Plan Marketing is a digital marketing agency serving small and mid-sized businesses across the Charlotte metro area, North Carolina, and beyond.

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Bring “Leveling Up with AI” to Your Group

Drew Horine gives practical, jargon-free talks on how businesses are really using AI, customized to your audience. Tell us a little about your group and we’ll follow up to find a date.

Perfect for Rotary clubs, chambers of commerce, podcasts, business groups, and trade organizations.

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