ROI FOR AI · THE PERFORMANCE ACADEMY

ROI for AI Bootcamp.

A leaner, more profitable business. A sharper leader.

Eight live 90-minute working sessions for MDs, directors and senior leaders of £5M to £500M businesses.

You leave with:

  • A leaner, more profitable operation.
  • Your own ROI for AI tool, built on your numbers.
  • Twelve workflows, every one tied to an EBITDA driver and a 1% lever, so the value is never abstract.
  • An understanding that the ROI on AI goes well beyond overhead savings.
Register your interest Talk it through first
Put AI on your P&L, not in a slide deck.

Implementation, not inspiration. A small, high-attention room. Not chalk-and-talk, not a tick-box CPD, not a free government course.

The size of the prize

Small moves on the right drivers and levers. Outsized moves in profit.

We have built you a dynamic tool that lets you input your own numbers, so you can see the size of the prize for your business and where to focus your AI effort to get a significant return.

The discipline is in working every 1% lever, not just the obvious ones. That is where the compounding lives.

50%+

EBITDA increase

What disciplined 1% moves across the right profit drivers and levers can do to EBITDA when they compound.

The deeper you dig, the more opportunity you find.

The rigour and discipline of using all the 1% levers available is what drives EBITDA growth.

Total driver uplift by scenario (£000s)
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 Uplift (£000s) 1.0% 3.8% 10.6% 3.3% 7.4% 18.0% 14.9% 29.9% 67.7% GM=44.4% GM=44.9% GM=46.3% Revenue Gross Profit EBITDA
Power of 1% overview EBITDA drivers 1 to 7 Power of 1%, all levers
So what

These numbers are based on a real business with a c. 43% gross profit margin and c. 12% EBITDA margin.

The c. 68% lift in EBITDA comes from the discipline and rigour of using all 16+ levers we share with you, and their compounding nature.

Note: revenue "only" increases by 10.6% to achieve this EBITDA uplift.

Source: The Performance Academy power-of-1% model. Illustrative.

The 7 EBITDA drivers and 16+ levers sit across three categories, acquire, retain and run lean, and every one has an AI play.

See it working

Every driver has an AI play. You run them live.

This is not a tour of tools. Inside the cohort you work hands-on, on our own platform, with a real AI use case mapped to each profit driver across all three categories. You operate them yourself in the room, then take the patterns straight back into your business.

ROI for AI · the cohort platform
Acquire

AI that widens the top of the funnel, lifts conversion on the pipeline you already hold, and protects price as deals grow. A small commercial team that performs like a bigger one.

Retain

AI that brings customers back, deepens what they spend, and defends your margin on the relationships you have already won.

Run lean

AI that takes time and cost out of delivery and the back office, freeing real capacity across the part of the P&L most leaders never get to touch.

Twelve workflows, each tied to an EBITDA driver and a 1% lever. You keep hands-on access for the life of your cohort, and the detail lives in the room.

How it works

Eight working sessions, built around how profit actually compounds.

Run weekly across roughly eight weeks. Small cohort, highly interactive, real time on your own numbers. Every session recorded, so a missed week costs you nothing.

Session 1

Where your profit is hiding

Andy walks you through the three-category model: 3 P&L categories, 7 EBITDA drivers, and 16+ one percent levers. You leave the first session knowing exactly which drivers and levers move EBITDA, and by how much. We give you the ROI for AI tool so you can apply the model to your own numbers.

Session 2

AI across the three acquisition drivers

Where AI widens the funnel, lifts conversion, and protects deal value at the same time. Make a small commercial team perform like a bigger one, without adding headcount.

Session 3

AI on the base you already have

Where AI brings customers back, grows what they spend, and defends your margin. Most growth hides in the customers you have already won. This is where you go and get it.

Session 4

Cost of sales

Where AI takes time and cost out of delivery. The bit of the P&L most leaders never get to touch directly.

Session 5

Overheads

Where AI lightens the back office and frees real capacity. We work the realistic ceiling for your first twelve months, not a fantasy number.

Session 6

The knock-on effect

What a leaner, more profitable business does for the people running it: salary and bonus, career equity, exit and MBO value.

Session 7

Your 90-day plan

Three things to measure from day one: adoption, process, outcome. You walk out with a plan you can put in front of your board inside a week.

Session 8

Show and tell

Reconvene the cohort to close out the eight weeks. What shipped, what didn't, what you would do differently. The accountability piece other programmes skip.

Who this is for

Built for the people running the business.

A small room, six to ten people, with a lot of back and forth and real time on your own numbers. Not chalk-and-talk. Not a tick-box CPD. Not a free government course. It is the work of actually implementing AI inside a real P&L, and you leave with your own AI capability noticeably sharper for having been in it.

Built for

  • Directors and MDs of UK service businesses turning over £5M to £500M
  • Founders or operating heads who carry the P&L
  • Leaders who have personally experimented with AI but not built it into how the business runs
  • Anyone whose board has asked "what's our AI plan" and wants something better than a tooling list to answer with
  • People who want to measure adoption, process change, and outcome, not just attend a course

Not built for

  • Founders earlier than £5M revenue (the levers don't have enough mass yet)
  • Pure-play tech businesses with deep AI engineering in-house
  • People who want a slide deck and no homework
  • Anyone looking for theoretical AI strategy rather than implementation
  • Buyers who want to attend rather than ship
Who's running it

Two operators, not consultants.

A chartered accountant and corporate financier who has trained over 2,000 senior leaders, and an AI operator who runs four lean businesses and installs the systems for a living.

Alex Lockey
Alex Lockey
Operating partner. Builder of lean, leveraged businesses.

Works with businesses on AI strategy, transformation and education. Translates between the business world and the technology world. AI is one tool in the kit. Business fundamentals come first.

4
Businesses run with minimal headcount
20+
Years operating, 15 running his own
Andy Bate
Andy Bate
Founder, The Performance Academy. Chartered accountant and corporate financier.

30+ years across PwC, KPMG and Barclays Private Equity, working with hundreds of businesses. Sat on 20+ boards. Built two start-ups, including an e-commerce business he grew to £15M and an edtech now in 350+ UK schools. Delivered leadership training to over 2,000 senior leaders across 5,000+ hours.

2,000+
Senior leaders trained
50+
M&A transactions
What's included

You don't leave with notes. You leave with a working toolkit.

Everything you need to put in front of your team and your board, and to keep running on it after the cohort closes.

Eight 90-minute sessions

Live, small cohort, run on Zoom. Every session recorded, so a missed week costs you nothing.

Your own ROI for AI model

Your version of Andy's ROI for AI tool, populated with your numbers. The exact tool you use to find the 1% drivers and levers, and to show your board and team where the ROI on AI sits.

Hands-on platform access

Twelve workflows, every one tied to an EBITDA driver and a 1% lever, so the value is never abstract. Operate them in the room, then keep access for the life of your cohort.

The AI skills library

Working patterns for the highest-leverage tasks across acquire, retain and run lean. Yours to keep, yours to build on.

The 90-day action plan

Written with Alex and Andy on the inside of the cohort. Adoption baseline, process baseline, outcome baseline.

The show-and-tell session

Reconvene the cohort to close out the eight weeks and walk through what shipped. Accountability with peer pressure.

Investment

A fraction of the cost of AI consultants. Far more operating relevance.

Consultants do it to your business and leave. Here the leader is in the driving seat, impacted by the work and driving the change, which is the only way it sticks. And it is a world away from a chalk-and-talk course: you are paired with strategic experts for eight weeks, in a room with peers running similar-sized businesses, and you graduate into that small group of operators afterwards.

£2,999
per seat, all eight sessions, the full toolkit
£299.90 secures your seat, balance before you start
Register your interest

Nothing is owed until your cohort is confirmed. Deposit refunded in full if it doesn't run.

How it works

  1. Reserve your seat below and choose your start month, August through December 2026.
  2. We confirm the cohort once six to ten people are committed, then invoice the £299.90 deposit to hold your place.
  3. Pre-bootcamp, you complete a short context brief: your numbers, your priorities, what AI you've already tried.
  4. Sessions run weekly, 90 minutes, over eight weeks, on Zoom. Recordings if you miss one.
  5. Show-and-tell session to close out the eight weeks, with the same cohort.
Reserve your seat

Choose your start month.

Tell us which cohort you'd like a seat in and we'll confirm dates and the deposit. No payment is taken on this form. Cohorts cap at ten.

2026 cohorts

Each cohort runs over eight weeks, weekly 90-minute sessions on afternoons UK time, so it spans two months. Start times are typically 3pm or 4.30pm UK. You pick the start month; exact times are confirmed with the cohort.

  • August startWednesday afternoons
  • September startThursday afternoons
  • October startWednesday afternoons
  • November startThursday afternoons
  • December startWednesday afternoons

No payment now. We confirm the cohort, then invoice the £299.90 deposit. Refunded in full if the cohort doesn't run.

Common questions

The honest answers.

Is this a lecture or a workshop?
A workshop, firmly. Six to ten people, a lot of back and forth, and real attention on your business. You work through your own numbers and your own AI use cases in the room, not watching slides. People consistently leave with their own AI skills noticeably sharper for having been in it. This is not chalk-and-talk, a tick-box CPD, or a free government course.
Why reserve a seat rather than pay up front?
The reservation is how we confirm a cohort. Six to ten people committed to a month means we can lock dates and times that suit everyone. Once the cohort is confirmed, we invoice the £299.90 deposit to hold your place, then the balance before session one. If we can't confirm your cohort, nothing is owed.
What dates exactly?
Cohorts start monthly from August to December 2026, and each runs over eight weeks, so your cohort spans two months. Days alternate by start month: August starts on Wednesday afternoons, September on Thursdays, October on Wednesdays, November on Thursdays, December on Wednesdays. Eight weekly 90-minute sessions. Exact start times are confirmed with each cohort around the constraints of the people in it.
What if my business is below £5M?
The financial levers in the model need a certain scale of P&L to make the maths interesting. Below £5M revenue the absolute pound impact gets small relative to the time it takes to install the changes. We'd point you to lighter-weight solutions for now, and you can come back when the business has grown into it.
Do I need an AI background?
No. The bootcamp assumes operator-level fluency in your own business, not technical AI knowledge. If you've used ChatGPT or Claude personally, you have enough. If you haven't, session one will get you there.
What is the platform, exactly?
A live web app you work in during the cohort, with an AI use case mapped to each of the seven profit drivers. You operate them yourself in the sessions rather than watching a demo, and you keep access for the life of the cohort so the patterns go straight into your business. It is built and run by Alex, not a third-party tool you have to license. The specifics stay inside the room.
Is this an "AI agency" install in disguise?
No. The bootcamp teaches you how to install AI inside your own business with your own team. We are not selling a build-and-leave engagement off the back of this. If you want that conversation separately, it's a different door.
What's the time commitment between sessions?
Expect two to four hours a week between sessions, on the homework that turns theory into change inside your business. Less than that and the bootcamp underperforms. More than that and you're going harder than we're asking.
Can I bring a second person from my business?
Yes. If you want to send a finance or operations lead to be in the room with you, the second seat is at 30% off (£2,099). One business, two perspectives, much sharper homework.
What if I miss a session?
Every session is recorded. If you can't make one or two of them live, you keep the full video plus the session notes and templates. The cohort stays small so live attendance is where the sharper conversations happen, but you won't lose anything substantive by missing one.

A leaner business. A sharper leader. Your P&L.

Cohorts start monthly, August to December 2026, each over eight weeks. Seats cap at ten. No payment until your cohort is confirmed.

Register your interest Talk it through first