How 68 Roma business owners left with AI tools that fit the way they work.

The client

Business Excellence Program, Roma QLD

The Business Excellence Program (BEP) is a collaborative initiative led by Roma Commerce and Tourism (RCAT), with support from Maranoa Regional Council, Santos and the Queensland Government. Designed to build business capability across the Maranoa region, the program connects local operators with practical tools, expert facilitators and a peer network built for the realities of regional business. In May 2026, BEP brought Tracy Sheen to Roma as part of Queensland Small Business Month, giving 68 participants from 39 organisations access to practical AI training built for their world.

The challenge

The tools were there. The structure was not.

The Maranoa runs on grit and self-sufficiency. Its 702 small businesses, one in four of all registered businesses in the region, line the main streets, stock the shelves and create local jobs across Roma, Mitchell, Surat and Injune. Roma is the main business centre for South West Queensland, servicing a rural population of approximately 27,000 people across a region with a Gross Regional Product of $2.27 billion.

But for many of those businesses, AI had become a source of quiet frustration. They were trying things. They just weren’t getting traction. The most common barriers revealed at registration and in the room:

• No personalised setup: AI tools were running on generic defaults, not configured to reflect the business’s voice, industry or workflow
• No clear framework for tool selection: free vs paid, ChatGPT vs Microsoft Copilot vs Claude, the options felt endless and the cost of choosing wrong felt high
• Uncertainty about where to start: one in five participants arrived not yet using any AI tool for work
• Tasks piling up that AI could handle: social media, emails, timesheets, reports, BAS, job cards and invoicing all featured in what participants said they’d most like to hand off

At the same time, the data showed something important: most participants were not behind. They were under-equipped. With 74% already using AI for work before they walked in the door, the gap was not awareness. It was structure.

This is not a gap unique to regional Queensland. Deloitte Access Economics modelling suggests that if just one in ten Australian SMBs took a single step forward in AI capability, the result would be an additional $44 billion in annual GDP. A typical small business moving from basic to intermediate AI use could expect a 45% increase in profitability. The opportunity is real. The barrier is practical: most small businesses simply don’t know where to begin. The Roma workshop was built to solve that.

What we did

Two halves. One outcome.

The right tools, set up to actually work

The session opened with a question most Maranoa business owners were already sitting with: which AI tools are worth my time and money? With ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Claude all represented in the room, alongside five other tools across the attendee group, participants needed a way to assess what they had, understand the real difference between free and paid tiers, and decide what to invest in.

The workshop worked through the field of AI tools without making it overwhelming. From there, participants built personalisation profiles, tool-specific configurations for ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Claude that trained each platform on their business voice, their work patterns and the tasks they most wanted to hand off. Every participant left with an AI setup that knew something about them and their business.

From setup to results

The second half moved from setup to application. Participants worked through prompting principles, what separates a prompt that produces something useful from one that produces something generic, and took home a set of ready-made prompts for common business tasks.

The session closed with a live hot seat. Peace Lily House, a Roma-based organisation supporting young people and families, stepped up as the demonstration subject. In real time, Tracy used AI tools to develop a complete brand voice guide, a marketing plan and a 30-day social content calendar. The room watched a month of marketing work take shape in a single session. Participants left with a 100+ page AI guidebook, their personalised AI profiles and the prompts to start using straight away.

What was delivered

Every participant left with these.

• A personalised AI setup across ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and/or Claude, built during the session
• Tool-specific personalisation guides, one per platform the participant uses
• A 100+ page practical AI guidebook
• Ready-to-use prompts for common business tasks, take-home on the day
• Live demonstration: a complete brand voice guide, marketing plan and 30-day social content calendar produced in real time during the Peace Lily House hot seat

The outcome

30 hours back every month. Before the day was over.

The headline outcome arrived before the workshop had finished. Kelly Harms and Belinda Chandler of Peace Lily House wrote to Tracy that evening:

Thirty hours. Every month. From one live demonstration, in one half-day regional workshop. For a not-for-profit organisation whose mission is supporting young people and families, that is not a productivity number. It is a capacity number.

For the broader room, the signal was consistent. Forty-two attendees submitted a specific action they planned to try on Monday morning, from setting up AI personalisation profiles to building a social media plan to sorting the inbox. The breadth of that Monday list reflected the breadth of the room: 39 organisations, from mining services to health networks to boutique retail to agriculture, all walking away with something immediately practical.

Headspace Roma, the Western Queensland Primary Health Network and Queensland SES were among those in attendance, a reminder that AI capability in regional communities is not purely a business story. It is a service delivery story. When community organisations work smarter, the people they serve feel it.

Nineteen participants arrived not yet using any AI tool for work. Every one of them built their first personalised AI setup before lunch.

What happened next

Roma came ready to work. Now it wants to go further.

One workshop. Conversations about three more before lunch had finished. RCAT is in discussion with Tracy about a three-part follow-up series for BEP members: a marketing deep-dive, an advanced ChatGPT session and a Claude masterclass on AI agents and email integration. This is what happens when a community gets a taste of AI that actually works for them.

Three takeaways

Portable lessons for similar buyers.

• Regional audiences are not behind. They are underserved. With 74% of Roma workshop participants already using AI before they walked in the door, the gap is not adoption. It is structure. Expert facilitation delivered where people actually are, with tools built around their context, produces immediate and measurable results.
• The hot seat is the proof of concept. Watching Peace Lily House walk away with a brand voice guide, a marketing plan and 30 days of content in a single session made the abstract concrete. When people see a real local business get a real result in real time, the conversation shifts from "I wonder if I could" to "I know I can."
• Community breadth adds its own value. Thirty-nine organisations in one room creates something a one-on-one session never quite captures. The conversations at morning tea and over lunch were part of the outcome. Regional AI capability is not just an individual skill. It is a community project.

Is this right for your community?

This workshop is built for you if…

• You run a Chamber of Commerce, business excellence program, regional council or economic development organisation looking to build AI capability across your member or community base
• Your audience is mixed-industry and ranges from curious beginners to existing users who want to get more from what they already have
• You want participants to leave with tools they actually use, not a certificate they file in a drawer
• You believe regional capability is a genuine investment, not an overhead
• You want the evidence: data from the workshop, clear outcomes and quotes from real participants in your community

Ready to bring this to your community?

Whether you are building a business excellence program, a Chamber event or a council-funded initiative, this workshop is built to travel. It has run in cities and outback Queensland. It delivers in both.