In 2025, according to INE, Portugal's national statistics office, only 11.5% of Portuguese companies were using artificial intelligence. Among small companies, with 10 to 49 people, the figure falls to 9.4%. Meanwhile, in a global McKinsey survey, 66% of organisations using generative AI in marketing and sales reported revenue increases in those areas. In other words, most Portuguese SMEs are not yet using a tool that is already delivering commercial results elsewhere. That is not a problem, it is an opportunity, as long as it is used with method.
I am an engineer by training and I work with SME owners in Porto every day. What I see is always the same: AI is treated as a curiosity rather than as a profit lever. So I suggest looking at it through a model we have used at ActionCOACH for many years: the 5 Ways to increase profit.
The 5 Ways and the multiplier effect
A company's profit is the result of five factors multiplied together: number of leads, conversion rate, number of transactions per customer, average sale value and margin. Because they multiply, small improvements in each one add up to far more than they seem.
Let us look at a hypothetical example. A company receives 200 leads a year, converts 25% (50 customers), each customer buys 4 times a year (200 sales), the average sale is 500 euros (100,000 euros in revenue) and the margin is 20% (20,000 euros in profit). If it improves each way by just 10%, it gets 220 leads, 27.5% conversion (60.5 customers), 4.4 purchases per customer (266.2 sales), an average sale of 550 euros (146,410 euros in revenue) and a 22% margin. Profit rises to 32,210 euros, up 61%. None of the improvements is spectacular on its own. Together, they change the year.
Ways 1 and 2: more leads and higher conversion
The study published in Harvard Business Review on 2,241 US companies showed that only 37% responded to an online enquiry within an hour, and that the average response time was 42 hours. Companies that contacted the lead within the first hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as those that responded an hour later. Speed of response is one of the most underrated drivers of conversion.
This is where AI helps in very concrete ways:
- Immediate response to enquiries: an assistant that answers website or email contacts within minutes, gathers the essential information and books the call.
- Content to attract leads: drafts of articles, posts and campaigns, which the team reviews and adapts.
- Proposal drafts: from the meeting notes, AI prepares a first version in minutes, and the salesperson refines it.
- Follow-up reminders: no proposal gets forgotten in an inbox.
According to Salesforce's State of Sales report, sales reps spend only 28% of their time selling. The rest goes on admin, data entry and deal management. Every hour AI takes away from paperwork can go back into conversations with customers.
Way 3: more transactions per customer
Your existing customers already trust you. Even so, many SMEs only speak to them when there is an invoice to send. AI makes it possible to analyse purchase history and identify who has not bought for a while, who always buys at the same time of year and who tends to reorder. With that, you can prepare personalised messages and suitable offers for each group, without spending days staring at spreadsheets.
Way 4: higher average sale value
When a customer buys a product, there is almost always a complement that makes sense. AI can suggest to the salesperson, at proposal stage, which services or products were bought together by similar customers. It also helps structure proposals in three tiers, basic, recommended and complete, which leads many customers to choose above the minimum. The customer decides, but now has the option in front of them.
Way 5: better margin
This is the way most business owners ignore. I often ask: which customers and which products actually give you margin? Few can answer with numbers. AI can cross-reference revenue, costs and time spent to show where the profit is and where the work that does not pay is. It can also help review prices, comparing your history with current costs, and spot discounts given out of habit. Reviewing the price list is often the decision with the greatest impact on profit, and the one that has been put off the longest.
What AI does not replace
I want to be clear, because there is a lot of noise around this subject. AI does not replace:
- The relationship: SME customers buy from people they trust. AI prepares, the person closes.
- Judgement: an automatically generated proposal may contain errors, promises you cannot keep or the wrong tone. Someone has to review it.
- A defined sales process: if your company has no clear sales stages, AI will only speed up the disorganisation. Process first, then the tool.
In my experience, the companies that gain most from AI are those that already know how to measure their numbers. Technology amplifies what is already there.
This week's action
Pick a single way, the one that looks weakest to you, and measure it this week. If it is conversion, count how many enquiries you received last month and how long, on average, you took to respond to each one. Then test an AI tool on that one point only for 30 days and compare. One way, one number, one experiment.
If you would like to do this exercise with someone alongside you, the ActionCOACH Porto team can help. In the Free Business Analysis (Análise Gratuita) we look at your 5 Ways and identify where AI, and above all method, can have the greatest impact on your profit.