It’s no surprise that Seymour’s Amanda van den Elzen turned to artificial intelligence when choosing the name for her business, Better Work. After all, AI is her business.
“When naming my business, I asked ChatGPT what domains were available and asked them to brainstorm and give me 10 business names that fit what I do and had domains available,” she said.
ChatGPT complied and immediately generated 10 names. Among these suggestions, she chose BetterWork, located at betterworktraining.com. Because we believe that understanding AI will help businesses leverage it to work better and more efficiently.
A career change to business ownership wasn’t something she had planned for early 2025. But when the company she worked for decided to revert to a “work in the office” policy instead of working from home, Van den Elzen decided to give up her long daily commute. She quit her job at the end of the summer and spent several months weighing her options.
Post-it notes, often used in the process of creating a visual business plan, were posted all over the walls as she mapped out her plans. Everything started coming together when she decided to use her years of experience to fill a void in the corporate world. A hole she filled in her previous job.
“I took over a job in the finance team where I was designing learning materials, and that was my starting point for working with AI,” she said. “When ChatGPT came out and no one was doing anything about it, I thought, ‘If we don’t do generative AI training, we’re going to be left behind.'”
Businesses had purchased the tools needed to use AI, but they didn’t understand how to use them effectively.
“They didn’t understand the value of the tool,” Van Den Elzen says.
So she stepped into the field and developed generative AI training materials for her company. These experiences, along with decades of work in the corporate sector, gave her a rough idea of how BetterWork could fill a niche in the industry by providing training on how to use the tools available.
Van Den Elzen said, “I focused on what problems could I use my expertise to solve for companies? My value proposition was to drive the expansion of the tools and invest in the people who use those tools. That’s where I came in.”
By the end of September, she was clear on what she would do. She built a website and relied on connections she made on LinkedIn. Her previous experience with VDE Racing, owned by her husband Chris, convinced her that cold calling was not the path to success. Instead, she was active on LinkedIn and joined the Greater Green Bay Chamber of Commerce and the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce.
That led to her first break.
“I spoke at the AI Business Summit at the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce in November, and it was a great experience. The feedback I received generated nine leads. That gave me a lot of traction,” she said.
A proposal has been made. Van den Elzen said the training is not “one-size-fits-all” and is individualized. In response to inquiries, she proposed solutions to help clients achieve their goals. Clients are typically looking for savings that justify expensive AI tools. That means using these tools in a way that saves you time each week.
Licenses are expensive and can cost as much as $30 per employee per month. With this tool in place, businesses can easily save 4-7 hours per month, justifying the license fee.
“The potential impact in this area is huge,” Van den Elzen said. “When I meet with management, we discuss where we can have the biggest impact and the quickest wins.”
With a focus on networking, she plans to attend chamber of commerce events, build a strong social media presence, and post more frequently on LinkedIn. The goal is to be recognized as an expert in AI training.
As she builds BetterWork, the menu is varied. In addition to role-specific hands-on training, we also offer foundational workshops, role-specific sessions, and enterprise consulting.
She said, “The goal is not just to know about AI; it’s to use it and make good use of it.”
She acknowledges that some employees are hesitant to adopt AI. They are probably at the greatest risk of being forced to evacuate. But if there are concerns that AI will take away human jobs, she believes that people who are willing to use critical thinking, think outside the box, and incorporate the human element alongside AI are poised for success.
“I use AI all day, every day. I’m one of those people who goes in and clicks and tries to figure things out. I’ve used AI to vet businesses, to do market research, to see it through the lens of experts who do different work than I do,” she said.
She believes that by doing so, others can be successful too. She said there is a lot of fear about AI and people are afraid to experiment. Her goal is to show employees how the company can be a strategic partner in their work.
Most of my training so far has been group classes. Webinars typically cover specific use cases such as branding or content creation.
“The way it works is that we have a platform that handles the entire transaction, it happens through YouTube Live, we communicate through chat, and we break up the training to make it a self-paced training,” Van Den Elven explained.
Her favorite situations are working with multiple teams across an organization and building foundational skill sets. Although we are currently focused on businesses, we would also like to explore other markets such as schools and non-technical professionals. The need is very high and she is amazed at how quickly she has become recognized in the field.
“There’s no one else doing exactly what I do. When the competition starts, I say, ‘The more the merrier, there’s a lot to do in this field,'” she said.
Part of the work involves the tool itself and the public’s perception of it. During one of her presentations, she was asked, “Did you know that young people today are also using AI to write their resumes?”
Her answer was, “Why not? Using it on a resume shows they have the skills to use it, which is an advantage for the company.”
She’s a big supporter of the tool, but also cautions that not everything in AI can be trusted blindly. Her advice is to check everything that comes out of it. This provides the basics, but also requires critical thinking on the part of the user.
“At an event, one of the speakers was talking about technology and making a difference in organizations and people. He said, ‘Think about glasses. They don’t replace your eyes. They augment your vision.'”
Tina Dettman Bielefeld is co-owner of DB Commercial Real Estate in Green Bay and former district director for SCORE Wisconsin.
