At 17:37 one evening this summer, an engineering lead opened the chat on my site, then switched to his own AI. Within 32 minutes it had matched his focus, written down what success means to him and got him an itemized offer for a quarter. He booked an intro three minutes later. He declined it 15 minutes before we were due to talk.
A leadership mentor is someone who has done your job and helps you do it, 1:1. Between April and early October 2026, 2 of the 16 leaders who booked a call with me started with an AI, before any contact with me. Both left before our first session.
The one who stayed did it the other way round.
You should not need a call to learn a price
Tuesday night, Claude open between two Slack threads. You want to know three things: can this person help with my situation, what exactly happens, and what does it cost.
A discovery call asks for an hour of your time and your trust before it answers any of that. When I asked ChatGPT on 2 October 2026 whether I can book a leadership mentor through ChatGPT or Claude, it said no, use a marketplace.
Coaches say the call is the product. The Forbes Coaches Council put it plainly on 28 September 2026: a client choosing on fit is “selecting on the variable most correlated with results.”
I won’t argue with that. Fit matters, and you’ll judge it on a call with me.
But price, scope and the program don’t need chemistry, they need to be written down. Keep the call. Move it after the facts.
What happens when your AI interviews you first
You connect my mentoring MCP server to Claude or ChatGPT, or you open the chat on my site. It asks about your role, your team and what success looks like in three months. It suggests a focus, drafts a dated program with a theme for every session, and quotes the real price.
If you agree the price, it emails you an itemized offer, and you can book from the same conversation.
| You ask | The AI does | You get back |
|---|---|---|
| Can he help with my situation? | Asks your role, team and what success looks like in 3 months | A focus area and the package that fits |
| What exactly happens? | Drafts the program | Dated sessions, each with a planned theme |
| What does it cost? | Reads my price list | The real price, no range, no “let’s talk” |
| Can I have it in writing? | Sends the offer once you agree the price | An itemized offer in your inbox |
| OK, let’s start | Books the session | A paid first session, or a free intro call if you’d rather talk first |
Two leaders booked through the AI. Both left.
The engineering lead from the top walked the whole path in his own AI: options, focus, what success means to him, a dated program, the offer.
A month later, a first-time engineering manager went from my pricing page to the chat. 13 messages and 10 minutes later, he booked. His booking note said the AI had told him to schedule the intro call.
We had the call and agreed a plan of 12 sessions. The next day he wrote that he had chosen a different coach.
The AI got both of them to a priced, booked call faster than any discovery call could. It didn’t get either of them to stay.
The one who stayed checked my price twice
A leader based in the Gulf did it the other way round. We had a short intro call first. And he still went to my AI afterwards.
He wanted to check the fit on his own, and double check the price and what he gets in return. Nobody pushing, nobody waiting for an answer on the other side of a video call.
In practice, I see the same with the directors and CTOs I talk to: they want to read the offer alone before they say yes to it.
He didn’t need more of my time. He needed the numbers written down, and nobody watching him read them.
He’s my mentee now.
Show the price, or you’re running a sales funnel
Demand three numbers from any mentor before a call: the price, the number of sessions, and what one session costs. Here are mine, the same ones my AI quotes. It can’t be talked down.
| Offer | Price (EUR, without VAT) | Sessions | Per session |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single session | 395 | 1 | 395 |
| One quarter | 1,975 | 6 (5 paid + 1 free) | 329 |
| Continuous sparring partner | 790 per month | 2 per month, cancel anytime | 395 |
Rate a session under 8/10 and you don’t pay for it. Across sessions since 2024, the average is 9.79/10. If you want to compare, here is what executive coaching costs in the US and Europe, and my full pricing page.
The AIs missed what my friends caught
On 21 August 2026, before any real person used it, I let 10 AI personas try to break my AI. Every serious bug was confident and wrong, never a crash. It quoted 2,166 EUR for a 6,498 EUR company deal. A senior engineer who said “I never want to manage people” got “IC to manager” as his focus, 7 times out of 7.
One persona quit at an error that had no exit, so now every answer carries a way to book me. I fixed the rest too.
Then real people came, and my friends told me to fix it again. It looked unprofessional. In the chat you couldn’t tell what you wrote from what the agent wrote, and raw asterisks showed on the screen. The program listed six sessions and only one of them said what it was about.
That was embarrassing at first.
The AI testers checked the answers. My friends checked how it looked, and a buyer sees how it looks before any answer. I fixed it on 8 October.
If your team ships with AI, run the same check tomorrow. Pick one answer your team’s AI tool gave this week and check it by hand. Then make the tool say when it’s guessing.
Try it tonight, with me or with anyone
Open the chat, or connect it
The fastest start is the chat on my site, no setup. If you live in Claude, connect it there instead: Settings, Connectors, Add custom connector, and paste https://www.marian.coach/mcp/mentoring. ChatGPT in developer mode takes the same URL.
Tell it your situation
“Engineering manager” says little. “I took over a team of 9, two seniors want my job, and the roadmap slipped twice” says everything. Add what success looks like in three months.
Ask for the program and the price in writing
This works with any mentor, AI or no AI. Send one message before the call: “Can you send me a dated program for my first three months and the total price, in writing?” A mentor who can’t answer that by email has told you how they work.
Decide on the call last
Book the paid first session, or the free intro. If the first session is under 8/10, you don’t pay for it.
Book a call when it’s urgent
If it’s burning tonight, or you already know the specific help you need, book a direct call instead.
Let your AI check any mentor
No connector on their side? Paste their website into Claude or ChatGPT with this: “List what this mentor charges, what a session covers and who they have worked with. Mark everything you had to guess.” Then run these 10 checks.
What the AI in front of my calendar taught me
The call still decides
Two leaders went AI-only and left. The one who had a call first, then checked everything in writing, stayed. Three people isn’t a trend, but it’s enough for me to keep the call in the path.
A fast booking is a weak signal
13 messages in 10 minutes looked like a hot lead to me. Eight days later he picked another coach.
The agent must say when it’s guessing
Confident and wrong cost me more than any crash. Now it says when it isn’t sure.
The AI stays after the booking
Every pack now includes my AI between sessions. It remembers your goals and points you to the post that fits the problem in front of you. I see a short digest, not your chats, unless you share one.
I’ll count again in six months
It has been live since 9 August 2026. 2 of 16 is a small number.
If your next mentor can’t be interviewed by your AI, what does that tell you about how they’ll handle the AI in your job? Try mine.
[Writing time: 3h]
