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#133 · How to Perform an AI Automation Audit in 2025

youtube ↗AI & Automation

Hey Nick, you make great content. It's almost exactly what I'm looking for—no BS, just actual use cases and useful things businesses need. Thank you. How do you decide which business processes are worth automating with AI? Do you perform an audit? I guess it's about targeting the most revenue potential and fastest development time, but what checklist or process do you follow when evaluating automation potential within a business? I'd love if you could walk us through your decision-making process. Also, what are your top three most requested or recurring automation solutions you build for other businesses? I can put this together ASAP—cold email, my proposal generator, and a one-click CRM based on CRM templates I've shown with 1‑second copy in my previous copywriting business.

In terms of the checklist, I use an automation agency sales skeleton. Instead of a full script, which is hard to deliver naturally, I give a skeleton—a big list of topics to talk about. I start by building rapport, then set the schedule, and ask the big question: 'Why me now in this?' Because asking 'why now' usually gives the person all the ammunition needed to sell them. For example, they might say they need X, Y, Z, and that they love that I talked about X, Y, Z and think I'm the best person to help solve those. Then I know everything I need to sell them. Next, I ask about the actual audit questions: always map the customer journey from start to end of fulfillment. That means identifying where the customer first sees you—whether it's a Facebook inbound lead ad, a referral email thread, a cold email inbox, or a cold call. Then I walk through every step: lead generation, sales process (how a lead becomes a sales call, sending a calendar link, booking or not), closing the deal (proposal, agreement, invoice), onboarding, fulfillment, post‑fulfillment retention, and getting them back into the business. If any step is missing, I note what to do. By running the customer through this series and having them map their pipeline from start to finish, you usually know everything needed to make a reasonable analysis of their main bottlenecks and problems. Another useful question is revenue per employee (or cost per employee/contractor). For example, when I made over $100,000 a month with just me, my revenue per employee was $100,000, while most other businesses have $15,000–$20,000. This helps map businesses from high to low revenue per employee; the lower the revenue per employee, the more you can systematize the business, and the higher it is, the trickier it becomes. Finally, I also ask some sales history questions.

ai automationprocess auditcustomer journeyrevenue per employee

Related answers

youtube ↗AI & Automation

How can I identify and validate a problem to solve for my automation agency?

The reality is that there are a million and one problems to solve, but the vast majority of problems in B2B businesses revolve around a couple of key things. Revenue‑oriented problems usually mean not enough leads – the very first thing any business must solve before making money is generating leads. Profit‑oriented problems are mainly too many expenses, which can be broken down into categories like payroll, staff, software, assets, etc.; for each expense type there is a problem the customer suffers from that can be solved with systems or business‑process optimization. Examples include too much payroll, too much marketing cost. The third category I call chaos, which concerns how the founder spends time, how organized they are, whether they have a single place to work, a usable CRM or project‑management system, and their management structure (daily, weekly, monthly check‑ins, stand‑ups, accountability metrics). After laying out these problem categories, I note that you can find systems to solve them. For leads I use a cold‑email system; for not enough sales I use a proposal generator that improves conversion rate; I also use an autoresponder‑style tool that improves front‑end conversion by responding quickly. To improve retention I improve the quality of the assets they make, possibly using AI, automated fact‑checking, etc. To cut payroll expenses I use AI to replace the majority of low‑value staff, letting go of about 20% of staff who were just leaching off the bottom line. For software expenses I apply process optimization to see if tools can be combined or replaced with better solutions. For excessive marketing spend I look for cheaper systems such as cold email or automated PPC ad creative generators. For founder time and organization I suggest daily submission forms, a CRM or project‑manager, and using ClickUp templates to transfer setups to clients. This gives you a framework to think about solving problems in any niche. I didn’t want to give a quick “fish” answer; instead I’m teaching you how to fish so you can adapt when market conditions change.

automation agencyproblem validationb2b problemssystems
youtube ↗Offers

I struggle with shiny object syndrome, jumping between automation ideas and can't stick to one. I'm offering consultation calls to identify a business's workflow pain points in real time and provide tailored automation solutions. What do you think of this approach?

Basically, Autobuild guy is not offering a specific solution; instead, he asks what you need help with, offers to do an audit, and then provides a hyper‑fine‑tuned automation solution. In theory it's a great idea, but in practice it's not very good because a detailed workflow business audit isn't as sexy as promising 20 booked appointments in 60 days with a money‑back guarantee. Everybody sells the latter because it's easier: you guess the problem, present the problem and solution with a guarantee, and skip the audit. You don't need to ask what the client needs; just assume they have a common problem and sell a solution for it. Agencies often struggle with lead generation at the top of the funnel, project management, client notifications, and client comps. I solve those with systems, create many campaign variants, test them at scale, and pick the best performer. That's what I do, and I don't recommend the audit approach. I'm still experimenting with audits for larger deals (e.g., leftclick) to see how it works, but generally productizing your service is the way to go, and I'd recommend that. We probably won't be doing the audit approach for long.

consultationauditproductized
youtube ↗AI & Automation

AI Biz Sis asks: Can you explain how Maker School works? Is the content drip-fed month by month? I'm happy with most automation skills but need to focus on sales. What help does Maker School provide with email outreach? I'm busy, so I like the idea of cold email running in the background.

Maker School works like this: you join, then go through a pre‑program where I walk you through my methodology and mindset for building a new business, giving you my high‑level view of how I've approached every business I've run. Next, you choose a path. If you lack automation experience, you enter the automation program, which covers an end‑to‑end process including cloud code. I now have a full course on generating media because I see that as the next frontier now that text is saturated. After finishing that (if you still lack automation experience) you move into the main program; if you already have automation experience you can jump straight into the main program. The main program is simply a daily checklist: each day you show up and I tell you what to do—like 'do this, do that.' As part of the checklist I share a video where I actually perform the task, so you learn by reading and watching, then you apply it to your own business. It's not drip‑fed; you can only advance further if you ask me directly and show evidence that you already have a successful business or similar result. I don't let everyone move forward automatically because most people's biggest obstacle is themselves—they get stuck thinking about future content, feel overwhelmed, and lose focus on the daily actions.

maker schoolautomationcold emaildaily checklist
youtube ↗AI & Automation

I'm creating automations for a warehouse management system with ~4,000 SKUs but have no WMS experience. Should I treat it like a CRM?

No, you're absolutely right—warehouse management systems, enterprise resource planning, and inventory management systems are essentially dressed-up CRMs. If you understand how spreadsheets work, you'll understand how WMS and similar systems work; their UX is often clunky, but that's fine. Regarding VR 180 cameras: they're stereo cameras with a wide field of view that feel immersive in a VR headset; still early days with resolution needing work, but they could become a big industry in 5–10 years. I haven't used them yet, but they look exciting—two lenses recreating human field of view. I film them with OBS Studio. On your AI automation ideas for cold email: AI meeting note‑taking that sends key subjects and actionable steps to participants and updates the CRM is great. Automated email tagging and filtering is great. An AI concierge for Airbnbs and hotels answering common questions is reasonable. I'm not aiming to become a millionaire; I just want to sell simple sub‑$1K services to get off the ground. For mailboxes, I wouldn't recommend Hostinger for cold email—there's a reason big players avoid it. I'd suggest Zapmail at about $3.50 per mailbox (up to 10 or 100 mailboxes), which also handles DNS setup. Regarding pivoting into AI and automation: if I didn't think it made sense, I wouldn't be making videos about it all day, so my work already shows it's a good move. On starting an agency with no clients: outreach isn't a simple yes/no; it's about volume. How many outreach pieces did you send? How many Upwork or freelancer applications? How many community posts? How many people have you talked to, and over what time? If you haven't done enough, it's not that you're not good enough—it's just that you haven't put in the reps. Expecting results without sufficient effort is unreasonable. Why people fail to make money online: mostly because they can't stick with something long enough to see results. They expect success after a few days or weeks, like learning piano to a concert level in two weeks—impossible. You need years of effort; don't compare your chapter one to someone else's chapter 100. On hiring versus doing it yourself: hiring someone on Upwork or Fiverr to build templates isn't more efficient if your metric is cost or time, because you pay for work you could do yourself and add communication overhead. The only real efficiency gain is doing less of the work you dislike, but at this stage I'd optimize for making $100K rather than avoiding work you enjoy. On growing a coaching business: first, stop over‑analyzing your 'why' and start acting. Determine a set of daily revenue‑generating activities you can do every day for the next year that will drive the results you care about—financial goals. Define what you're selling (information/coaching). Put your offer in front of people, articulate how it solves their problems, and improve the offer as you deliver it. Learn and deliver in tandem. Reinvest profits to systemize outreach, lead gen, and sales, freeing time for systematization and growth. For example, join school communities and each day respond to ten women with health‑improvement suggestions, then move conversations to DMs, calls, and present your coaching offer. As you earn money, you can make the process more sophisticated.

warehouse managementvr 180cold emailai automation