I find automation confusing because it feels vague and doesn't seem scalable — you're repetitively making workflows, right?

#26 · How leverage works with AI automation agencies

I find automation confusing because it feels vague and doesn't seem scalable — you're repetitively making workflows, right?

That mischaracterizes what automation actually is — it's by far the most scalable of service-based businesses, because you don't repetitively make workflows at all; you make them once and profit off them over and over. Example: normally, fulfilling a new client's project takes real ongoing labor — say a $1,000 project costs you $250 (25%) in labor every time, leaving 75% margin at best. With automation, that first project still costs you the full fulfillment effort, but it also produces a reusable template. The next time you land a similar client, instead of spending 25% on fulfillment again, you just copy the template and spend maybe 2% — so you're left with 98% after cost of goods sold. Over time you build up a whole library of templates you can pull from for any new client, which is what makes automation businesses so scalable compared to businesses that redo the fulfillment work from scratch every time.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Offers

How should I package my template automation workflows into a service, what is a reasonable starting price, and which industry or low‑hanging fruit should I target?

You want to package your templated automation workflows into a service. I think all automation services should be templated because that gives you the biggest leverage on your time. By using templates you can collect the full fee—say $1,000—but only do a fraction of the work, maybe 20 % or less. That means you’re effectively 5× leveraged: you earn five times the money for the same amount of effort. For example, a proposal system that would normally take five hours to build from scratch can be turned into a template that you sell, copy‑paste the make.com blueprint, spend about 45 minutes on connections and 15 minutes recording a walkthrough video, and you’ve delivered the whole project in roughly one hour. Save each project as a blueprint, video, and documentation so you build an SOP for yourself and future team members. This templated approach lets you scale quickly and keep costs low while delivering high‑value automation services.

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youtube ↗Sales

I've been working on workflow automation for this 1.5 years using platforms like Inent Make and others. As I begin to consider commercializing these solutions, I have a question. If I build a workflow, what's the best approach to selling it?

Oh, here we go again. Should I deliver the entire workflow to the client or retain control and run the automation on their behalf? Well, somebody spent 1.5 years getting really good at workflow automation but probably hasn't made any money with it. How much cooler would it be if you learned enough to talk the language in a couple of weeks, then just started talking to customers? You probably wouldn't have been in this situation. In 1.5 years you could have a big book of business with 20 clients. Time will pass anyway. A lot of lead generation mechanisms like cold email and Upwork just require time to pass while active. You might as well have planted a tree 20 years ago; the second best time is today. That's a good analogy. To answer your question about delivering the entire workflow: yeah, deliver it to the client. Then why would they need you? They don't need you for a one-off, but they'll want you if you make them choose needs and such. I get it; it's kind of a Machiavellian way to run the business—strategic and logical—but you don't build as much goodwill with clients and it becomes annoying working with them, especially with handoffs. So, what are you going to do? Hold the business hostage when they want to let you go? Or would you rather be in a situation where the client wants to keep you on because you constantly produce massive value? I like that situation; having a rising floor where clients want more value forces you to creatively find ways to deliver it. That's one reason I agree so quickly.

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youtube ↗Offers

Are automation workflow templates commoditized, and if so, what should I do next? How much revenue have you generated from them recently?

Even if automation workflow templates are commoditized, you can still make money—just not by selling the templates themselves. Your real value lies in delivering a white‑glove managed service: understanding the client’s problem, crafting the right solution, and handling everything so they get peace of mind. Think of designers who use templates but sell the experience and outcome, not the file. As long as you focus on the client relationship and results, commoditization doesn’t hurt your ability to earn.

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youtube ↗Agency Operations

I'd love to hear more about how you went from having no clients to landing your first few, and then how you scaled to 100K months. Specifically, how did you structure long-term deals with automation clients after building their systems, and what makes clients willing to pay a retainer once the automation is set up?

Are we talking no clients in general, in any of my businesses, or specifically automation? You might be talking about automation. The way I did automation was I just started out on Upwork — applied to like 10 to 20 Upwork jobs per day along with my business partner at the time, and the vast majority of them said no to us. We used a custom Loom-video-based approach: I'd record a Loom of me talking through the problem and send out a ton of those. I got really good at explaining automation problems consistently, and we scaled that automation agency pretty quickly to $15-20K a month. We languished around $20-40K a month for a while because my partner wanted to operate it as a software consultancy taking on custom projects with a big hired team, but that didn't really work — the engineers we hired could drag-and-drop in tools like Make.com but didn't understand the business side, so the automations they built were brittle. That's when I learned how difficult hiring is for something as complicated as a software/automation project. My partner and I eventually split up amicably — he wanted to focus on the consultancy side and building resellable equity, I didn't. I kept the business, focused on high-leverage applications of systems I'd already built, scaled up Upwork applications and cold email (reinvesting most of my income into cold email), and simplified the offer down to mostly cold email systems and one-click CRM templates. Around $35-45K/month I couldn't keep scaling that way, so I started pitching a fractional-COO model: I took a few smaller clients paying $3-4K/month and gave them massive 20-30 page proposals saying, 'I want $10K/month plus 7% of your business, and here's how I'll justify it by delivering $100K/month in value.' That worked for a couple of clients, my revenue shot up, and combined with old clients coming back that same month I hit $72K in revenue (not all of it was recurring).

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