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.
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
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.
Nick says Brendan should avoid leading with an audit because it’s unsexy and unbounded. Instead, identify common problems you think businesses face, craft a compelling offer with a strong guarantee around solving those specific problems, and use that to get your foot in the door. Once you have a call, then perform the audit to confirm the needs and tailor the solution. He illustrates this by describing how he scrapes videography and web‑development communities to uncover pain points, packages them into an offer, and sells it, after which audits become easy follow‑ups.
ai consultingbottleneck analysisoffer creationguarantee
All agencies share the same fundamental shape: lead generation at the top (via ads, cold emails, cold calls, etc.), which funnels into a sales event (typically a discovery or closing call). From there you onboard the client, fulfill the promised service, and manage the client—checking in on progress—before delivering the project, possibly with a revision cycle that leads to another transformation event where you resell them. I’ve documented this shape in the three automation agency sales flows and a roadmap to $25k/month automation that you can download for free. The real key to success isn’t becoming a top AI or automation specialist; it’s becoming a good business person who understands the container (the agency model) and what you put inside it. This mindset can be learned in a couple of weeks, and you don’t need to be expert at the specific service you’re offering.