Should I use in‑person B2B door knocking to get AI automation clients, and do you have any tips?

#257 · blue collar work is the future (i'm serious)

Should I use in‑person B2B door knocking to get AI automation clients, and do you have any tips?

I don’t recommend B2B door knocking as a reliable way to earn money; it’s extremely tough and ego‑destroying, and you’re unlikely to make direct income from it, especially early on. However, doing it once or twice can teach valuable skills—generating attention, handling rejection, and persistence—similar to a commission‑based charity job I had where I earned about $15 CAD/hour standing at a transit station. The experience builds resilience and gives you a realistic sense of the effort required in sales, much like the old door‑to‑door vacuum sales model where you had to ‘eat what you killed.’ Use it for personal growth, not as a primary client‑acquisition channel.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Client Acquisition

What types of businesses or clients should a beginner target on Upwork (or similar platforms) when starting with AI automation?

Accept any and all work on Upwork—think of it as an elevator that instantly connects you to large businesses you’d never meet otherwise. Even as a total newbie, you can land a client doing $10–$20 million a year within a week, giving you a powerful case study like 'I helped a $10 million/year business achieve X, Y, Z.' At this stage, don’t worry about qualifying or tightening the funnel; go broad to bootstrap experience, collect case studies, and start making money. The creator shares a personal example: a friend who jumped on Upwork while he was door‑to‑door went from zero to a legitimate $30 000/month income in three‑to‑four months by maximizing opportunity and landing a big‑ticket client whose needs matched his skill set—something the creator missed while grinding door‑to‑door for $5 000/month.

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youtube ↗AI & Automation

What's one piece of advice you'd give to someone just starting out in the AI automation space?

Nick’s top advice for newcomers to AI automation is to show up daily for an extended period and focus on levers that truly move you toward making money. Key levers include talking to customers and putting yourself in front of 10 to 100 people each day; doing this for a year means contacting between 3,650 and 36,500 people. He stresses that the sheer serendipity of creating your own luck will eventually yield results, sharing his own experience of fundraising for child‑sponsorship charities by talking to hundreds of people a day for months, becoming a local celebrity and receiving party invitations—even without selling anything. He concludes that consistently putting yourself in front of many people will lead to winning.

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youtube ↗Sales

Is door-to-door sales with a pre-built automation prototype worth it for integrating with point of sale?

I don’t recommend door‑to‑door sales with a pre‑built automation prototype. It’s extraordinarily exhausting and more of a self‑improvement chore than a profitable tactic. The pound‑for‑pound return is low compared to selling digital products or services, where you can achieve the same hyper‑customization with Loom videos while eliminating drive time, walk time, and no‑shows. About 30% of doors you knock on find the business owner absent, wasting all the fixed costs of travel. Unless you’re specifically seeking the personal challenge, the ROI just isn’t there.

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youtube ↗Offers

How can I provide additional value to larger bookkeeping clients who already have AI automations in house?

When you jump on the call with a larger bookkeeping client, start by asking what prompted them to meet—this reveals their motivations and curiosity about AI automation. Then request a walk-through of their typical customer journey, from first brand encounter to the last conversation, and listen carefully. Compare what they say they want with how their customers actually interact with their business. Most sizable bookkeeping firms still have inefficient processes that scale by hiring more people, yielding low revenue per staff ($10k-$20k). By spotting these low-hanging fruit—arbitrage opportunities where AI can automate manual steps—you can show how moving to a model where revenue per staff reaches $100k (capping at four or five clients per person before needing another hire) creates massive value. In short, diagnose their goals, map their journey, uncover inefficiencies, and position your AI workflow as the lever that dramatically boosts their productivity and profitability.

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