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#158 · Your outbound sucks. Here's how to fix it

youtube ↗Mindset

Is the AI automation agency space just bad for work-life balance? I decided I wasn't built for running an agency because of how things looked in the industry.

It's not the industry that dictates your work-life balance — it's you. You can run a business in any vertical and have great work-life balance if you structure it that way. Showing a rough day on a daily-updates video is just part of the process; every path has bad days, you just don't normally see other people's. In reality your balance fluctuates — some days lean more toward life (family, personal stuff), other days you'll need to put in overtime. That's realistic in any business, not something specific to AI automation, so there's no need to write off a niche because of one rough day you happened to see.

work-life balanceburnoutrealistic expectations

Related answers

youtube ↗Other

Would be cool if you did a video called 'The Truth About AI Agents.' Also, you should record a day-in-the-life vlog — a lot of people would want to see that.

On the AI agents video: I was just on a podcast with my buddy Matt talking about this — I think the market is ripe for a counter-signal video right now. A counter-signal is when a market is moving hard in one direction, everyone's hyping something up ('this agent has 8,000 components and automates your whole life'), and you make a video pushing back on that narrative. I think we're getting close to that point with AI agent hype. On the day-in-the-life vlog: honestly, a day in my life is just me sitting here working, exactly like what I'm doing right now. I've always been against POV-style 'entrepreneur in Bali' videos — sure, you can be an entrepreneur in Bali, but that's not really the entrepreneurial part. The actual entrepreneurial work is strategy, reporting, monitoring growth, making decisions that improve projected ROI — and that's basically what I do all day, which doesn't make for a very visually exciting vlog.

content ideascounter-signalday in the life
youtube ↗Niches

I'm an AI producer with a film background moving into creative AI agents to build leverage. Most automation jobs I see on Upwork are Legion, CRM, etc., so I'm not sure how much demand there is for my niche. I haven't tried cold email yet. Would you test cold email first or take Upwork as a sign to change direction?

There isn't going to be a lot of AI video production demand on Upwork, but there is going to be a lot of video production demand on Upwork. What you need to understand is that AI is not necessarily something you can only sell if somebody says AI. You could fulfill the needs of people that just need video in general, and then show them how you could use AI to do it. You could also sell the outputs of AI, not necessarily AI. When I started out in lead gen, for instance, I didn't say 'I'll build you an AI-powered lead gen system,' I said 'Hey, I'll book you 20 meetings guaranteed in the next 60 days, or you don't pay.' I was selling the output, which is quite valuable in business and has always been quite valuable — not the means to get there. So that's personally what I would do. Do not look for people asking for AI agent creative pipelines. Literally just build a creative pipeline that uses AI. It's just normal — it's part of the day-to-day of working in business nowadays. Nobody will really care.

upworkai videocold emailselling outputs
youtube ↗Mindset

I know people who've quit full-time careers to pursue AI automation agencies, and it seems risky given how fast AI is advancing — many tasks automation agencies do could become redundant as AI gets more agentic. What's the future of AI automation agencies, how long before it becomes obsolete, and what would you pivot to if it did?

I wouldn't quit a full-time career to pursue automation unless I was hitting parity with my salary consistently for a few months, ideally more like 2-3x it. But the underlying assumption in this question — that a career is more stable than self-employment — isn't actually true; a career is more *predictable*, not more *stable*. It's simple math: with a $25K/month career built on one employer, losing that job means losing all $25K. With a $25K/month agency spread across three clients, losing one client only costs you $8K — diversification is the only free lunch in life and investing, and more clients (or more income sources generally) is inherently more stable than fewer. That said, employment does have real benefits automation work doesn't: unemployment benefits, standard employee protections (can't be fired without cause after a certain point), and other regulatory guardrails that don't exist for the self-employed.

career vs self-employmentdiversificationai displacement fears
youtube ↗Agency Operations

Nick, I'm 18 and live in a country where small and medium‑sized businesses are far behind with AI and automation; they don't know Zapier or Make. Is it smart to build an automation agency here now to make money during the lag period and level up systems thinking before the window closes?

He says yes, it's smart to start an automation agency now to capture the lag, but you should focus on delivering strategic outcomes and consulting rather than just selling tools. You can still make money with tools, but the real value is in helping clients achieve business results. He also notes that if you're not making $10k/month yet, focus on reaching that income first, and that many traditional businesses (web design, clay pottery) still thrive, so it's not all black‑and‑white.

automation agencylag marketsystems thinking