If there's one automation you'd recommend selling right now, which would it be? I've been trying to sell voice agents for two months with no luck.
I would not recommend selling voice agents as your first system — they're very difficult to make profitable for the businesses that implement them. The most common voice-agent use case is sales/marketing, and people think a voice agent can just replace a setter or closer. But the money you lose from a reduced closing rate usually swamps whatever you saved — say you save 00-,000/month replacing a setter with a voice agent, but lose ,000/month in fewer closed deals. Instead, sell something with a very clear, near-term, defined ROI. I'd sell actual generated leads — build a system that automates outreach (e.g. on LinkedIn), find businesses already doing it inefficiently, and pitch something like 'you're making 0k/month on LinkedIn outreach now, I can generate another 0k/month for you — I can double your business in 90 days or you don't pay.' That sounds crazy as a front-end offer, but it works because the ROI is immediate and obvious, unlike a voice agent's payoff.
It's unfortunate that I don't have enough context to give a definitive answer. If you were earning $30k–$40k per month from voice agents and the decline is just a small, recent dip in your front-end offer (like conversion rate), I'd advise one approach. But if you're making little to no money and people are consistently saying no, I'd suggest something else. Ultimately, the key factor is your current revenue: if you're not making much money, any action is better than none—you need to do something to get cash flow. However, if you're already running a successful, scaling business and you observe a real market trend that people don't like voice agents, then it's worth considering a pivot to AI automations.
I was thinking local businesses, but in a previous video I said I would stay away from local businesses. There's nuance: I would definitely stay away from local businesses in general because they're less scalable and you don't get straightforward access to local leads, unlike fully digital leads. However, if you're selling voice agents, local businesses can be your best bet because they're high volume and have big consequences if they miss a call or inquiry, which creates strong search intent and need‑based demand. They also tend to have relatively low average order values, which matters because if a business you reach has a high average order value, the opportunity cost of losing even a small percentage of conversion rate by switching to an AI voice agent (instead of a human) can outweigh the savings. You might save $2,000 a month, but the opportunity cost could lose you $20,000 a month, which isn’t a trade I’d make.
I don’t sell voice agents because the best‑paying industries are those with high‑lifetime‑value customers, and putting a high‑LTV client on an AI voice agent is risky. A voice agent can say the wrong thing, hallucinate, crash, or sound like a pack of barking dogs, which instantly erodes trust. Most people will be put off by that experience. Therefore I’d only sell voice agents to low‑LTV segments where individual customers don’t matter as much and the primary benefit is cost‑saving rather than revenue generation. If voice agents were the only product I had, I’d probably look for a job instead—just kidding—but the math simply doesn’t add up right now. That could change in a few years as the technology improves.
What a great question. This is more a consulting and strategy perspective than a building one. Naturally, if you're trying to make more money and thinking, 'Ooh, what's a way to make more money? I know AI is all the rage—maybe we'll add an AI chatbot to our website,' but if the chatbot doesn't talk to anybody, it won't make you more money. You've stumbled on a universal problem for many service businesses: they just don't have any leads. The real point of value, the bottleneck you could fix, is usually lead generation. I don't know how many people visit their site daily, monthly, or yearly, so it's hard to suggest exactly what to do next, but you're on the right track. The usual thinking is: get leads first, then worry about optimizing how you deal with them, nurture them, and improve conversion rates later. In your opinion, what's the best automation to sell? Could you make a video on it? The best automation to sell is something that increases or encourages lead generation, which we discussed. One of the main systems I sell is a cold outreach system where I build distribution for someone from scratch for about $200–$300 a month ongoing. They start with zero leads in their pipeline—usually an agency—and after the system is set up, they get roughly 30 leads per month that want to book calls. This is a game-changer and easy to justify as an investment for companies whose bottleneck is lead generation, like most businesses under $50k–$100k per month in revenue. Think of it this way: I'm solving their most dire problem—no leads entering the business. I charge them $3,000–$4,000 a month, which is fine because without me they wouldn't even have a business making more than $3k–$4k a month. In my experience, the best automations to sell for small to mid-sized businesses are those that help the top of the funnel. If they already have an outbound system but aren't getting many leads, I'd recommend a speed-to-lead system. Anything close to the top of the funnel—whether outbound or inbound—helps a lot, and that's what I'd recommend.