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#84 · English Anxiety: Do I Need English to Crush AI Automation?

youtube ↗Agency Operations

How should I manage my time to run an agency while balancing an internship that gives me only 1‑2 hours on weekdays and weekends free, including whether I should do client calls on weekends or follow a different approach?

You have about 5 to 10 hours on weekdays and another 8 to 10 hours on weekends, giving you roughly 25 hours a week to grow your agency—you don’t have to use all of them. My recommendation is to front‑load your lead generation first thing in the day. If you have any time before your internship, use it; otherwise, do your lead gen, marketing, and outreach the moment you wake up. You could wake up a little earlier and shift that effort to the morning instead of the evening. As soon as you’re up, send out Upwork applications, cold emails, and custom DMs, aiming for 5 to 10 each day, and keep that up all week. Booking meetings with western clients will be tough because of the time‑zone gap, so you likely won’t be able to schedule calls during your daytime hours. A weekend angle might work unless you can find clients closer to your time zone, in which case you could meet after your internship. Since you’re already comfortable with no‑code tools and know how to market your services, the real issue is time management. Try batching your sales calls and fulfillment for the weekends, and during the week focus on lead generation. You’ll also need a way to show progress to clients throughout the week—don’t let them think you only work on weekends. A simple update rhythm works: on Mondays and Thursdays give a brief update of what you completed over the weekend (e.g., ‘Hey, I just finished X, Y, Z’), and batch the actual work you did on Saturday or Sunday into those updates. It’s not ideal, but if you’re smart about dividing your work and prioritize the highest‑ROI activity—getting new leads—you’ll be fine. That’s what I’d do in your situation. Thanks.

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Related answers

youtube ↗Agency Operations

What did your daily schedule look like when focusing on the agency side or when just starting out, and did you use an hour‑by‑hour plan with time blocks for strategy, follow‑ups, etc.?

I don’t follow a strict hour‑by‑hour schedule, but my day mirrors a typical agency pipeline. I start with lead generation—cold email, Upwork, LinkedIn, communities, trade shows—whatever brings in prospects. After generating leads, I move them to sales calls, then kickoff calls, fulfillment, and finally retention/follow‑up. I recommend structuring your day the same way: begin with lead gen for one or two hours, then handle sales calls (especially early if you’re just starting), followed by onboarding/kickoff calls, then fulfillment (one to two hours), and finish with retention/follow‑up tasks. I use this framework daily; it’s essentially the same whether I’m scaling or just starting. To maximize reputation (my lead‑gen proxy), I focus on community management and inbox zero, then create content (which also generates leads), then fulfillment, and finish with light admin. I always front‑load the highest‑ROI activity—lead gen—when my mind is fresh and energy is high, then work down the stack.

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youtube ↗Agency Operations

How many hours per day should I dedicate to Maker School while working full-time and interning, and how much money should I allocate besides subscription fees?

Well, you ended up joining anyway—just kidding. For anyone else here, I'd recommend a couple of hours, maybe two to three hours per day. The first couple of days might be a bit heavier: day one could be three to four hours, day two two to three hours, then from day three onward it settles to about two hours a day, maybe a little more. Some people take longer at the start, but that's okay. The reason this works quickly is that lead generation and outreach strategies become fast with practice because I make you do a lot of them. Regardless of initial timing, you'll eventually gravitate to a two‑to‑three‑hour daily workload, which most people can fit in. A core part of the program is daily accountability and habit tracking—not just learning a specific lead gen tactic or setting up automations. It's like going to the gym but for money: you show up daily, track your habits, and build consistency. Regarding money, it's hard to give a fixed number because it scales with how much outreach you do. My suggestion is about ten Upwork applications a day and roughly two thousand cold emails in the first month. In practice, most people end up spending an extra $100‑$150 per month on things like Upwork fees or cold‑email tools, due to limiting beliefs that hold them back. The beauty of Maker School is that the capital outlay is low: you spread the cost over three months, and the time to see results is short compared to typical businesses that require a big upfront spike with uncertain payoff. You also get discounts via coupon aggregators and my affiliate links, so give it a try.

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youtube ↗Mindset

What advice would you give to someone working full-time with only 3-4 hours per night to start a profitable business, and is it effective to target leads in an earlier time zone (Pacific) while being on Eastern time?

What a great question. Regarding your Pacific Standard Time question, if you work 6 – 9 PM Eastern, that’s 3 – 6 PM Pacific, so you can book meetings then; it’s not a problem. Now, for your main question about working full‑time with only 3-4 hours a day: Yes, it’s feasible. In fact, everything needed to start this business can be done in 2-3 hours a day, so your 3-4 hour window is more than enough. Having limited time is actually an advantage because it forces you to focus on revenue‑generating activities and constantly ask whether each task moves the needle. To compete with people who have 8-12 hours, you must make each hour two to three times more effective by always checking if your work is generating revenue. Think of it like being dropped into a mid‑to‑high difficulty area in a game right away—you level up much faster than if you stayed in the beginner zone. Most of the core activities I discuss take only an hour or two a day, leaving you extra time to build the rest of your business.

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youtube ↗Sales

Can you walk me through your first call with prospects, including what you discuss in the 50-minute strategy call and the criteria you look for?

Happy to share. This is my sales script. I won't give the whole script here, but if you want more, head over to Maker School for a month subscription—you'll get assets, including this in month one, and more assets if you stay for months two and three. I also guarantee you'll get your first client in 90 days if you follow the program. I'm pretty lax about the requirements; for example, I once refunded a girl who only did 30 Upwork applications in three months due to financial difficulties. The point is, as long as you're reasonable, there's very little risk. I'll give you the first two sections: I start by building rapport, then I always set the schedule. Setting the schedule is important—I'll say something like, 'You get a ton of cold outreach every day; you probably got 10 emails in the last 5 minutes. What made you want to click on mine? What was the reason we're talking right now? Was it the positioning, messaging, or just right place, right time?' From there, they'll usually tell you how to sell them. You take that insight and use it to proceed with the rest of the process and actually sell them. Definitely check out Maker School if you want more of that. Hopefully that helps.

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