Is cold emailing local businesses a good strategy for selling AI automation?
It depends on your definition of “good,” but in general yes—cold emailing everybody can work. It’s not the best approach, though. I wouldn’t start with local businesses; I’d begin with digital, high‑ticket offers that are easily scrapable and whose clients come primarily through online channels—think digital agencies, high‑touch or high‑ticket SaaS, or recruitment firms with high internal volume and repeatable fixed costs. Automating a fixed cost that occurs many times a day creates inherent value, and local businesses would be a secondary focus. Still, I wouldn’t kick off with locals. After that, I moved on to brand stats: I log growth across the main channel, Instagram, and the daily updates channel as a simple awareness tactic and for fun; my daily updates channel now sits at 11,743 subscribers, up about 100, though I couldn’t locate my phone to verify. I also run an Instagram channel and have a follower‑tracker set up, which I keep blocked on my computer so the algorithm doesn’t distract me. I checked a handle (Nick Sarafh) and got 304,516 followers, noting the increase seemed delayed and only showed a 121‑rise, which would be the worst growth day on record. My main product count is 292,763, and a competitor (Spence) stays about $1,000 ahead each day. I wrapped up by saying I’m heading back to the pool and invited further questions in the comments of the daily updates channel.
Cold email isn't really automation; you can easily build an AI‑enabled cold‑email agency, which is a top solo‑freelancer model right now. But the simplest, highest‑leveraged system you can build for a client is a 'speedtole' system—a glorified autoresponder. You watch a mailbox for incoming mail from a filter (e.g., Facebook lead ads sending an email), then using Make.com, n8n, or cloud routines you scan the mailbox, get the trigger, and immediately reply via email. Then you send a Twilio SMS, and a team member calls the prospect. This cuts response time from minutes to under a minute, boosting pickup and conversion rates because of the perceived professionalism of your system. I’ve seen this system add over a million dollars in revenue for clients and improve existing funnels by 10‑20%, easily generating an easy $500k per year.
I use ClickUp as my main tool to store everything; it's visual and sufficient for my needs, so I don't need a real database like Superbase. I'll leave it there for now. Moving on to brand stats: my main channel has about 159,960 subscribers, Instagram around 26,648 followers, and the daily updates channel (where I answer questions) has about 8,844 subscribers. Subscriber growth is down to roughly 0.36% per day, Instagram growth around 2.62% per day, while the daily updates channel growth remains strong. Recently I posted about winning the school games, cross‑posted it to the schooler subreddit, and asked Sam Ovens and others to pin it to gain visibility and raise the standard in the school community. The post is long and was pinned, receiving comments from notable figures like Sam Ovens, Nate Herk, Spencer (who previously held the top spot), and Mr. Hormosi. I plan to meet them in the next couple of days. Although there's no direct ROI, I expect future returns from the connections and positive clout. On the sales front, I had to take down a posted sales call for Leftclick after the other party raised liability concerns; the first call already exposed potential issues, making me doubtful about continuing such posts. I’ve considered alternatives like sales coaching, role‑play sessions, or a podcast‑style format where I work with others and document the process, but these versions lack the perceived authenticity of a live, unfiltered sales call. Lead generation is doing well: Instantly launched an AI inbox manager, and the podcast campaign now yields a 2% reply rate, with about 1% positive replies. At my recommended volume of 270 emails per day, that translates to roughly one positive reply per day, or 20‑30 per month; I’m sending about ten times that volume, so I could scale up to ten calls per day if market capacity allows. I’ve also thought about simply giving people leads, but that raises logistical questions about booking calls and ensuring attendance without double‑booking. I’m open to any sensible solutions you might have. Finally, my channel’s relative growth rate has been declining, and I was about to publish a video intended to reverse that trend, though it hasn’t uploaded yet due to timing.
You already have the product, offer, and demo, but you could have validated the market first—sell the idea before building the product. With no budget or proof, focus on hyper‑customized cold outreach: research each prospect deeply (e.g., find an old blog post) and mention it in a personal note. Instead of blasting 100 generic emails a day, send about 20 highly tailored ones and follow up on every platform where they’re active (Instagram, LinkedIn, X, TikTok). This multiplies your visibility—reaching people on three or four platforms can give you two‑to‑three times more exposure than email alone. Assuming a 20% chance of being seen per platform, outreach on several platforms raises your overall view rate to about 50%, which can yield a 25% reply rate. From 600 outreach attempts you might get ~75 replies, ~10 positive, leading to a few calls and possibly one closed deal.
With no money and no audience, I’d go straight into cold outbound because I’m good at it—I’ve done door‑to‑door and learned what gets people to talk or kick you out. I’d start with Loom videos or manually written cold emails (not scalable but effective) to pitch people directly. Then I’d bootstrap: 10× the number of mailboxes, sell a simple AI service, and have clients cover costs to keep things simple and low‑cost. That’s the core approach. (After answering, I note I wasn’t going to record today but we’re doing it now, then I share my brand stats: YouTube 93,779, Instagram 127,175, daily updates channel 4,716.)