How can I find bottlenecks in a business to determine where AI can automate or fix them?
Nick says Brendan should avoid leading with an audit because it’s unsexy and unbounded. Instead, identify common problems you think businesses face, craft a compelling offer with a strong guarantee around solving those specific problems, and use that to get your foot in the door. Once you have a call, then perform the audit to confirm the needs and tailor the solution. He illustrates this by describing how he scrapes videography and web‑development communities to uncover pain points, packages them into an offer, and sells it, after which audits become easy follow‑ups.
ai consultingbottleneck analysisoffer creationguarantee
Lead‑generation and client‑onboarding systems make up roughly 70% of my revenue, so I focus on those bottlenecks first. The flow is: generate leads, close the sale, onboard the client, fulfill the work, then retain the client with follow‑up. AI agents are getting better, but the real money comes from solving concrete bottlenecks, not fancy chatbots. My process is simple: look at an average business’s pipeline, identify the biggest bottleneck, and ask how you can do that step faster or better. I often reference the Theory of Constraints (see "The Goal" by Eli Goldratt) to frame this. Most bottlenecks are at the top of the funnel—lead generation—so start there. For each bottleneck, map what’s currently being done and brainstorm ways to automate or accelerate it. Specific tools help, but the core is understanding the pipeline and continuously removing constraints.
The typical influencer pitch—selling AI operating systems or audits—only works because they already have trust. As a total stranger you need to find a single problem the prospect likely has with a big financial pain point, like wasted spend on lead generation or PPC. Then guarantee you can solve that problem with a monetary reward. If you don't deliver, you either refund them, don't ask for payment, or keep working for free until you achieve the result. The formula I use is: I guarantee 20 booked appointments in 60 days or you don't pay. I repeat that over and over. I never say I'll run an AI audit with vague outcomes; that offers no clear ROI.
Basically, Autobuild guy is not offering a specific solution; instead, he asks what you need help with, offers to do an audit, and then provides a hyper‑fine‑tuned automation solution. In theory it's a great idea, but in practice it's not very good because a detailed workflow business audit isn't as sexy as promising 20 booked appointments in 60 days with a money‑back guarantee. Everybody sells the latter because it's easier: you guess the problem, present the problem and solution with a guarantee, and skip the audit. You don't need to ask what the client needs; just assume they have a common problem and sell a solution for it. Agencies often struggle with lead generation at the top of the funnel, project management, client notifications, and client comps. I solve those with systems, create many campaign variants, test them at scale, and pick the best performer. That's what I do, and I don't recommend the audit approach. I'm still experimenting with audits for larger deals (e.g., leftclick) to see how it works, but generally productizing your service is the way to go, and I'd recommend that. We probably won't be doing the audit approach for long.
AI audits can be sold, but they’re not usually the strongest front‑end offer because you’re asking people to pay for something that’s hard to guarantee a clear ROI. You’re essentially asking a stranger to audit their entire business without any tangible return, which makes it a tough sell. A better front‑end offer is something like generating leads or guaranteeing a specific amount of revenue in a set time frame. Once you’ve earned trust, you can then upsell an AI audit. In practice I often don’t charge for the audit unless it’s a large enterprise project that requires extensive discovery, and even then I usually don’t charge for the discovery phase because I’m more interested in the long‑term relationship than the upfront fee. The audit itself can be offered for free or at a low cost, with the expectation that the client will later purchase higher‑value services.