Is the free/basic plan of Chat GPT sufficient for AI automation work, or should I learn Make and other tools? Should I sell clients just automations or also offer custom dashboards? How can I practice selling these services as a beginner?
I just use Chat GPT for everything—not because it’s the best, but because all frontier models are roughly at the same level; any edge one gains is only a few percentage points and quickly matched by another. For business use, those tiny differences don’t matter, so sticking with one model helps me avoid shiny‑object syndrome and lets me get fast with its API. Regarding selling automation: think of your offering as having a core service (the AI automation you build) and packaging around it. The client never sees the underlying automation; they only see the packaging. Good packaging lets you add perceived value—you could even wrap a simple automation in a fancy dashboard and charge premium prices. But the real work is still the automation inside the box. To make the package sexy, you can create custom dashboards, or simply make the notification emails or alerts look polished and professional. For practicing sales: the best practice is to actually sell. You learn by doing, earning while you learn, which is far better than just rehearsing. So go out and sell your automation packages; the experience itself is the practice.
Using AI in the sales process isn't inherently bad, but you should only use it if your AI-driven solution outperforms an equivalent human solution. Often, the money saved by AI is less than the implementation cost. For example, with a $10,000 average deal size, a 1% drop in conversion due to AI costs you $100 per opportunity. If AI isn't saving you at least that much, stick with people. Consider that AI works 24/7 while people don't, and AI can be onboarded instantly with minimal legal hassle. However, ensure the money you save by switching to AI isn't outweighed by lost opportunity costs.
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.
When selling chatbots, emphasize the outcome they deliver rather than the fact that they chat in a human‑like way. Position yourself as selling speed‑to‑lead systems that, on average, double a client’s top of funnel or generate about $15,000 for businesses earning $50,000‑$100,000 in the digital‑agency space. This avoids the commodity race to the bottom where chatbots sell for $10/month. For learning chatbots today, it’s all about prompting. You don’t need RAG or retrieval‑augmented generation. Simply take a model like GPT‑4.1 Mini (million‑token context), load the client’s entire knowledge base—articles, PDFs, OCR‑converted text—into the prompt, compress if necessary by telling the AI to remove whitespace and superfluous words, and you can fit roughly thirty books of content in a single prompt.
Yes, selling chat bots will remain viable and actually increase in value as they become more intelligent and easier to implement. CRM and structured data will also stay in demand. For services, focus on systems tied to revenue because they’re easier to justify and have higher perceived impact than backend optimizations. To overcome running out of retainer ideas and delivering less value, list what the client currently does to generate revenue, list what others use to generate revenue, find the overlap, and build systems that help them do the effective activities. Avoid low‑return activities like excessive LinkedIn posting; instead, double‑down on high‑return channels such as trade shows. This approach lets you quickly justify your retainer value.