#128 · Simple way to make $408,019 with AI automation

youtube ↗Lead Generation

Do you have any Google Console settings to avoid Google Docs rate limits when running on autopilot? Also, what are your thoughts on asset-based outreach versus a straight book-a-call CTA?

Asset-based outreach requires more time and energy upfront; it yields higher conversion but costs more money and results in fewer leads per day due to bottlenecks. In contrast, a book-a-call CTA converts lower but costs less money because you don’t need to generate assets, and the main bottleneck is scraping Apollo, which costs about 75 cents per 1,000 leads. You can get an Appify subscription and pay per use of your $26 credit (or less with my Nick 30 code). I'm 66 years old, learning this every day, and I'm enthusiastic about it. Regarding guarantees, I offer a Vappy bot that handles calls and orders via a POS system; I guarantee it will save you X, Y, or Z in dollars or hours, or you don't pay. On Maker School: it's purpose-built for people with zero sales experience, those at the start line of their business lacking daily accountability, sales systems, or pitch experience. If you have zero sales experience, this is the system for you. The main expenses are cold email and the Upwork community (the third lead-gen approach I discuss, which is free but time-intensive). Upwork averages $2-$2.50 per application; I recommend sending 10 applications per day ($25/day) for 30 days. In practice most people send only three to five per day, which still yields ROI because you spend the money gradually and can recoup it when a client pays a few hundred dollars. Instantly costs between $40 and $100 depending on the plan. Lead costs are about 75 cents per 1,000 leads, and with my Apify coupon they're even less; you may have some upfront fees, budgeting a few hundred dollars if you're going to be consistent, otherwise it could be around $100. As for Russell's question about free value offers in cold emails: the best offer is to promise to make or save the prospect a specific amount of money, and if you don't deliver, they pay nothing; you'll keep working until you achieve at least the minimum result, then pitch them something else, and even if they don't fall in love with you, you won't charge them. This kind of offer might have a 30-50% refund rate, but it generates strong front-end interest, especially for beginners who gain conversations and skill rapidly. Finally, offering to implement a simple workflow for free can be effective as long as the workflow is personalized and directly tied to a measurable return on investment, balancing risk mitigation with the guarantee.

google consoleasset based outreachbook a callupwork

Related answers

youtube ↗Pricing

Hey Nick, thanks so much for these valuable pieces of content. I'm able to run cold email effectively and generate leads with a reply rate of 5%. Hell yeah, my brother. The only problem I'm facing is to make the business profitable. For instance, if I charge a few dollars for my client, build a system that saves time for them, maybe generates revenue for them, but I'm not able to make enough money as I'm only charging a few bucks from them. Let me know I should plan my AI business to hit $50 to $100,000 a month. Keep doing the great work. Cheers.

You need to charge more, proportional to the value you provide. If you solve a $10,000-per-month money need, you can reasonably charge 30%–50% of that, i.e., $3,000–$5,000 per month. From the business owner's perspective, this is a simple ROI: hiring you should yield about a 3x return, acknowledging some uncertainty between the $3,000 fee and the $10,000 value. You can charge a proportion of the value delivered. Focus on profitability by charging significantly more for your services. On the expense side, avoid accruing unnecessary liabilities. Many who sell cold email or lead generation merely wrap a cold email product with minor added value and then bundle in unnecessary costs like email inboxes, platform fees, and domains. Instead, have the client pay for some of those costs so you're not left liable if you don't deliver results or fulfill guarantees. For example, one consulting client guaranteed a client $10,000 but only sought payment after delivering that amount; due to a long sales cycle, the client didn't receive the $10,000 for four or five months, while the consultant's ongoing email costs were $600–$700 per month, totaling $2,400–$2,800 over that period, yielding a 76% margin after COGS. Don't put yourself in that situation.

pricingvalue-based pricingROI
youtube ↗Cold Email

Please review ListKit's $597 cold email offer, compare the cost of the included services versus buying them separately, and let us know if it's worth it. Also note that their AI script writer is trained on their most successful emails and presented as a bonus.

List Kit. I don't know what List Kit is. Oh, right. It's these guys. I remember. Okay. Well, the reason why this is going to suck is because I'm not going to be able to repurpose this. Anyway, whatever. Simple pricing everything included. Pick your sending volume. 1,000 cold emails per day is 30,000 a month. Zero additional costs. Triple verified leads, email engine, domains and inboxes. So, what you get is 30,000 emails a month. If you do the math on cost per email, 1,000 realistically costs about four or five bucks. Let's say five times 30 gives $150 lead cost, assuming high-quality leads. But they're probably not high-quality; they're likely trying to sell you the shittiest leads possible. Let's say that's $100 a month. So the actual cost of service outside of that is $497, roughly $500. Email engine, send high-volume cold email campaigns with inbox warm-up included. That's basically Instantly (Unibox), another $100 off, leaving $400. Domains and inboxes: at 1,000 cold emails per day with a two-step sequence, that's 500 new emails, which is about 25 mailboxes, another $75. With overages, say $100, making $300. Script writing agent, one-on-one concierge onboarding call, Slack community, cold email mastery course, domains — all virtually free. So you're paying about $300 a month for the service of sending the emails, plus the simplicity. You could save $300 a month managing it yourself with the steps I talk about, but maybe that's worth it for you. Let's see what their math is like: 1,000 emails per day, total replies 220, positive replies 11. That's a 5% positive reply rate on total reply volume? Actually they assume 5% positive reply rate on total reply volume, but I have campaigns with 50% positive replies. That's pretty crazy. Assuming 30,000 total emails, 220 divided by 30,000 gives a 0.73% reply rate, which is low. But average client LTV industry is big, maybe that makes sense. Hopefully everything I've said so far is amenable to you.

listkitcold emailpricingai
youtube ↗Lead Generation

Hey Nick, after I joined Maker School, what would be the rough monthly budget that I should have considering all the tools and upper connects can add up quite a bit? Sorry, I didn't mean to down thumb you. If you give a specific number range, thanks a lot.

Your monthly budget varies mainly with outreach volume. Many people find sending 10 Loom videos daily overwhelming, but I never considered it hard when starting out. Think of it like coal miners who just accept mining as their job—your baseline for effort. Not everyone does 10 Upwork applications daily (my month‑one recommendation); we usually taper to 3‑2 per day later. Upwork connects average about $3 each; after boosting and view‑rate adjustments, assume roughly $4 per day if you send four applications daily, totaling ~$240 monthly if done 20 days a month. The idea is that by the time you’ve spent that amount, you’ll likely have landed a client who covers at least that cost, ideally 5‑10×. Add fixed beginner costs of $100‑$250 for Upwork. You’ll need a cold‑email system: I recommend services costing $55‑$60 for mailboxes/domains in month one, then $35/month thereafter (e.g., Instantly, Smartlead). Lead‑scraping services run about $1‑$1.50 per thousand leads; targeting 3,000 leads adds ~$5/month. Putting it together: ~$40 for cold‑email, $50‑$60 for mailboxes/domains, and $100‑$250 for Upwork connects, giving a realistic monthly range of $350‑$400 for a total beginner doing moderate outreach. The biggest variable is how much outreach you actually do.

outreach budgetUpwork connectscold email cost
youtube ↗Lead Generation

I'm 17 years old, I invest all my money in building automations but only have $50 left to get leads. How can I do that?

You're watching the best video for that because I'm going to show you how to do it today. Apollo Appify is definitely your go-to at this price point. Basically, set up a free Apollo account, then go to Apify and use the Apollo Scraper to scrape up to 50K leads for $120 per thousand. If you're really bottlenecked, you can technically scrape 100 leads per search for free, so you could chunk searches into 100‑lead bins. Otherwise, it's $120 per thousand. Realistically, you could sign up for the Appify plan for about $35‑$40 and get around 30,000 leads. Is that the best absolute use of your money? No, but you asked for leads. If you meant getting clients instead, I'd go to communities and send cold DMs across LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, saying, 'Hey, I noticed you're doing X, Y, and Z. I think I could save you or make you this money with a little tweak.' Over the next two minutes I'll show you what that looks like. Whether or not you choose to work with me, I'll give you everything you need to decide. You could send 10 of those a day, or three per 100 a month. With a 5% reply rate on 300, you'd get about 15 replies a month; half might convert to meetings, giving you roughly one meeting every four days. As a total newbie, that's reasonable.

lead generationapolloapify