How to Grow An AI Automation Agency, Get Clients + Sell More!

Julian Goldie (0:00)

So today, we're going to be looking at some of the best activities that you can do to scale your AI automation agency or freelancing business to get more clients, to get more customers, to get more leads. And this is based on a question we actually had recently inside the Air Profile Boarding. And everything that I'm going to show you today is just what's working for me. So feel free to take the advice or not, but I'm just going to walk you through what's working for me. Now you can see, for example, on Upwork, and you know, a lot of clients are not on Upwork, but on Upwork specifically, you can see what we've made here, and also what we've done over here, as you can see, with two different profiles, and also all the kind reviews and testimonials from amazing clients that have worked with us for AI automation. And I just show you this to help you, and to show you that I've actually tested this stuff out, and it's something I've personally tested. So let's get straight into the question. And this is from a legendary member called Brian. And Brian says, Hi Julian, thanks again for the video you shared. I respect your perspective, and I'd really appreciate your advice on a few things I'm struggling with. So I'm building Orvanis whilst working full time. Shout out to Orvanis. This is the AI automation agency that Brian is working on. As you can see right here. So shout out to Brian. And if you're looking for an AI automation agency, feel free to check it out. But his question is basically, my goal is to help small and mid-sized businesses identify their operational bottlenecks in OpDot and adopt AI where it can make a meaningful difference. Over the past four months though, and I see this all the time, so I can totally relate to this, I've spent more time building and experimenting than finding customers. I've built my own CRM, adapted the agent OS, downloaded many of the tools and repositories that you've shared. I've learned a lot, but I'm not generating revenue from the agency yet. My job gives me room to build, but ultimately I want Orvanis to become something that I transition into full time. I think I've confused keeping up with AI with making progress in my business. I keep chasing developments because I'm worried about falling behind, and I spread my attention too thin.

This is really, really common. And you can see here Brian says, it feels like I have a 2,000-piece puzzle with all the pieces facing down, plenty of tools with no clear picture of how they fit together to serve customers. So I'd really value your guidance on three questions.

And by the way, I just want to say here, and I'm going to put some notes here, one thing that I would say here is this is really, really common. So a lot of people love the shiny tools and the amazing things AI can do, me being one of them. But a lot of people don't end up growing their business when they're scattered, focusing on different tools, testing different workflows, trying different agents, and building cool stuff.

Quite often, the stuff you actually need to work on day to day, particularly if you run an agency, is totally different than actually just trying new agents and building new things. And I'll come on to why that is in a second. So when we have a look through this, Brian asks, where would you focus the business? What are the top things that you would work on? If you're in my position with substantial business experience, limited time, more AI tools than you could ever need, what would you stop doing? What would you focus on over the next 60 to 90 days to win your first clients? And his instinct is to simplify tools, define one-click service, and spend more time talking to potential customers. So what I would say here is you've got really good self-awareness, because I think you already know what to do, which is to simplify, define exactly what you need to work on, and just spend more time talking to customers, 100% of it. Now, if it was me, day to day, I wouldn't spend any more time building out cool tools or testing new stuff. I would just focus literally on generating more sales calls and doing more sales calls. So I literally used to have a poster on my wall when I was first growing my agency, and it was, I think it was a quote from Sam Ovens, actually. And it said, the only two things that you need to focus on are generating sales calls and doing sales calls. And that was literally it. And that's the advice that I still live by today, right? Like the reason I can get so many clients on Upwork and so many clients, for example, for my agency and also so many clients from my audience is because I'm still laser focused. I'm just generating more leads and getting more calls booked in. Now, what I would recommend is that you identify one to two things, maybe even maximum three things you do every day to generate more leads.