Case Study: From 0 to 15k/mo in 2 months with an AI Assisted Agency

All right, what's up everybody? Got my boy James here. He is in an AI-assisted agency, and James, you went from $0 to $14,500 a month in like 2 months. Is that right?

Something like that, bro.

Awesome. Yeah, good stuff, bro. So the audience is aware, I'm not promising that you get that result by watching this video or by joining and buying my stuff. It is more probable that you lose money starting a business than it is that you actually are successful with it. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they state you're extremely improbable to run a successful business, and that includes working with me in any capacity. However, by these interviews just to show you what people who are successful, how they did it, and give some information on them. So that's exactly why I got James here right now. And if at any point you want to join the same thing that James is in, AI Assistant Agency, it's the first link in the description. So you can go check that out. James, all the way in the very beginning, before you joined this, what was your life situation like? Like, what were you doing here?

Yeah, I was really not doing much of anything. I had gotten a job in life insurance, but like, I hadn't actually done anything with it. So I was just like, had the license. I really was not doing anything before I joined. Honestly, I had not made a dollar from any actual actual job ever in my whole life.

Really? You were 22, right? Did you go to college?

No, I did really good in high school, but then I decided not to.

Yeah, everyone, uh, really wanted me to go, but did you do any like kind of like online business or entrepreneurial feat in any capacity?

Dude, I tried doing this before for like 2 weeks or something like that, and it's like, I remember with cold email you had to like manually set up all the inboxes, and it was like, it took me like 3 days instead of like 20, and by— it was like so scuffed. That's what I did before. Other than that, I joined Internet Money, which was like a while ago. Yeah, before. Yeah, like a while ago. And then I remember when you shut it down, you put a chat like, no one's showing up to the calls, all you guys are lazy, we're shutting this down. That's when I was in it. Since then, no, I just was seeing your videos and stuff.

No. Okay, interesting. Was there any kind of breaking point where you're like, okay, I'm just joining this, I'm just gonna make this work? Like, was there anything that kind of like triggered that?

Because like, you launched AIAA, and then in the video you're like, you have 12 to 18 months to learn this before it becomes— and I was like, God, because I was about to have a lot of fun. My social life personally, it was like lined up perfectly, and you dropped this, and I was like, oh yeah, well, I thought about for like 2 days straight, oh my God. But then I joined. I was like, to do it. There's no choice.

I mean, it's obviously not cheap to join. So like, were you nervous about spending that amount of money?

I mean, I was, but then like, you guys have the guarantee. Yeah, there's no risk financially. You don't get a client and like make all your money back, you can get refunded. Like, there's no risk. What are you scared about? Like, it doesn't make sense.

What's action-based? You can't come in and do absolutely nothing and then request a refund. You're not getting a refund then. So you have to actually try. If you try and you like, you send the outreach messages and you post the VSL, you show up to the calls and you still don't get results after that, then we'll give you a refund. But that wasn't a problem for you because you did the thing. This is exactly why it's an action-based refund, because you do the thing, and when you do the thing, you get results, which is literally what happened to you. I talk about this with the other guys as well. It's abundantly clear very quickly who's gonna get results or who is not. It was you, Daniel Werner. It's kind of like both you guys are like, I know your homies now. Everyone knew like these guys are gonna be good. That's pretty cool. Were you ever like skeptical of this kind of stuff? Because it's just thousands of dollars to join this. I'm sure there's a degree of scarcity to it. It's like you got to learn this fast or just like, no, it's BS. Were you like, coaching programs are like a scam? Were you ever one of those guys? Or like, what was your thought process around that?

Like, when I was younger, when I was like 16 and first looking through like make money online, obviously you'd like go on Reddit, you're like, everyone says everything's a scam. So you're like, oh, it's all scam. But then like you slowly start finding that most of it's a scam, but like there are people who actually know what they're doing. And I specifically, the way I found you is I know everyone knows Alex Becker. Obviously he's legit. He like exited his company for like $110 million. He loves Alex Hormozy. Everyone knows Alex Hormozy is legit. Hormozy followed, or he at least followed you on X. That's how I found you, was I went through Hormozy's following list and I found you. So I'm like, well, this guy clearly knows what he's doing if Hormozy follows him. And then you had Internet Money. So then it was just boom. I watched YouTube videos. I knew you guys. There wasn't really any skepticism around you.

That was the Cold Email Wizard account. Yeah, I was one of the first people to follow him and he followed me back. And this is 2022, 2021, like way before he blew up, right after he exited Gym Launches and he was just starting Acquisition.com. It was pretty crazy. He's gone back and forth with me in the messages too. He was like asking about my business and he was trying to learn about it. It was pretty interesting.

That's like the biggest credit you you can ever get, you know what I mean? Like, for moves, he follows you. It's like, obviously, like, you're legit.

When you were starting with this, did you have any doubt that you would be capable of doing it, or more like if it would work for your specific situation? Because I know that's a big problem with a lot of people. I don't know if this is going to work for me. Like, what was your thought process around that?

Nah, I've always been of the opinion that if you just like slam a bunch of hours into something, how's it not gonna work? Especially if you're learning from someone who already did the thing. Like, why do you think it's not gonna work for you? You think you're special or something? Obviously it's going to work. Maybe you just slam 12 hours a day into something, how are you not going to be successful? It's like literally impossible. I've never failed at anything in my life when I've done that. Like, it's ridiculous.

That's actually so true. I know, like, you were saying this earlier, how you were about to have like a lot of fun in your social life. I don't know what you had planned up or like what your intention was behind that. A lot of people, they're waiting until they feel ready, like, oh, I'm ready to do this now. Like, I assume you didn't feel ready per se. Nah, man, it was like, nah, I'll just go.

It's just like AIAA dropped because I had seen the normal Client Ascension, but it was just for people who already had like a business. And like, I didn't have a business. Of course I could have shown up to the sales call and like, what are they going to do? Of course. Like they're going to take me in when it's specifically built to go from zero to whatever, $30K per month, $100K per month, whatever. You dropped it and you hit me with the, you have 12 to 18 months to learn it. So I was like, what am I going to do? Wait like 4 months and then be behind? When I'm older, when I'm 30, what am I going to regret more? Honestly, like not make as much money as possible to go be able to do whatever I want to do. Honestly, that was my framework that I thought.

Let's talk about the actual mechanics of kind of like how your business works and everything like that. So what exactly do you sell? What is your offer?

Just straight up cold email, plain and simple.

Who do you sell it to?

It's literally any B2B product or service with an LTV of over like 5, preferably over 15, they have like a fat TAM. It's like beautiful.

Exactly what I teach. Right now, what is your pricing? How do you charge clients?

Well, I've been like slowly going up. When I started, I just did like $500 to $900 a month tax fee plus like $200 to $500 pay-per-call. Now I do $1.5 to $2.5K per month plus generally $100 to $250 pay-per-call depending on things.

Let's talk about the first couple of things that you did when you joined the program, like the first 1, 2, 3 steps you took when you first got started, because like a lot of overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that they feel like they have to do immediately upon starting. As somebody who obviously got started and reached a degree of success, like, what did you do? What did that first couple of weeks or month or so look like? Like, what were you working on? What'd you get done?

So the first thing I did was I just slammed all the modules. I know some people are like, oh dude, so many videos to get through. Bro, you gave me a treasure map. We're like, hey, there's like $10 million buried somewhere. Here's the map. Like, how are you not hyped to go through all that? Like, it makes no sense. I slammed a bunch of the modules, get the website up, get the offer done, get the VSL done. Done just like quick so you can start doing outreach immediately. If you send like 150,000 emails a month, how are you not going to get clients? Like, it makes no sense. Just getting to the point of outreach as quick as possible. Then you start generating sales calls and get better at sales. And then because you get good cold email sales, I mean, that takes you to $10K to $20K per month by itself. That's like the two main things.

A lot of people when they first join, they're so weird about getting on a quick VSL, like just filming yourself for 5 minutes over a Google Doc. They like make this a giant of a deal. It's actually two categories of people who join who just like do the thing, which just you. You were just like, okay, yeah, I'll just do that. Then you got another category of person who think and debilitate and like negotiate with themselves. Do I have to do this? Do I not have to do this? Like an obnoxious level of calculating in their head, completely unproductive use of time at all. What would you say to that person who is like that?

I actually was like that before, the analysis paralysis. I still like somewhat am. I researched the program for like maybe like a week straight, 12 hours a day or something crazy. It's like I am that person. The thing though is even if you make a wrong decision, you need to just move forward because you make more money. Money. It's faster. You know that, obviously. You just need to make a decision. Good plan today is better than a great plan tomorrow or whatever. If you just make decisions quick, you are either— it's either correct or it's wrong, and you just pivot. It's so much quicker. You just have to make a decision and go with it.

There's this kind of premise that's interesting. I remember it was a really long time ago. It was maybe like 2019 or 2018. This is when like money Twitter was a thing. I hadn't started tweeting until mid-2019 and like started like really getting in on that. I remember being in like 2018 looking at people who were making like $20K a month. I was like, yo, this is crazy. They had like a bunch of Twitter followers, people knew them, and I was like, wow, it would be so crazy to be one of those guys. I just ended up being one of those guys. I don't know why, but some people just like walk around life with this essence behind them of they're just like the chosen one.

That's like how I feel. Yeah, like $14K per month right now. That's like how I fucking feel.

Yes, when you were explaining that to me where it's like, wow, I researched it for so long and now it's— you're literally on my YouTube channel as a case study. So say probably incepting back of like, oh, well, I really am that guy, I'm the chosen one. When you're in the starting position, you have no idea that about to do the hero's journey per se. You have really no idea, but it's like you kind of just have to assume you will. It just actually occurs.

Dude, I actually always knew though, like at the same time, which is crazy. Even when I was 16, I'm gonna make just like a bunch of money. Like, I already know. Because it's like, imagine you're 20, you're basically asking, can I get better at basketball than the average person? If you spend 12 hours a day playing basketball, you think you're gonna be better than the average person? Yes. I mean, that's how money is. It's the same thing. Nobody even tries. It's like 40 hours a week, they come home, they sit on the couch, they watch TV. If you just like try to make some money and just slam I mean, do it. It's impossible to not make money. It's ridiculous.

It's so true, bro. I try to articulate this to somebody who doesn't understand. They just can't get it until they like actually do it. Let's talk real quick about like a lot of people when they first start, they have this level of anxiety around signing their first client. It's either I'm scared to do outreach, I'm scared to get on the phone call with the prospect because I'm scared to do a sales call, and I'm scared to fulfill for the client because I'm scared I'm not going to get them results. What's your thought process around that? What would you tell someone who's thinking either of those three things?

Like, it's just how it is. Whenever you haven't done anything before, it always feels like that. The only way to actually get through this and slam a bunch of volume. You're going to feel uncomfortable on sales calls until you've just done a bunch of sales calls. You're going to feel uncomfortable until you do a bunch of fulfillment. The only way to actually break through that is just, you just have to do it, do it a bunch of times and it becomes normal kind of thing.

You're taking in pretty good money now. It's like a good level of, I don't know your exact profit margin. I know you're doing pretty good. It also appears like we're filming this midway through the month, so just to provide context for everyone, when we say $14,500 in the last month, that means the last trailing 30 days. It appears in revenue at least you'll be above $20,000 this month in February. Has like anything in your life changed now that like you just have money coming in compared to like you literally were doing nothing at all before? What's changed so far?

Honestly, bro, like I haven't done anything in my personal life. Like I just want to slam everything back into the company. I think I told you like I want to hit $100K a month before the end of the year, which I was talking to Matt. He said it's like very doable as well. Like I just want to like slam everything back into this and just run it up like as quickly as possible. I think I might be able to hit over $25K this month as well, which I think would be pretty funny. Yeah. At the same time, I can live wherever I want to live. I can have like nice stuff. It's also cool because I now have the skills. Let's say this goes to zero, I can rerun this back up in like a month, maybe a month and a half max, which is also like just super cool to know.

I remember having that exact feeling. You're obviously planning for it. You sent me a message this morning about like, what's it feel like to have multiple millions of dollars? Like, what changes? Like, you obviously have intentions of taking this for a very long time. But it's interesting that people who don't have a lot of money or a lot of cash flow every month, well over what the average person makes, what they believe is that they'll get more cash flow and then they'll just like want to spend a bunch of money buying things that they see and like they want that you think you'll buy things. Well, a lot of the times happens is that you're actually getting your satisfaction from the conducting of the thing that's making you the money. You feel like fulfilled by that alone. You end up spending like way less than you thought you would. So you just kind of like stack up a bunch of cash and then it's pretty nice.

It's true. It's very true.

How many hours a week do you work to maintain what you're making right now? If you were not trying to grow it, how many hours would it take to maintain it? Would you estimate?

Brother, I I have no clue, literally zero clue.

And to grow it, so like what you actually are doing, how many hours is that a week about if you had to estimate it?

I generally do like 75 to 80. I could definitely do more. The max I did like 100 to 105 for 3 weeks, but like generally it's like 75 to 80.

Because I think a lot of people when they haven't like run their own thing yet, when business people say like they work, a lot of those hours are like thinking. It's kind of like processing your thoughts around. I assume you might like go out on a walk or something, or it's like you're eating but you're eating at your desk. You kind of just like want to see it and look at How many hours, like not including just thinking about it, like just the actual raw labor of like clicking buttons to like conduct the thing?

Most of it, that's like 75 to 80 is like is considering eating and like going to the gym and that stuff. Pretty much 75 to 80 a week of like actually doing the thing.

Someone might hear me say something like an AI does a lot of the client fulfillment work. It's like, yeah, it does a lot of the client fulfillment work, not the acquisition of new clients or the managing of clients or the building of systems that takes like a mental capacity. If you had like zero automation or AI in any capacity, you were trying to do this 5 years ago, you would not be even close to what you're at right now. You're charged for like Smartlead subscriptions, like the lowest subscription is like this and 10,000 emails a month. It used to be all of the software was $59 a month per connected inbox.

I have like 5,000 inboxes. That's insane.

Yeah, that was the pricing model. That's how it worked, which is so funny. That's how it worked when I started my cold email agency. It was per inbox. There's only like 2 softwares. It was Lemlist and Mailshake, and both of them were $59 a month per inbox connected. Crazy. And all of the other little random ones too didn't exist. It was just those 2.

And you had to like manually set everything up. And I know because I did it. Like if you want to set up like 20 inboxes, it'd be like literally 3 days straight of like 12 hours a day.

Yeah, pretty insane. If you were talking to somebody in your position 5 months ago, whatever, they're in exactly your position and they're thinking about joining my stuff now, what would you say to this person?

There's just like no risk. I don't really fundamentally understand, like, not doing it. It's basically either you get to like $30K per month, or if you do the thing, it doesn't work, you get refunded. Literally, there's zero risk. There's no risk. I don't understand what the issue is.

The risk is you join and don't do anything.

The risk is like, you're like, I might not do it, and like be a pussy. How are you going to ever achieve anything if you can't just like put some time in and do the thing? There's literally no financial risk. Like, I don't understand why wouldn't you just slam this? It's crazy.

I think the problem with most people is that they like the idea of running a successful business and like, one, having money and to being the guy who figured it out. Like, they like the idea of that, and then they join. You begin to understand that your success is 100% your responsibility. Like, me and my team can, like, do our best to, like, push you forward and, like, try to help you do it. At the end of the day, it's your business. Nobody cares about your business as much as you do. It's the same concept as, like, nobody cares about your health as much as you do. You could get sick with some, like, insane disease that no one understands what it is. It's your responsibility to figure it out. A doctor, like, they don't care. You can just die from it, and, like, that's end. Sorry, it's your responsibility to figure it out. Same thing with the business. It's your responsibility to figure out. You absorb the information and then you conduct the information and do the information. Success is dependent on your skill level to conduct the information, your ability to have an IQ high enough to absorb the information and understand the concept and why something works a certain way without just mindless monkey mashing buttons and thinking, oh, I press button, money comes out. Doesn't work like that. Running a successful business is a high agency trait. An agency is a character trait, basically says that you take things under your own responsibility, your high agency, high conscientiousness, which obviously you are. Before we finish this up, you got anything else to add?

It's just like, if you put 12 hours per day into something or anything else, like, how are you not going to win? I don't fundamentally understand that. Like, you can't— you can get to like $100K per month in like 15 months or something if you just like slam it. Even from like a time perspective, if you were to go about a typical 9-to-5 and work for 40 years, 40 hours a week, or you can put in like 80 hours a week for like 2 to 3 years, look at how much time you get back. Like, I don't care what you want to do. You want to spend more time with your children or spend time traveling around or spend time with your parents or whatever else. Like, you get so much time back by just like drilling down for like 3 years and just killing it. Like, it's like ridiculous. There's like literally no higher ROI activity that you can possibly do. Like, there's literally none.

Facts. I think people would be much better off with their lives if they decided to take responsibility to, to learn things that are either uncomfortable or unfamiliar to them. Because it's like, you came in and you were talking about how, yeah, I'm just gonna watch every single thing. It takes calories, effort to learn something. You have to sit down. You can't just like passively watch it like it's like Netflix on the TV. You have to watch, actually watch and fully pay attention to something and absorb it. And this takes energy to do. And I think it's gotten hard for a lot of people who are— they've kind of screwed up their dopamine system a little bit with short-form video in particular. And I've personally found that, for instance, I can't watch short-form before I go to bed. It'll just like fry my brain temporarily. I can't fall asleep. It's so interesting. And I think a lot of people cook their brain permanently by watching so much short-form that they join something like this and there's a bunch of stuff they gotta watch and gotta study. It's a class. It's literally what it is. It's like college part-time, almost the equivalent of what it is. Just It takes work to do it. I think people don't get that.

I think people are also like generally like too risk-averse. I've seen that even with people in here. I was just talking to someone, they're like $5K per month and they didn't want to start cold email. They wanted to— and it's fine, like he's killing it. He wanted to keep doing D100. The second you have like $1,000 in profit per month, you need to like immediately start cold email. Not even close, immediately. What's the risk? I might lose $1,000. Okay, if it works though, you get to like $30K per month like 6 months quicker. I generally find people are too risk-averse. Like you need to take more risk than average, especially with people who are intelligent. He's got always too risk-averse. Need to be like way more risqué. Like it's crazy.

James, good sir, thank you for coming on. Anybody in the audience who wants to connect with James, I'm going to leave links to all of his stuff in the description. And if you want to join AI Assisted Agency, that'll be the first link in the description so you can come inside and you can join both of us. Good sir, appreciate you coming on.