Case Study: From 0 to 50k/mo AI Automation Agency

All right, what's up everybody? I got Amir here who runs an AI automation agency inside of our program, AI Assisted Agency. So that's one of the 5 business models we teach. And Amir, you just hit your first $50K a month, is that right?

Yeah, that's correct.

Nice, cool. And you've actually been in Client Ascension for a year and a half. You got an interesting perspective. You were in before we even launched AI Assisted Agency, and then obviously you started doing— you're in that program now, and then like you started building it up. So you originally joined with us at $0. So I think it would be interesting to hear about your whole journey from $0 to hitting $50,000 in a single month. Like, yeah, could you walk us through that? Just as a quick disclaimer to everybody here, probability that you get these results is like zero. Do people get really good results in our program, and do I post an absolute ton of them all the time on my channel? Yeah, but I'm not promising you get results because the average person like makes $0, right? And if you want to make a lot of money, you cannot be average in any capacity. But with that out of the way, Amir, walk us through like the full journey here.

Yeah, 100%. So yeah, I was about like $2K total. I had started my business in November. I joined in November of 2024, I think it was, and I actually joined Internet Money of all things. And I had like my onboarding call and the guy's like, I think you're in the wrong place. Like, you should definitely be in like Client Ascension. I don't know what you're doing. I was just really exploring business models, seeing what was out there. I left my job and I was like, let me see what I can do here. And then the next day you came came in, you're like, hey, I'm canceling this. You guys are unserious. So I joined your first call and you were like, hey man, like we're moving. If you want to come to Client Extension, you can. I was like, this is a pretty big investment. But I had a previous business. I did like project management consulting. I had done working in IT. I was basically selling managed services. Like, man, like maybe I'll just like invest some of that money I have saved up, join Client Extension and see what happens. Because I'd been watching your YouTube for a while. I joined there and the first little bit, you know how it is when you join the program, you got a lot of work to do. To get a foundation, you gotta get a VSL, you gotta get everything set up. So I think I made like $100 the following month. So I did like $2K the first that I joined. I was like, I did like $100 because I was so focused on like getting everything set up and spending way too long on it. Like I was overthinking everything, the website, all that stuff. But then things started flowing. So I started first with Upwork, got one client there, and then that one client referred me to another client. And then I started leveraging communities, one of them being Client Ascension, where people would post about stuff and they would say, hey, I'm struggling with XYZ, like how do we build this automation? I would just DM like, hey, I'll I'll build it for you for free. Like, let's talk. And that was my approach of like just becoming friends with people in the community. I was number one. And then number two was within Client Ascension, they have an AI use cases call. So I would join that every week and I got really close with one of the co-owners of Client Ascension, Lucas. And I would just answer people's questions on the call. Lucas would always refer to me as like, hey Amir, like, what do you think about this? I became a little bit of an authority in the group because they just assumed I was a coach or something. So then people started DMing me directly and being like, hey, can you help me with this? I'm like, yeah, I can help you for like, you know, the first one. But then after that, we're gonna have to talk about some kind of compensation. So that was kind of how, how we got started.

And then, yeah, so you're running, you're running a warm traffic way of conducting this business because like, as I teach with AI automation, I'll never say like, yeah, sell AI automation to cold traffic. I would always say like, if you're going to sell it to cold traffic, it needs to be a specific build, something that you built that generated a result for someone. But you're not selling it to cold traffic, you're selling it to warm traffic. So what does that entail? It means that you need to do strategies that build warm traffic. For instance, doing free work for people and being active in a community whether it's Client Ascension or those other ones as well. And then the same process works on social media as well. You can go on Twitter, make a thread about something you make, or then you could go on YouTube and make a video showing an automation that you built, like a whole system you built. And then what does that do? It gets warm traffic. And now the warm traffic is interested in you having something that you're doing something for them. You know what I'm saying? For everybody watching this, but that's the strategy for AI automations. Like that's how that business model works is by just building warm traffic at all. So like you go from zero and you hit a $50,000 a month a year and a half later, like how did your offer kind of evolve over time there?

Yeah, for sure. So initially it was, you know, I'll build you whatever you want, you know, do you have any issues with XYZ process? Let's just build a one-off automation. But the problem with that is, is there's no retention, there's no money model there. Like I was not able to keep people around. They'd get their one automation and they'd leave. I had to figure out a way to get there. So I was sitting about $10K a month for probably like February, March-ish to June of 2025, and I was doing pretty well, but then I had some churn because people would get their builds and then they'd leave. So I was at like zero again come July the next year, and I was like, okay, how do I actually like reorientate myself? So I had an opportunity because I didn't have— I had a couple clients and, you know, there wasn't a lot going on. How do I reorientate this? So I switched it up where instead of offering a free build, I would say, hey, we will audit your business, but in turn you have to pay for it first of all, which was a small fee, but then we will roll that into the implementation fee. So if you decide to move forward. And that was a massive unlock because the packages went from like $5K to $10K to $15K to $20K because we would discover so much opportunity. And of course, this being warm traffic, they were open to the idea of paying upfront to somebody actually analyze their business. So that was the big unlock for me to charging way more money and having better clients overall.

And now, now just like everybody watching this understands, like the way, the way that that is like facilitated over time is that Amir sits here for months doing like a bunch of free stuff for people and then sitting around like maybe like $5K, $10K a month, but it's building market authority and like he's getting people's referral networks where it's like people he did free stuff for also know people and then they talk to people and then they need help and they worked with them here before. So then he gets referred people like that. And that's how you build a base of referrals. And that's how you eventually get to a point where you're able to make $50,000 in a single month. That's what it is like when you're selling to warm traffic. Now, have you thought about making a cold traffic offer and going to cold traffic as well?

Yeah. So that's the next play here is now that I've collected all this cash, my margins are crazy. I have a few team members, but it's nothing crazy. I'm gonna go look at running ads now. So that's, that's what I'm going to start exploring is some kind of cold traffic offer, seeing how that goes, um, with ads. Because I found cold email doesn't work with this. And you, you've said that to me before in the past, you need something very specific, and even then it's, it's hard to get through with the AI automation stuff.

Yep, yep. So I'll help you make your cold traffic offer, of course. That's easy for me to do. Now walk me through, like, because you were working for a managed IT company or something like that, just like this normal job, and like a year and a half later you're running like a multiple six-figure business and you're like, more money, than like 99% of the planet. How does that feel? Like, that looks strange to you?

Yeah. So it is a little strange. I've never made this much money in a month. I did pretty well in the IT. I was in sales, so it was a commission role. You know, I was doing financially pretty well. But it is shocking that with the power of the internet, like the first time you make money on the internet is unbelievable. I live in Canada, so like all my clients are all over the world, which is super interesting. And the amount of money that is out in the world is actually insane when you start running this business.

How was like your lifestyle changed? Have you changed anything at all? Like, or like, what are you doing now? Just— Yeah, not Really?

So I've been like, again, like I'm 29 years old. So like I had a career, you know, I have a house, a car, you know, I already had all the materialistic stuff per se that I wanted and needed. Now it's like figuring out how I can build this into a bigger business. It's like, this is like my, back in the day I used to play Call of Duty, you know, that was my video game. Now this is like my video game where it's like, how can I build this machine up and make it better?

Yeah, dude. I like to think of it as like a, I'm playing RuneScape or something, right, man? I'm building the bank up and you know what I'm saying? I'm getting Buying better gear so you can make even more money.

There's something when you first join Client Ascension, one of the first videos you have, you talk about how you need to be like a full-stack human. And that was something that really resonated with me because I was always like good at, you know, the skill of building automations and, you know, customer success was like my strong suit. I did sales, but I had never done any marketing, right? So I was like, I need to actually learn this skill. And that's something even today, like now that I'm running ads, taking courses, understanding that, trying to build that skill set. Like you said, like my marketing skill is like a 10, but like my automation skill is like a 99, right? To balance that out. So he's looking at ways to become that full-stack business owner where before I joined, I was just like, oh, I just need to be like good at the skill and like it'll work, which does not work. Like you actually need everything.

Yeah. So what are the most common types of like AI automations you build for clients? Like what's, what's kind of selling right now?

So the biggest thing is onboarding automations, people bringing on new clients. This is such a pain point and you want to have a great client experience. So that, that's number one. Number two is like, I don't position myself as an automation agency in the market. I position myself as an operations agency. So I go out and I say, hey, we'll build out your project management system, we'll build out your CRM, and then we'll add AI automation to the backend. So that's huge too, because those are much higher ticket items, much more complex, much— if you mess it up, you know, it can cause a lot of issues in your business. If like, say, the CRM is not capturing data or whatever the case may be. So people don't want to touch that stuff usually if they don't know what they're doing. So that's kind of the biggest thing. So it's like automation adjacent stuff, I would say, is powerful. The retention in the backend is where automation actually comes in. Into play for my business at least.

Nice. And what are people normally paying for this kind of stuff? How are you structuring it at all? Like, like how, just how are the payments for that? How do they work?

So it's typically based on value. So if I can save you, say, $45,000 a year on a certain thing, then I charge you $15K for it or whatever the case may be, some percentage. Like it's a 3 to 10x. I always tell the clients when they first come to me, I say, we'll give you a 3 to 10x return on investment on money. So that's the biggest thing too, is positioning it that way. Is I'm charging like way more money than I first started. Like stuff I'd charge like $2K for, now I charge $10K for. Like it's actually insane, but it's the same amount of work for me. So, um, being like, just the way you phrase things, right? That's, that makes a huge difference. I think that's what I learned over the year and a half was like, I don't touch anything less than like $2K. There's a project that's like less than $2K, I'm like, I don't want, I don't even want to deal with it because I know the headache.

Nice, good stuff. Like for somebody who's sitting there and that, I don't know, and it doesn't even— they don't even have to be running an automation agency, they could be running any kind of business and they're stuck charging like $1,000 or $2,000. Like, what even needs to happen in order to be able to spend $10,000? Like, is there like some kind of like— if you could recall what needed to take place or be present for people to actually be willing to pay you $10,000?

You have to spell it all out for them. You have to show them how much pain they're actually in. That's why I charge such a small fee upfront to do the initial audit. But that audit is like a Trojan horse in a sense where people are like, holy crap, this is way worse than I thought. Call me, they're like, hey, my roof's leaking. I'm like, yeah, your roof is rotten. All the beams are broken. You got to fix like the whole house. Like the house is going to fall down tomorrow. You know what I mean? And that's what people don't understand. So taking that information, especially with AI now, you record all the calls, you can analyze all the pain points. Like there's just so much ammunition. And then when you bring it to them, it's just like so logical. Like in B2B, it's such a logical sale where they're like, okay, this is costing me $300,000 a year. You're telling me this lady, you know, that works for me is wasting this much time. She could be doing stuff that's like way more valuable for the business. Instead, she's just, you know, copying things between spreadsheets. Wow. And she's doing it this much because I would interview people too, right? So that was the other unlock, was like talking to the— not just the business owners, but the employees as well, and then telling me like what they do on a day-to-day basis. And I'm like, oh man, like we could definitely make a lot of changes here, make your business a lot more efficient.

Yeah, no, there's literally people whose like entire jobs are like copying data from one thing to another that could be like automated with a single Zap, just like, right? Yeah, for like, for like $4 a month or something. Yeah, absolutely insane. If it is, literally don't even know that. That's pretty interesting. Uh, Did you find that in the beginning when you were first starting, were there like projects or builds that seemed a little bit too complex for you, but then over time you kind of just got better, which made you like more comfortable even saying a higher price? Or like, how did that all work out?

I never actually personally had that issue. I was just like, with the internet and AI these days, you guys, like you can figure anything out. It's actually insane. So like I always would like get ahead of my skis a little bit, like oversell and be like, okay, I'm going to figure out how to Lego this out after the fact. So I think you have to do that to grow. Like I, I really think that. Yeah.

You can't, you can't like undersell it by trying to be like, oh, well maybe they're just not gonna buy, you know, it's like you have to say more than what you think you're capable of and like push. It's like progressive overload in the gym. Like you need to put more weight on the bar. Like you have to do that. Now you also like, obviously you're very active in Client Ascension. I'm sure you talk to other people who are running AI automation agencies as well. What do you see like for anybody watching this who isn't inside of our program, AI Assisted Agency, what do you see that are probably going to be mistakes that they make that they should steer away from? If they were trying to run this specific business?

Trying to leverage AI too quickly. Like you need to understand what the business problem you're solving is, as opposed to just like going out there gung-ho and trying to just sell automations. I never ever lead with AI automation or, you know, here's this AI voice— never sold an AI voice receptionist in my life. I don't think anybody has, to be honest. You know, I think it's just like a biz op thing. But anyways, I've seen the most success from the people that I talk to of like having what you teach as well, like having a quantifiable result, really spelling out to them what the business outcome is. And then this is just the mechanism to get there. You can get there in so many different ways, right? That would be the biggest thing I see with people making mistakes is like there's so much AI hype and this business is by far the worst one compared to all the other business models of getting sucked into the AI tools because you feel like you have to know because clients might ask you what's going on. Like the amount of clients that DM me stuff like off Instagram, they're scrolling their feed, they're like, hey, we want this Open Claw agent that does XYZ. It's like, no, no, no, you do not want that. I'll tell you why. Yeah. And then like the next day they're like, oh yeah, look, this guy got hacked. I'm like, yeah, exactly. Like we need to actually like figure out what are we trying to solve first and see if it's a fit.

If you had to leave with, uh, saying anyone who's, who's watching this video right now who wants to build a business of your size, what would you leave them off from the end of this interview saying?

I think the biggest thing is you need to progressively overload your brain, overload your skill set, and take the time to basically experience everything along the way. Because I think there's a lot of like trying to rush into being a big business. Like, this took me a year and a half some of the younger guys, I don't know how they do it. They go very fast to client centric, but it's important that you experience all the different growth milestones as opposed to like trying to like get to the end, right? Like I think so many people are like, oh, I just want to get to like $50K a month. You need to understand like what that entails because otherwise you're going to experience a lot of churn on the back end. Retention is extremely high for my business, so I don't have to go find new clients. Like finding new clients is one of the hardest things to do in business, right? So that would be the biggest thing is just like actually take the time to grow it on a stable foundation as opposed to trying to just just like speedrun everything.

Nice. All right, Amir, thanks for coming on, brother. I appreciate you dropping some game for some of these guys. Anybody watching this, if you want to join AI Assisted Agency, that is the first link in the description. If you want to watch other case studies of a bunch of other people in there, I'll leave that link in the description as well for the full case studies playlist. All right, bro, appreciate you coming on. Thank you.

Thanks.