In this instructional video, Helena Liu outlines a three‑step roadmap for anyone who wants to launch a career as an AI automation specialist in 2024. She begins by describing the explosive growth of AI tools like ChatGPT and the resulting market demand for professionals who can help businesses adopt AI‑driven workflows. The first step is to acquire a core skill set: prompt engineering, familiarity with the broad AI tool ecosystem, building no‑code AI chatbots, creating automations with platforms such as Make and Zapier, and basic data‑management using Airtable. She explains each component, provides concrete examples (e.g., e‑commerce chatbot that pulls order data from Shopify via Make), and emphasizes hands‑on experimentation. The second step is to build a demonstrable portfolio, either by repurposing existing business processes into showcase projects or by offering free work to small businesses in exchange for testimonials. The third step focuses on client acquisition: defining a clear value proposition, niching to become a specialist (e.g., legal‑sector AI automation), and using outreach channels like email sequences, LinkedIn Navigator, directories, social media, networking, and referrals. She also shares pricing guidelines (project fees $1k‑$5k, retainer $2k‑$5k) and stresses translating AI benefits into tangible business outcomes. The video concludes by recapping the three steps and encouraging viewers to start their AI automation journey.
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Hey everyone, it's Helena here and welcome back to my YouTube channel. In today's video, I am going to be sharing with you the 3 steps that you need to take in 2024 to become a successful AI automations expert. So as we have seen over the past year, ChatGPT, which has become the fastest growing software tool ever launched in human history, basically take the world by storm. I remember the first time I used this tool, it felt like you know, like magic. You type in a command and suddenly you have a virtual assistant basically giving you exactly what you want within a matter of seconds. So with the potential and pervasiveness of this new technology, it really does have the power to change how we work, how we communicate, and businesses everywhere of all sizes in all industries now need to adapt to this new technology. So there is an increasing need for AI automations experts to these businesses make this transition and adopt and understand the transformation that AI is going to bring. And so that brings a lot of good opportunities for people like you to help them get on board. So to become an AI automations expert, there are 3 steps, and I'm going to share with you them right now. So the first step is to actually learn the skill set, and it's a great skill set to learn because you can do so much with it. I have seen people use the skill set as a freelancer, so they create like an Upwork profile and essentially work and find clients on the side where they can do AI and automation work for. There are also other people who find this as their main career path, so they have an employer and then they just work with that one company on various AI and automation techniques and procedures. And then the third career path that you could have with a skill set is to start your own AI agency, as I have done, and you can check out my AI agency below. Below in the descriptions. Now, to learn the skill set required to become a successful AI automations expert, while it could seem like a lot of different skills that you had to learn, I do want you to know that it's really not that complicated, and you could pick up the skill set within a matter of months. And I know that could seem like a really long time, but remember, if you want to become a lawyer or a doctor, that's going to take decades of schooling. And here you're investing a couple of months to get a skill set that can make you 6 figures. So it's actually a pretty good investment on your time. Also, this is a great field to be in because it is so new, so the playing field is evened out. There's no one with decades and decades of experiences here. The most fundamental skill that you need to know as an AI automations expert is you need to know prompt engineering. So a prompt is a command that you give to an AI tool. For example, if you played around with ChatGPT before, it is what you enter into ChatGPT. If went to ChatGPT and said, write me a short children's story, and then the result you're going to get from ChatGPT is that short story. So the prompt is the instructions you enter, and then the output is what the AI gives back to you. The better and more specific your prompt is, the better the output. For example, you can specify a tone, a style, you can be really descriptive of what you want. There's so much things that can go into writing a good prompt. So the better the prompt, the better the output. So once you understand the fundamentals of prompt engineering, the next skill set that you need to have is understanding the overall AI landscape. This includes what kind of tools are out there and what they can be used for. Oftentimes when I talk to people about AI, they tend to think that ChatGPT equals AI, like ChatGPT is AI, but that's like the same thing as saying that Facebook equals social media. Although Facebook is one social media channel, it is not equal to social media. So you have to understand that there are hundreds and hundreds of AI tools out there, all doing something different. There are AI tools that help you write better. There are AI tools that do translation. There are AI tools that generate images like Midjourney. There are also AI tools that generate video. There are AI tools that generate social media images. And the list just goes on and on and on and on. So it's a good idea that you get familiar with all of these most popular AI tools and what they do. And the best way to learn this is to get free trials to the software and actually play around with it. It's not enough to just watch a YouTube video on how they work. The best way to learn is actually to get your hands dirty and actually use these tools. Once you have a firm understanding of what is prompt engineering as well as understanding what's out there in AI and what AI can do, the next The next skill set that you need to learn is how to build AI chatbots. And this is a really important skill set to have because businesses are adopting AI chatbots like rapid fire. Businesses need AI chatbots because it will help them lower the cost of sales reps as well as customer service reps. You can train these AI bots on all of the information specific to your organization. And once the chatbot knows all of this information, it's able to communicate with your customers and give them and direct them to the information that they are looking for. And there's actually scientific research that shows that people prefer using these bots versus going on the website and searching for things, because if I go on the website, I'm searching for things, I'm looking around, that takes longer time versus me just being able to communicate with this bot on the platform of my choice. These bots can be deployed on any platform, be it Facebook, Instagram, SMS messages, or the web. So if I wanted to now communicate with a store from my Facebook Messenger, like let's say I wanted to buy some flowers, now I can just send them a message on their Facebook Messenger. And then now the bot is able to understand what I'm writing to it and then give me the appropriate response back saying, for example, here is the dozen of roses that you were looking for and give me a link and then you can just go and purchase it right there. Another use case that we're seeing for these AI chatbots is customer service. And The great benefit is that these bots allow these businesses to have customer support on all platforms 24/7, 365. We have also seen these bots be trained for appointment booking as well as lead generation. Being familiar with how these platforms work and how to build these AI chatbots is really essential to you becoming an AI automations expert. These platforms are no-code. So you don't need to know how to code to start building these chatbots. They're all drag-and-drop platforms and it's quite intuitive. Once you become familiar with bot building, the next skill set that you want to learn as an AI automations expert is automations and how to set up these automations. The 2 main tools that you want to use to set up these automations are Make and Zapier, and they work in similar ways. They work by combining different software tools together through using API. Being familiar with how these tools work, and again, they're no-code, so you can learn them just by dragging and dropping. And then I would say the last skill set that you want to learn is just a little bit about data management and database. The most popular tool that people are using for their backend databases is Airtable. So just being familiar with Airtable, the different components of it, that could really help as well. So just to give you an example of how all of this links together, For example, we built an e-commerce chatbot once, and what it does is that it's able to look up someone's tracking for them, it's able to give them their receipts, and the user just had to tell the bot, hey, my email is blah, can you please look up when my shipping is going to arrive? To build such a bot, of course, there is a natural language processing portion, so the bot has learned everything on this specific customer's website, understood all of their products as well. It's linked their backend database through automations, which in this case is Make, to their backend database, which in this case is Shopify, so that it can go into Shopify, find the specific customer's email address, and be able to return to them the, their specific invoice or their tracking ID. So that is an example of how AI is linked to automations and is linked to the, the specific clients backend database. Now that you understand the skill set that you need to succeed as an AI automations expert, let's go on to step number 2. Step number 2 is to create a portfolio that you can show to your potential clients. As you're learning these skills, you could be doing this as well. So as you're learning how to build a chatbot, you could start building chatbots. Oftentimes before a client would hire you, they would say, okay, what kind of chatbots have you built in the past? What kind of work have you done before? For. Having a solid portfolio is essential. Now, this could look like it's a question of does the chicken come first or the egg comes first? Because if no one gives you a chance to build something for them, how are you going to build your portfolio, right? There's 2 ways around this. One is you could use an existing business, strip out their logo, strip out any identifying information, and just use that as like a use case to build a chatbot so that you have something in your portfolio to show. Another way that you can start building your portfolio is to start doing some work for free for small businesses that are willing to give you a chance, and you can offer to do some work for them for free in exchange for a testimonial. The benefit to you is that it can also help you build your portfolio to showcase to potential clients in the future, and you get that real-world experience that can help you out. Once you have built your portfolio, The third step is to start getting clients and start getting paid.
This is probably everyone's favorite part because this is where you get paid. Now there are a number of different methods that you can use to start getting clients. But there are a couple of things that you want to keep in mind first. And the first being who do you serve? And what is the value that you bring? It's not enough to go to a business and say that I can give you AI and automation services. But if you can translate this into how this helps their business bottom line, that is what's going to allow you to be able to charge top dollars. So for example, if a one person A goes into a business and say, I can do AI and automations for you, that business owner most likely doesn't even understand what AI and automations is. So that person is probably not going to get hired, versus person B who goes to the same business and say that, hey, I can lower your customer service costs by 30%. And at the same time, increase the number of leads that you're getting by 50%. When the business owner hears that, they will be like, yes, sign me up. Where do you— where do I sign up? If you can translate the AI and automation benefits into tangible results for business owners, they're much more likely to accept and implement the AI solutions that you offer. Remember that AI and automations is the vehicle to get better results, but it still has to give people results for you to get paid Okay, and then with that being said, another overarching strategy that you want to keep in mind when you're getting clients is who do you serve, right? It's important that you start thinking that you're not just a generalist, but how you can niche down to become a specialist. The specialists always get paid 5 and sometimes even 10 times more than the generalists. For example, if you just go in to see your family physician, that family physician is going to charge a lot less than a brain surgeon. So you want to think about that that in terms of your career as well. If you're just a general AI automations expert, well, while not many people know this skill set yet, you're still able to charge quite a lot of dollars for this skill set. But as more and more people gain this skill set, then you want new ways to differentiate yourself. And one way you can differentiate yourself is by picking a niche. So for example, let's say that you are already a lawyer, and now if you learn AI and automations, you can become an AI automations expert specialized in the legal field, and all of a sudden you stand out from all of the other AI and automation experts in the legal industry. If I was a lawyer and I wanted to implement specific AI and automation strategies for my firm, of course I would go for the expert who specializes in legal practices versus someone else who is just a generalist. So with those overarching tips for getting clients out of the way, let's now talk about the channels that you can to find your specific clients. If you already got your niche chosen down, you can always use emails to reach out to these various businesses. You can go on Google, do a search, and then find a list of these businesses and start reaching out to them. There are also directories that you can use such as Apollo, Instantly, GetProspects, and all of these repositories can be used for you to find the information about the specific niche that you're going after and help you find the contact information about people who work at those companies. LinkedIn Navigator is also a great tool as well. And once you find the email addresses of these various business owners, then you can set up an email sequence on automation using tools like Instantly to start reaching out to these business owners. So besides emails, though, you could also try social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, depending on the niche that you're going after, these various different social media channels may may be a good fit. You can also meet people through networking, speaking at conferences, or asking for referrals. Now, while you were doing some of the free work for some of those businesses as part of your portfolio, you can always reach out to those business owners again and ask them for referral. Now, you may be wondering, well, how much can I charge for these services? So if you're building a standard chatbot, it could cost anywhere between $1,000 to $5,000 depending on the complexity involved. I have seen a lot of automation experts become part of a specific company. So they would say, I would help you build all of the automations that you want in your business, as well as keep all of the existing ones running. Something starts to break or fall, then I would be on there and help you fix it up right away. And they would just charge a monthly retainer for this. It could be anywhere between $2,000 to $5,000 from what I have seen. As you can see, it doesn't take many clients to really start building a full-time income from being an AI and automations expert. So I hope you enjoyed this video. And now you know the 3 steps to becoming a successful AI automations expert here in 2024. Again, number one is to learn the skill set. The second step is to build your portfolio. And finally, number 3 is to start getting clients.
Thank you so much for joining me for this training.
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