Build With AI

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I got in the trenches for real this time - cold calling 25+ tree service companies with no website, door knocking on decision makers, and testing two different offers (a free website build vs. a free mini AI assessment) to see which one actually converts to a booked sales call first. You'll hear the rejections, the pivots to my script, and the exact numbers behind how many conversations it took to land two sales calls for episode three.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Recap of Episode 1's lead list
01:52 - Hyper Agent sponsor shoutout
02:13 - The two offers: free website vs. free AI assessment
02:37 - Cold calling begins - dead numbers and voicemails
03:03 - First real conversation: Katu Tree Experts
04:35 - Crafting the free-website voicemail script
05:53 - Bentley Stump Grinding hangs up
06:56 - Pivoting the cold call opening line
09:15 - Getting cursed out on a cold call
09:57 - SNK Tree Service: a live, warm lead
12:13 - Pitching $500 against the $2,000 she already paid
14:40 - Tearing apart the $2,000 "vibe-coded" website
16:01 - More voicemails and no-shows
21:12 - Running low on leads: sourcing 100 more prospects
24:03 - Door knocking: the anti-AI home builder
26:40 - Turning a hostile gatekeeper into a booked call
29:33 - Door knocking: the new insurance agency
36:00 - Explaining the paid AI assessment offer
36:45 - Day six numbers: cold calls vs. door knocks
37:50 - Where to learn the full playbook
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Join AI Operator Academy: https://www.skool.com/aioperatoracademy/about

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In this episode, I pull back the curtain and let you listen to a real $999 AI assessment for a real client, start to finish. This client is a business broker prospecting home service business owners for M&A deals, building agentic systems with Claude Code and HyperAgent. Learn how to diagnose an overbuilt AI system, spot the 80/20 opportunity in a workflow, and deliver high-value recommendations.
Timestamps:

00:00 - Why I'm showing you a real paid assessment
00:52 - Kicking off the call and confirming the client's starting point
02:03 - My approach: mostly listening, probing questions first
02:50 - Client's background as an M&A business broker
04:07 - How he prospects home service business owners today
04:44 - Building his Claude agentic team for prospecting dossiers

06:55 - Live screen share of his cannabis M&A buyer dossier

10:54 - Finding the real gap: dossier is automated, outreach is manual
13:53 - Why he built a HyperAgent team on top of Claude Code

16:09 - His own diagnosis: I think I overbuilt this

19:14 - Second workflow: automating cold contact-form outreach
24:06 - Client admits he's diluted himself in a sea of agents
29:21 - Identifying the 80/20 opportunity together
30:41 - Wrapping the call and setting up the report

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I sat down with Mark Fershteyn, who spent seven years building a B2B SaaS company, raised $8 million, and eventually walked away from it — because on nights and weekends he started doing AI consulting and training for companies, and in six months of part-time effort it surpassed the $500K ARR his seven-year startup had built. Mark breaks down the exact offer ladder he's using to make money with AI trainings and implementations, starting with paid in-person workshops as low as $500 a head all the way up to six-figure AI transformation builds. We get into how he prices workshops, why he treats them as a lead magnet instead of the main event, and how one good workshop turns into a $25K-$50K custom build for a company. By the end of this episode, you'll have a clear playbook for turning AI knowledge into a paid workshop business, even if you're starting with zero audience.

Join our AI Operator Academy Community where we help entrepreneurs start and scale a profitable AI services business: https://www.skool.com/aioperatoracademy/about  

Timestamps 

00:00 - Intro
00:30 - Mark's $8M SaaS wind-down after 7 years
02:00 - Consulting income beats 7 years of ARR in 6 months
03:00 - The 7 different AI offers he's tested
04:00 - How in-person workshops are structured and run
05:00 - First workshop: $500/head, 15 people via Eventbrite
06:00 - Why the 45+ demographic is hungry for AI training
07:00 - Walking through the live offer-ladder diagram
08:00 - Workshop + assessment pricing: $15-25K
09:00 - His ICP for workshops and when he says no
10:00 - Advice to niche down by industry or persona
11:00 - Charlotte realtor example and per-head pricing
13:00 - Working backward from client value to set price
15:00 - What he upsells after the workshop
16:00 - Building custom AI operating systems for teams
17:00 - Case study: 7-hour staffing process cut to 15 minutes
19:00 - Build pricing: $25-50K over three to six weeks
20:00 - Why he avoids maintenance retainers
23:00 - His ideal offer ladder and a future $49 entry offer
26:00 - Advice for starting workshops with zero experience
28:00 - Using a cheap public workshop as lead gen for six-figure deals
Key Points

Mark's AI consulting and training side hustle surpassed $500K in ARR in six months of nights-and-weekends effort, beating the mid six-figure run rate his seven-year, $8M-funded SaaS company had built — which is part of why he wound the company down.

His first paid workshop was $495–$500 a head, four hours long, and pulled 15 people through nothing more than Eventbrite and cold LinkedIn outreach asking people if they knew anyone in the area who'd be interested — proof you don't need an existing audience to start.

His offer ladder runs free artifact or skill, to a paid assessment, to an in-person workshop priced $15K–$25K for a half day to two days, to a custom AI operating system build priced $25K–$50K over three to six weeks, with a retainer as the optional final rung.

Workshops aren't the real business — they cap out at a couple hundred thousand dollars a year because of the hours involved. The real money is in the custom builds a good workshop uncovers, so he'll sometimes turn down a workshop entirely if there's no clear upsell path behind it.

His pricing rule: work backward from the value the client will realize in the low, mid, and best case, then charge roughly 20% of that number — a CEO of a 150-person company can support a much higher price than an individual realtor because the multiple on outcome is bigger.

He deliberately avoids sitting on retainers collecting maintenance fees, saying that if he's still needed for maintenance months later, it means he failed to actually train the client's team and hand the system off.

His advice to anyone who wants to start running AI workshops with no track record: pick an industry you already know, run a cheap public workshop to build a case study and reputation, say yes when people ask you to bring it to their company, and figure out fulfillment as you go.
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Website: https://masteringai.io 
Email: mark@masteringai.io

Join our AI Operator Academy Community where we help entrepreneurs start and scale a profitable AI services business: https://www.skool.com/aioperatoracademy/about  
In this episode, I sat down with Dino Watt, an orthodontics industry consultant with zero technical background, who used the exact AI Operator Academy playbook to land a $30,000 consulting deal in under three months. Dino walks through his entire funnel live: a $97 workshop that pre-sold assessments before he ever taught it, a $797–$997 paid AI assessment, and a standout add-on nobody else is doing, an AI-generated explainer video that turns his report into a seven-minute video his clients can forward straight to a business partner or spouse. He breaks down the actual numbers: $5,734 collected before a single sales call, a 44% close rate, and a $5,000-a-month, six-month AI Concierge retainer closed off the back of an assessment he got paid to deliver. By the end of this episode, you'll have a full blueprint for turning a paid workshop into a five-figure retainer, even if you've never written a line of code.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro: meet Dino Watt
00:50 - Not technical, dyslexic, no coding background
01:35 - Joining AI Operator Academy with his wife Shannon
02:39 - The $30K AI Concierge retainer overview
03:09 - Using Claude to build his podcast slides live
04:55 - The filter: effectiveness, efficiency, quality
05:27 - Pricing the $97 workshop and early bird upsells
06:20 - Upselling the $997 paid assessment
07:20 - Doing the assessments and giving one testimonial freebie
08:29 - Booking the follow-up call off the explainer video
09:30 - Why he charges $5K/month over six months, not $2K
11:45 - Solve rich people problems
12:48 - Walking through the full deliverable package
13:19 - The one-pager and proof kit
13:34 - Why he built a 7-minute NotebookLM explainer video
15:49 - How the explainer video preempts objections
17:39 - Selling to secondary decision-makers without being in the room
19:14 - His real numbers: $65,734 from one $97 workshop
20:37 - Why he'd scale this into in-person workshops
22:41 - Where to follow Dino and final thoughts

Key Points

Dino closed a $30,000 AI Concierge retainer, $5,000 a month for six months, despite having dyslexia, no coding background, and no marketing expertise. Proof the AI Operator Academy playbook works for anyone willing to run it as taught.

His funnel gets him paid at every single step. A $97 workshop with a built-in $497 early-bird upgrade to the paid assessment, then a $797–$997 assessment, then the retainer. He made $5,734 before he ever got on a sales call.

From one $97 workshop with 20 attendees, Dino generated $65,734 in total tracked value and a 44% close rate turning assessments into retainers.

His standout move: he runs the finished assessment report through NotebookLM (Gemini) to generate a seven-minute AI explainer video, then sends it to the prospect ahead of the sales call. It becomes an asset the client can forward to a spouse, partner, or financial advisor who needs to sign off.

He charges $5,000 a month on a six-month contract instead of pitching a flat total, and always frames the price against the dollar savings ("pay $30K to get $250K back") rather than naming the full number upfront.

His advice to new operators: don't overcomplicate the discovery questions. Even with 15 years of orthodontic industry expertise, his actual assessments still trace back to the same core questions taught in the program, deep industry knowledge just makes the calls longer, not more accurate.

He never pitches the retainer as the only option. Every prospect is told they can take the full assessment blueprint to any AI developer they want. That transparency, plus already being a paying customer, is what makes them choose to hire him instead.

Claude, used to build the presentation deck and customize the assessment questionnaire for the orthodontics niche - https://claude.ai

NotebookLM (Gemini), used to turn the finished assessment into a seven-minute explainer video for prospects - https://notebooklm.google

AI Operator Academy, the community where Corey and Dino teach people how to sell AI assessments and AI Concierge retainers - https://aoa.community

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FIND DINO ON SOCIAL Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dinowatt/

Grab the free Mini AI Assessment Playbook here: https://corey-ganim.kit.com/0cea7ca381

In this solo episode, I break down the exact offer ladder that's letting complete beginners hit $10K a month selling AI services without a single cold call, cold email, or DM. I walk through the three rungs — a free 15-minute mini AI assessment, a $999 paid AI assessment, and a $1,000–$2,000/month AI Concierge engagement — and show you the real math behind why you only need four AI Concierge clients and four paid assessments a month to hit that number. I get specific on who your ideal client actually is, the exact text message script to send your warm network, and the pricing mistakes that keep people underpaid doing this work. By the end of this episode, you'll have the full playbook to land your first paying AI client this month, plus a free download to run it yourself.

Join our AI Operator Academy Community where we help entrepreneurs start and scale a profitable AI services business: https://www.skool.com/aioperatoracademy/about  

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro: the laziest way to $10K a month
00:30 - The opportunity and the offer ladder overview
01:45 - Why anyone can do this (no cold outreach required)
02:45 - Your ideal customer: 3–20 employees, 500K–10M revenue
04:30 - The real pain point: "where do I start," not an AI problem
06:00 - Becoming the technical translator and prescribing tools
07:30 - The three-rung offer ladder explained in full
09:30 - Pricing and margins: 98% net margin math
11:00 - The $1,000-an-hour AI concierge breakdown
12:00 - Getting your first client: list, text, upsell
14:00 - The exact text message script to send
15:00 - Turning every "no" into a referral
16:00 - Mistake #1: running out of your warm list
16:45 - Mistake #2: underpricing the AI concierge offer
18:00 - Mistake #3: not qualifying leads before the free assessment
18:45 - Next steps and how to join AI Operator Academy

Key Points

The whole business runs on one offer ladder: a free 15-minute mini AI assessment that finds one pain point and prescribes one tool, upsold into a $999 paid assessment that prescribes three to seven tools, upsold into a $1,000–$2,000/month AI Concierge engagement to implement it all.

The math is simple: four AI Concierge clients at $1,500/month plus four paid assessments at $999/month gets you to $10K a month, and AI Concierge fulfillment is just two 45-minute calls per month per client.

This is close to a 98% net margin business. The only cost of goods is a $20/month Claude subscription — no team, no overhead, nothing else required to fulfill any of these offers.

The client acquisition system is three steps: make a list of 50 people you already know, send one specific text message offering a free mini assessment, then upsell. Send 50 texts and you can expect 15–25 mini assessments booked and 5–7 paying clients.

Every "no" is still a win — ask for two referrals every time, whether you get a yes, a no, or no response at all. About 50% of nos turn into one or two referrals.

Never price AI Concierge under $1,000/month. Anchor to the hours you save the client, not the hours you spend — one AI Operator Academy member just closed a client at $5,000/month for six months.

Qualify before you assess. The ideal client has three to 20 employees doing $500K to $10 million a year in revenue — solopreneurs usually can't afford the follow-through, even if they want in.

Claude - the AI tool used to fulfill every AI Concierge engagement, and the only real cost of goods in this entire business at $20/month - https://claude.ai

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