How do I find clients for an AI consulting business?
Short answer
Go local and borrow trust. Most owners want to shake the hand of the person they hire, so chamber meetings, hosted events and referrals from accountants, fractional CFOs or coaches beat cold email. Publishing how-tos about connecting AI to software owners already use also brings clients to you. Workshops are the top of the funnel.
Everyone on Twitter is talking about AI for small business. Very few understand that the answer is to do it locally.
"Most business owners want to shake the person's hand they're hiring. They don't want a 23-year-old in New York City who's good at cold email. They want to know they can beat down your door if something goes wrong."
Why does local beat cold outreach?
Trust. The best way to get in front of small business owners is to meet them locally and speak their language. It's not rocket science. The problem is people don't want to do it: knock doors, shake hands, host events. Most 25-year-olds who want to sell AI services have no in-person sales skills. If you'll show up at the chamber meeting, that's an unusual advantage.
How do I get clients to come to me?
Publish how-tos about the software they already use. A non-technical friend of mine plays with this stuff all day, more than I do. He started posting on YouTube and in Facebook groups about how he uses Claude with a popular field-service app. The software company reached out two days later and he got multiple clients. He did the same thing with an accounting tool, and people pay him $5,000 to $10,000 to set it up.
His other observation: people think AI for small business is overhyped. They're underestimating it. Once you show it to them, they all want it.
If you aren't the technical one, partner with someone who is and take a cut.
What if I don't have time to prospect?
That's my exact problem. I think plenty of owners with $1 million to $40 million in revenue would pay $1,000 a month for somewhat unfettered access to someone like me. They don't know who I am, and I don't have capacity to chase them. My plan is to have agents do about 95% of the prospecting while I take only the fit calls.
The advice I got back: borrow trust. Referrals from advisers owners already know, like accountants, fractional CFOs and coaches, beat broad ads or mass cold email. Fully automating trust-building isn't realistic.
Can a newsletter double as a lead source?
Mine do. My media brands are literally a funnel for business owners. They're proof of work: you can see how big we built this business with Meta ads and AI on the back end, so I can help you in yours. In one week this spring I got more inquiries about AI than in the three years before.
Where do workshops fit?
At the top. Run a training, show what's possible, and sell implementation to the people who ask how. More in how to run an AI workshop for business owners.
Answered by TJ Larkin. From group calls, office hours and operator calls in April and May 2026 and an October 2026 working session on TJ's own AI offer. The setup fees are a friend's. Last updated .