This article is adapted from a video by Nate Herk, an automation expert who helps businesses streamline their operations for efficiency and maximizing profit. Nate shares his expertise through his YouTube channel and website at nateherk.com.

At just 23 years old, I’ll make over $1 million from AI this year. I went from renting a crappy apartment to owning my own place in Chicago, spending time with nine-figure entrepreneurs like Alex Hormozi, and speaking at conferences across the United States.

But what if I had to start over? No YouTube channel, no money, and let’s say I even forgot everything I know about AI automation. In this guide, I’ll give you a blueprint with the exact steps I followed—but unlike most content on this topic, I’ll give you real, actionable steps you can take today to make your first few thousand dollars all the way to your first million with AI.

Here’s the good news: You don’t need to know everything about automation to get started. You don’t need to write code or understand every integration or master complicated databases right away.

The 4-Stage Roadmap to AI Success

Stage 1: Freelancing with AI Modules

Speed to Money: 8/10 | Ease for Beginners: 6/10 | Income Potential: 3/10

Instead of building everything from scratch, start by utilizing pre-built templates. These are workflows that other people have already created and shared with the community so you can reuse them. All you have to do is import them, connect the client’s accounts, and adjust a few details.

Think of them like Lego bricks. At first, you might only know how to use one block—say, an AI receptionist. Later, you add more: a review request bot, a support agent, a newsletter ghostwriter. Each new block gives you another offer you can sell. When you’ve connected enough blocks, you can snap them together into bigger systems.

The BUILD Framework

• B – Block by Block: Start with a single template. Don’t try to master everything at once.
• U – Understand the Use Case: Ask what kind of businesses would this template help the most? For example:
  • AI receptionist → dentists, HVAC, med spas
  • Email support agent → e-commerce shops, service providers
  • Newsletter ghostwriter → coaches, SaaS founders
• I – Install and Imitate: Import the template into your automation platform. Run it with test data until you understand every step.
• L – Land the First Client: Reach out to businesses who clearly need that automation. Your pitch: “Hey, I built a workflow that solves X pain point. I’ve got a 60-second demo showing how this system works. Want me to set it up for you?”
• D – Document and Duplicate: Once it’s live, measure before and after results (time saved, errors reduced, revenue gained). This becomes your case study for future clients.

Real-World Example: Jerome’s Newsletter Success

One member of my community, Jerome, didn’t consider himself an expert at all. But he took one of my free templates for a newsletter writing agent—a simple workflow that researches topics, drafts newsletters in the client’s tone, and delivers them ready to send.

Jerome ran the workflow to understand it deeply, then tweaked the system prompts and research configuration to match his client’s industry and brand voice. He didn’t just pitch the workflow—he showed the math. If the team was spending an hour daily on research and writing, automating 90% of that process gave them back 5 hours per week, or 20 hours per month. That’s tens of thousands of dollars in saved labor costs over a year.

The client was happy to pay—not for the template, but for the outcome it delivered.

Stage 2: AI Consulting

Speed to Money: 6/10 | Ease for Beginners: 4/10 | Income Potential: 6/10

Once you’ve delivered a few projects as a freelancer, something big becomes obvious: Most businesses don’t even know what they should be automating. They know AI is changing everything, but they’re confused about where to start, what’s possible, and what actually saves money.

As a consultant, you’re no longer just offering one automation. You’re offering clarity. You audit the business, find the biggest opportunities, and design a roadmap for how AI can transform their operations.

The upside? You might charge $5,000 just for the AI business audit, then make another $20,000 to $100,000 implementing that entire plan and system.

The SCAN Framework

• S – Study the Business: Run discovery calls with executives. Ask about bottlenecks, recurring tasks, staffing costs, and customer complaints.
• C – Calculate the Opportunity: Translate inefficiencies into numbers. If a process costs $200,000/year in labor and AI can cut it by 70%, that’s $140,000 in savings. Show this in black and white so clients see the ROI.
• A – Architect the Solution: Design a roadmap. Some workflows will be plug-and-play from existing templates. Others need to be built from scratch.
• N – Narrate the Results: Create case studies that prove you can deliver business-wide ROI. Share them on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, or your website to attract new consulting clients.

My First Real Consulting Project

A client originally came to me wanting a personal assistant. After four discovery calls, we walked through his day and his team’s day and found something much higher leverage: customer support.

Tickets were coming in seven days a week, but employees only answered them on weekdays. That meant slow responses, frustrated customers, and employees stuck doing work they didn’t enjoy.

Instead of a personal system, we built a customer support workflow. The hardest part was getting all the knowledge-based information into something the agent could use to accurately respond to customers. But the team instantly got back over 10 hours a week, customers started getting answers around the clock, and the business had a foundation to scale from.

That’s what consulting is all about: You’re not just building what the client asks for. You’re digging into their operations, finding true bottlenecks, and designing the solution that creates the biggest return.

Stage 3: Scale into an AI Partner Business (Agency)

Speed to Money: 5/10 | Ease for Beginners: 2/10 | Income Potential: 8/10

At some point, you’ll hit the limit of what you can do alone. You can only take so many calls, design so many systems, and build so many automations yourself. If you want to scale past that point, the answer is to turn your consulting business into a true AI automation agency.

Unlike freelancing or solo consulting, the partner model is about building a team around you. You start by bringing on developers to handle the technical builds—that frees you up to focus on audits, consulting, and high-level strategy. As demand grows, you add salespeople or appointment setters who can fill your pipeline.

The Market Opportunity

Here’s some perspective: Big firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Accenture charge hundreds of thousands of dollars just for an AI consultation or audit—that doesn’t even include hands-on implementation. Accenture alone booked over $600 million in AI consulting revenue in a single quarter and more than $2.6 billion in half a year.

Most businesses outside the Fortune 500 cannot afford that. That’s the huge opportunity for you. If you can walk into a mid-size company, diagnose inefficiencies, design the roadmap, and actually build the automations, you can charge a fraction of what big firms do and still deliver way more value.

The GROW Framework

• G – Get Developers: Hire one or two developers who can reliably deliver builds. Start by offloading the most time-consuming technical work.
• R – Retain Authority: Keep yourself positioned as the strategist and thought leader. You’re still running audits, mapping ROI, and guiding system design.
• O – Onboard Sales: Once your delivery is stable, bring in sales reps or appointment setters to book calls and keep your pipeline full.
• W – Win with Brand: At this stage, your personal brand is your biggest asset. Share case studies, content, and thought leadership at scale.

When You’re Ready to Scale

Before you make this leap, ensure you have:

• Consistent consulting clients and can close projects reliably
• Case studies that prove ROI and attract inbound leads
• More work than you can handle alone
• A personal brand strong enough to attract opportunities consistently

An agency built on consulting foundations can easily hit over $1 million in annual revenue. Scale it further with more developers and a sales team, and you can grow to $10 million per year or more.

Stage 4: Teaching AI Automation

Speed to Money: 4/10 | Ease for Beginners: 1/10 | Income Potential: 10/10

Here’s what might shock you: I actually make the most money in a completely different way—by teaching AI automation. Right now, I make over $150,000 per month in pure profit from teaching. No payroll, no big expenses, just me sharing what I know.

Teaching is the most advanced step in the journey because there’s no hiding if you don’t know what you’re doing. Your automations need to be sharp, original, and battle-tested. But everything you’ve done up to now prepares you for this moment:

• Freelancing taught you how to build modules and land clients
• Consulting taught you how to identify business problems and communicate ROI
• Building an agency taught you how to build authority and manage demand

By the time you reach teaching, you’ve already built the skills, case studies, maybe even a small following, and the confidence to share your knowledge publicly and get paid for it.

The SHARE Framework

• S – Show: Demonstrate automations that are genuinely unique and valuable. Teaching only works if people say, “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that.”
• H – Hook: Invite viewers to get a resource from you for free. This free value builds trust and helps you build a community.
• A – Attract in the Free Group: Deliver consistent value. This builds trust and warms people up for the next step.
• R – Recommend: Present the paid community as the natural next move for those who want deeper access, advanced templates, and live calls.
• E – Expand: Keep producing videos and templates. Every new automation you build becomes content that grows your audience and recurring revenue.

My Teaching Journey

I started my YouTube channel not because I thought it would become my full-time job, but because I wanted a way to teach myself better and build a digital portfolio. When I reached out to clients, I could say, “Hey, check out my YouTube if you want to see some other stuff I’ve worked on.”

I gave out my templates for free, saying, “If you want to play around with it to learn it better, you can grab it for free in my school community.” This provided value in my free group, then I promoted my paid community (currently $89/month). Members get templates, videos, live calls with me, and tech support.

The whole funnel: Videos → Free school group → Paid group. Almost all of it is pure profit.

The Complete Roadmap Recap

If you want to make real money with AI automation, you don’t need to jump straight into an agency on day one. There’s a natural progression—a staircase you can climb one step at a time:

1. Freelancer: Start small, use templates as Lego blocks, land your first $500-$2,000 projects. Build your confidence, case studies, and proof.
2. Consultant: Move up to strategy. Audit businesses, identify ROI, and design custom workflows. Charge for the audit and implementation. Build credibility through case studies and content.
3. Agency: Scale your consulting practice by hiring developers and sales support. Focus on audits, relationships, and building your brand. Push past a million dollars per year.
4. Teacher: Share your knowledge publicly through YouTube, free communities, LinkedIn, and paid memberships. Teach unique, impressive automations that prove your authority. This is the highest leverage play with unlimited recurring revenue potential.

The Big Picture

The journey isn’t about picking one model and skipping the rest. It’s about stacking skills in the right order:

• Freelancing gets you proof
• Consulting gets you credibility
• Agency gets you scale
• Teaching gets you freedom

Each step prepares you for the next. That’s why trying to start with an agency is a trap—you’re trying to run before you can walk. But if you follow the roadmap, every step feels natural and your income compounds as you climb.