Sell the AI work you have done for yourself first. Clients can smell an agency that read about it last week.
Use it on your own work first, then sell one small thing, with a senior person behind it until you can staff it yourself.
Step 1: use AI inside the agency
Research, first drafts, reporting, project notes, and the busywork between tools. Your team learns what works on real deadlines, and you have examples to show clients.
Step 2: train the team on client work
Not a general class. A half or full day on your own client jobs, so people leave with workflows they will use Monday. With me, agency AI training is $2,000 for a half day or $3,500 for a full day.
Step 3: sell one clear offer
Pick something small with a clear result: an AI audit of a client's marketing workflow, a chatbot that answers from the client's own documents, or automated lead research. Price it, deliver it, and learn from it.
Step 4: borrow the senior person
For the client work your team cannot do yet, bring in a senior AI lead part time, under your name. I build these systems every week; one client's sales team runs 49 automated workflows I built.
Step 5: hire when it is steady
When the AI work fills a person's week for six months straight, hire. Until then, borrowing is cheaper.
Answered by Jared Lukes, Minneapolis. Twenty-five years in brand, UX, and technology, currently holding fractional AI and technology seats at three companies. About Jared.