Struggling to sell your first project with n8n?
I see this pattern over and over again — in the comments, in the DMs, and in the dozens of messages I get after posting here: “I’ve learned n8n, but I can’t land a single client.” So here’s a provocation that might unlock something for you: What if selling automation or AI agents isn’t the only path? At first glance, it makes sense — you learn a tool, and then try to sell what you’ve built with it. That’s first-level thinking. But here’s the hard truth: Selling automation or AI requires more than knowing how to use n8n. You need business context. Process knowledge. Market intuition. Because most small businesses don’t even know what they want — let alone what they could gain from an automation or an agent. Which means it’s not just about your technical skill. You also have to educate the client — and that takes time, trust, and effort. That’s why selling what’s already familiar to your client is often the fastest path to cash. Think about it: You don’t need to convince a small business that they need a website. You don’t need to explain why having a good Google Review score or posting on social media matters. These are known, accepted needs. So here’s the mindset shift: Use n8n to power solutions for what the client already knows they need. Let me make it concrete. Did you know that over 28% of small businesses in the U.S. still don’t have a website? Yet many of them already have a Google My Business profile — they’re visible but not converting. Now imagine this: You build a simple scraping automation with n8n (Google My Business profile). You target a specific niche. You filter only businesses that don’t have a website, have poor reviews, or outdated social profiles. Now you don’t need to educate — you just need to offer the obvious. No website? Offer a basic, clean website. No content? Offer a monthly content machine. And behind the scenes, let n8n agents do the heavy lifting for delivery. See the shift? You’re not selling AI. You’re solving visible, urgent problems — powered by automation.