Cold call & local walk-in

Jake’s SE-Idaho local network is a real edge — he lives the node. Face-to-face and phone convert warmer than cold digital. Same rule: book the diagnostic, don’t sell AI at the door.

Phone opener (30–45 seconds, then shut up)

Hi, is this [First Name]? — [Your Name] with J&M AI Services here in [town]. I’ll be quick: I noticed [OBSERVED GAP] at [Company] — honest question, is that something you know about, or news? … [LISTEN] … What does a [missed call / slow follow-up] like that usually turn into for you? … [LISTEN] … That’s the kind of thing my one-week audit prices out. Not selling anything today — worth 30 minutes this week to see if there’s anything worth fixing? I’ve got [DAY/TIME] or [DAY/TIME].

If “what’s it cost?”

Fixed fee — $999 solo, $1,999 with a team — but that only matters if there’s something worth auditing, and that’s what the 30 minutes tells us both. I’ve got [DAY/TIME] — does that work?

If “we’re not really into AI”:

Totally fair — most of my clients weren’t either. It’s less “AI” and more “stop doing the 2 hours of daily busywork by hand.” That’s all the audit looks for. 30 minutes, worst case you get a free map of your own bottlenecks. How’s [DAY] at [TIME]?

If you hear this often, your opener is leading with AI — drop the word “AI” from the opener entirely and let the gap carry it.

Optional line for the skeptic:

And if your setup’s already tight, I’ll tell you inside 10 minutes and you’ve lost nothing.

If “send me some info”:

Happy to — but honestly the info is your business, and I can’t map it from a brochure. That’s the whole point of the 30 minutes. How’s [DAY] at [TIME]?

Local walk-in (service businesses, slower hours)

Hi — [Your Name], I’m local, I run J&M AI Services. I help shops like yours cut the admin time with AI. I don’t want to interrupt — is the owner around, or is there a better time? I’ve got one quick thing I noticed about [Company] I think they’d want to hear.

When you get the owner: run the phone opener above, in person. Leave a one-pager (see 06-solution-stack/ — the client one-pager) and book the call before you leave — pull up your phone calendar:

Let’s just grab it now so neither of us has to chase — I’ve got [DAY] at [TIME], work for you?

If the owner isn’t there: give the insight to the gatekeeper anyway —

Here, I’ll jot it on the back of this so [Owner] gets it either way — tell them I’ll call Thursday.

(The gift plus the announced call turns a no-owner walk-in into an advance instead of nothing.)

Discipline

• Talk < 40% of the time. One question, then listen.
• Frame the gap as what’s being LOST each week, not what could be gained — pull the loss line straight from category-hooks.md.
• Do NOT demo, explain models, or whiteboard automations. That’s the discovery call’s job, and even there you diagnose, not demo (AOA The Discovery Call — “what bad looks like”).
• The only success metric for the interaction: a booked, time-locked discovery call.