I automate my own marketing. Here's why some of you shouldn't.

I'm going to tell you something that might sound a little backwards, but I run almost all my own marketing with AI agents. So I have about 20 AI agents that I'm running for different things. Um, they draft my video titles, they run sponsor outreach, they write and schedule my posts. Um, it's a big part of how I run several different businesses just as one person. And I'm going to spend this whole video telling a lot of you to not do what I do, because here's what most people don't say is the do it yourself with AI path is real and it's fun. It works. And it's also completely wrong for a lot of people who are watching this right now. And I know that this is true because I've got a front row seat from both sides of this. I run an agency, I run an AI fleet and I've watched both work and I've watched both fail. So let's do the math here first. So quick and upfront, this video is about Keystone. They are a done for you marketing agency for local businesses. They do websites, ads, social, the whole thing. But I'm not going to give you a pitch whether you should or should not use them. The honest answer to should I do marketing for myself or hire it out points straight at a company like them for some of you and straight away from them for the rest. So we're going to try to work through the real math and see if this is right for you. If should you use AI, should you use a done for you agency like this? So, and again, I think I have a little extra insight into this because I've kind of got three angles on this at the same time and most people are just seeing it from one side. But first off, I run a web and marketing agency. So I know what the work actually does, what it actually costs, what clients pay for because they pay me for it too. I run my own marketing with a fleet of AI agents. So I know that side of it too. And I mean, I actually, they, they run it from start to finish. AI is doing all sorts of things for me. I've got 15 agents running right now on my laptop on the side. Here's the trap that most people fall into is they price do it yourself marketing at $0. I'll just do it myself. It's free. The it is not free. It's just a cost that doesn't necessarily show up on a bill. So start with your time and be honest about what an hour of your time is actually worth in your business. Now count the real hours, learning the ad platform, fighting with your website, writing the posts, you know, trying to learn technology that you're not used to using, answering the comments, redoing the things that you got wrong the first time for most owners doing this seriously, even with AI, this isn't just a couple hours per week. I mean, this is a part-time job, maybe, maybe getting close to a full-time job. Then stack the tools. There's the website builder, the email platform, the scheduler, the ad spend, you're going to waste while you're learning. That adds up before you've even gotten a single customer. And then again, there's that cost that nobody prices in. That's the learning curve. Three months where your ads quietly lose money because you didn't know what you were doing yet. I've watched business owners spend a whole season teaching themselves marketing and the real damage wasn't the tool costs. It was the customers they didn't get while they were trying to figure this out. So when you add it up, do it yourself is rarely the cheap option. It doesn't show up on a bill, so it feels free, but it isn't. So now you might be thinking, James, you just said that you run all this with AI. Why can't I do that? And for a lot of what I do, you probably can, but I run an online business. So the second that you're a local business, my whole setup hits a wall. And here's where. First, Google Maps. When someone searches plumber near me, the three businesses in that little map pack get almost all the calls. So ranking there isn't something that you can just prompt your way into. I can't just get a rank me in the top three in Google Maps. It's your real address, your categories, your citations across the web, your proximity, your reviews tuned over time. So my agents can't manufacture that. Nobody, no agents can do that. Second reviews and reputation. So for a local business, reviews basically are your marketing and getting them consistently is a human in the loop system. It's asking the happy customer at the right moment, following up with them, handling the unhappy one before it becomes a one-star review. An AI can draft the request, but it can't build relationships and earn the reviews. So in third ad creative that actually works locally. So not generic, everybody's seeing AI and what it designs right now, but the ad that mentions the neighborhood uses a real photo of the real crew makes an offer that fits that particular town. That's local knowledge and it's something that AI struggles with. It's hard to fake. And then underneath all of that is just the relationship layer, verifying the profile, dealing with Google. When something breaks, that's stuff that needs a human who's done it a lot of times before they're able to get through that stuff quickly. Um, that's a wall. It's not that AI is weak. It's that the local marketing game is different than the one that I'm doing. So this is where a shop like Keystone comes in. So I'm not a customer of theirs. I don't have a vested interest in you signing up with them or anything like that. But what I can tell you is what a done for you marketing agency like there's handles because it's the same work that I do for my clients. So their goal is to take the whole stack off your plate. So the website that'll actually turn a visitor into a phone call, the Google maps, the local SEO side, so that you show up in the map, paid ads run by someone who's run them before. So it's not just guesswork social and blogs to keep you visible and the sales and followup side so that leads don't leak out the bottom. So who this is actually for. It's for the owner whose time is worth more than doing the actual work than doing the actual marketing, the dentist, the contractor, the shop owner who's good at their craft and doesn't want to become a part-time marketer. If that's you, then letting this team handle it isn't lazy. It's the math just working in your favor. You're better off working in your business. So I'm going to put a link in the description if you want to see what they would do for your business. So sum it up, which one are you? Let's, let's make it easy here. So first off, do it yourself with AI. If you actually enjoy AI, you like this stuff, you have time to iterate and your there's some reward in your business for learning the skill. If you're an online creator or a solo operator and marketing is part of the fun, then go build it, do it, do it automatically. Get your hands messy and do the marketing yourself. That's what I did. I, it's, it's genuinely a great time to be that type of person to do it yourself person, but hire it out. If your hours are worth more somewhere else, if your patience for tools and for AI and technology is basically zero or if you're local and that map is your whole game, you just don't know what you're doing. If every hour you spend fighting with Google ads is an hour that you're going to hate and it's an hour not doing work that would actually pay you, then you have your answer right there. So there's no shame in either one. There's not really a right or wrong answer. So do it yourself. Marketing is not free. AI gets you shockingly far, but hits a real wall on local. I found the smartest thing that you can do is just be honest about which side of that line that you're on. So if you are an owner who wants marketing off their plate, Keystone's link is in the description. Please go check them out. Please like and subscribe if you want AI tools and side hustles and whatever else I feel like talking about. Appreciate you guys very much for watching. God bless you all and have a great rest of your day.