Who The AI Builder Program Is For And Who It Is Not For
Hey, I’m Dylan Haugen, one of the coaches in the AI Builder program. I want to walk you through what’s included, what’s not, who this is for, and who it’s not for. By the end you should know if this is an investment you want to make or something you should skip. And honestly, if it’s not a fit, we don’t want you here. No offense. We invest a lot in every student, and we do everything we can to make sure they succeed, so we’re picky about who comes in.
Where this comes from
A lot of what we teach goes back to Dennis Yu. Dennis started doing local marketing twenty years ago for Quiznos, and from there worked with brands like Adidas and Nike, plus smoothie shops, dentists, personal injury attorneys, landscapers, roofers, and HVAC companies. What Dennis figured out with local is that showing up in Google comes down to the same set of things. You take content like reviews and job photos from Company Cam or your phone, and you put it across the website, social media, ads, and the Google Business Profile.
Most local owners hire an agency because they don’t know any better and don’t want to do it themselves. Then you hear the same story over and over. “I’ve been burned by the last three agencies. I’m just a plumber.” So we train young adults to run that marketing, usually for their parents’ business, and sometimes to start their own agency.
Who it’s for
Look at Ethan Murphy. He started doing this for his dad, who was frustrated with the agencies he’d been paying. Ethan did such a good job that now six other landscapers and Christmas lights companies are part of his agency.
That’s the picture. This is mainly for young adults, and by young I mean young in mind, able to learn. Usually the parents make the investment and the son or daughter does the work. Some young adults pay their own tuition, which is great too. Either way works as long as you understand what we provide.
Think of it like your kid running an agency with one client, you. We’re measuring phone calls. We’re running Google Ads and Facebook Ads, optimizing the website, and doing all of it with AI tools. And this is for people in the United States doing marketing for local service businesses.
What’s included
We meet live every Thursday at 2 PM Pacific. It’s a few of us coaches, Dennis, Jack Wendt, me, and others depending on the topic. Usually we demonstrate something new we found across the group that week, or one of the apprentices shares a technique so everybody learns together.
Everyone submits a weekly report. Every Friday you send in your MAA, which stands for Metrics Analysis Action. From those reports we can look at performance and ask why calls are down, why cost per click went up, why this video worked better than that one, or what a competitor is doing to push you down in Google.
Those calls are open office hours, but you need to have tried to solve the thing first. This isn’t dump it on Dennis and Jack and Dylan. You implement from our checklists and SOPs, and when you get stuck, we’re there.
There’s also a Facebook group that runs basically 24/7 because we’ve got people all over, so somebody’s usually awake. There are about 140 courses, and we keep them as current as we can. If something’s missing, we’ll try to fill it.
And you get access to our ChatGPT business account with the agents we’ve built. We give them names, like Stephanie or Jennifer who edit articles, or Christopher who does local. Your son or daughter becomes the manager of those agents. That’s really what AI is now. It’s not chatting with ChatGPT. It’s telling individual agents do this, do that, and managing a team. Dennis spends fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a month on tools and credits so everyone in the program can use them, because he sees the work getting done.
So it’s not just courses, though we have courses. It’s not just group coaching, though we have weekly live calls. It’s not just tool access. It’s the combination of all of it to drive the result.
How you graduate
This isn’t a classroom thing where a year goes by and you get a certificate like finishing high school. You graduate by proving it in your weekly reports. You show that you followed our four stage content factory process and drove provable, incremental phone calls at an acceptable cost per lead.
We know what a good cost per lead looks like for plumbing, roofing, landscaping, and dental, because we have plenty of examples in each. Maybe it takes six weeks of testing and tuning. Maybe twenty. That’s how you qualify. It’s like an apprentice plumber or a pilot. You don’t pass because time went by. You pass because you can fly the plane. You prove it on a live client, with the calls showing up in CallRail or ServiceTitan or wherever they’re tracked.
If you come in without a client, which usually happens when you’re paying your own way instead of working on a parent’s business, we’ll give you one. Nothing here is theoretical. We don’t care if you can talk about food. We want to see you cook. And all of us coaches are chefs, not salespeople. We use the tools ourselves.
Information is free, accountability is not
This is the number one thing we hear about. There’s so much out there on AI, it changes constantly, and people don’t know where to start. If you want free stuff, the internet is full of it. Dennis has hundreds of free YouTube videos. Information is free. You’ll just have to figure out what’s real, what’s outdated, and what’s changed.
What isn’t free is accountability. Having people look over your shoulder, analyze your results, and keep you on track. If that’s valuable to you, look at this program. If you just want information, this isn’t for you. In our group we teach from live examples, so it stays current. Maybe next year it’s Gemini instead of ChatGPT. Whatever’s best, that’s what we’ll use and buy for our people.
Local results and ChatGPT
Everything we do comes back to local service businesses. Ranking on the maps. Making the phone ring. And making sure that when someone asks ChatGPT who the best cosmetic dentist in Atlanta is, the answer is Dr. Hugh Flax. Or when someone asks who the best landscaper in Bloomington is to cut down a tree, it’s Anthony Hilb of Anthony’s Lawn Care. Ranking in Google and getting recommended in ChatGPT. There’s a common framework for that, and that’s what we teach.
Paying it forward
As your son or daughter gets results, we expect them to help others. There are around 435 people in the group right now, and people are already building real friendships. Almost any question you have, somebody else has had, and it’s probably been solved. How do you onboard a client? How do you get Google Analytics access? How do you pull keyword data in Ahrefs? You go through the onboarding and the guides, and if you get stuck you ask on the weekly call.
Then once you figure out something like AI video for Facebook ads, you help the next new person, the same way people helped you. This isn’t one on one coaching with Dennis or with Jack. The AI Builder program is our core offering because it helps the most people and it’s built on paying it forward. That’s the whole point of an apprenticeship. As you become a master, you bring the next generation along. Dennis calls this his life’s legacy.
As you grow, you can teach webinars, teach a section of group coaching, and maybe speak at conferences like Digimarkon. We also get together in person. A couple weeks before this was recorded we had a meetup in Vegas with a few days of masterminding, hiking, and meals. With AI making it harder to tell who’s real, meeting people face to face matters. But unlike a mastermind on its own, you get the structure and accountability in between.
Price and time
We’re open about price, and you don’t need to talk to a salesperson. The AI Builder program is $7,500 for a 12 month certification. That price has been going up, and it’ll probably keep going up as the program gets better, because we can only help so many people.
The year gives you plenty of runway. A plane might only need two thousand feet to take off, but the runway’s seven thousand, in case you get sick, have school, or get busy. As for time, plan on at least an hour a day, call it five hours a week. A couple hours to keep up with what’s changing and a few more to implement and participate. Between the project management system, the Facebook group, the weekly Zoom, and the ChatGPT projects, there’s plenty of support if you put in the time.
Who it’s not for
If you need babysitting, if you get stuck constantly, if you’re afraid of technology, or if you need permission before doing anything, this isn’t for you. We provide accountability, but that’s not babysitting, and it’s not tech support. We’re not doing a private weekly call to explain what CTR is while you watch.
You need to be self motivated and disciplined. Do the assignments on time. Show up weekly when you can, and if you can’t, there are recordings. Turn in your MAA every Friday, and if you know you’ll be somewhere with no Wi Fi, send it Thursday. Speak up about problems early instead of waiting until it’s an emergency. And be okay with the fact that tools change. We’ll show you a button and a few days later it’s moved. That’s just how it is.
If you’re an excuse maker, this isn’t for you. If you’re resourceful, positive, humble, and teachable, I think you’ll love it. There’s a real A player vibe in the group, and people hold each other to it.
It’s also not for you if you’re not starting on a local service business, mainly a Google Local Service Ads category. Not for e commerce startups. Not for people outside the United States. And we don’t touch shady stuff like gambling or medical marijuana, even where it’s legal. We’re not here to invent the next big thing. We’re here to share what works for local businesses.
It’s not for people who are only in it for themselves. We want a pay it forward attitude and an abundance mindset. If you have a history of complaining or asking for refunds, don’t join. We want nice people, and I think you know what I mean.
You also need to be willing to make video. You don’t have to be Gary Vaynerchuk, but you need to explain things clearly on camera, because you’ll be coaching contractors through making videos, and you can’t coach what you can’t do. Clear, impromptu communication matters way more than technical skills now, especially when you’re managing agents, human and AI.
And the big one. If you’re not all in, this isn’t for you. People ask if they can try it for a week or two. That’s like working out twice and hoping for six pack abs. None of this is that hard. It’s lots of little tasks. The people who win follow the checklist and see it through no matter what comes up.
So look at the people who’ve come through the program and the paths they’ve taken, starting agencies, building software companies, taking over the family business. If that sounds like you, I’m excited to welcome you, and I can’t wait to see what you do in local services with these AI tools.
So, what do you think? Is the AI Builder program a fit for you?