Win Liggett (Promptful Consulting) - Automated Lead Discovery & Outbound System

The Problem

Running a solo AI consulting business meant doing everything manually: finding leads, researching each business, writing cold emails, building proposals, preparing demos, sending contracts, collecting payment, and tracking progress in spreadsheets. Each new client required 4-6 hours of admin before any revenue was realized. Leads slipped through the cracks and follow-ups were often forgotten.

The Turning Point

Win identified that roughly 60% of working time was spent on business development admin and only 40% on actual consulting. The pipeline had to be automated so lead flow could run consistently without constant manual work.

The Solution

1. Automatic lead discovery with Google Places API across Birmingham-area verticals.
2. AI research on websites and reviews to identify likely pain points and service fit.
3. Personalized cold emails generated with business-specific context.
4. Quality gates to reject weak contacts, excluded industries, and unreliable emails.
5. Smart send scheduling in a controlled morning window with daily limits.
6. One-click proposal and interactive demo generation after positive replies.
7. Automatic PDF contract attachment inside the proposal flow.
8. Embedded Clover payment links so clients can pay immediately.
9. Automated follow-up sequences for non-responsive leads.
10. Centralized dashboard visibility from first touch through payment.

The Results

• Time freed up: 4-6 hours of pre-sale work per client dropped to ~30 minutes.
• Lead flow: 8-12 qualified inbound inquiries per week instead of manually finding 2-3.
• Response rates: Personalized AI emails performed 2.5x better than generic templates.
• Follow-up reliability: Zero forgotten leads due to automated sequences.
• Proposal speed: Proposal turnaround improved from 2-3 hours to ~5 minutes.
• Payment friction: Demo, proposal, agreement, and payment were combined into one flow.
• Predictability: Stage-by-stage pipeline visibility enabled clearer revenue forecasting.

Tech Stack

• Google Places API for discovery
• Claude AI for research and email generation
• Make.com for orchestration
• Resend for email delivery
• Custom React dashboard
• Clover payment processing
• PDF generation for proposals and contracts
• Deployed to Netlify

The Human Detail

"The biggest shift is that admin stopped dominating the day. The system finds leads, researches them, and reaches out while I sleep. By morning, there are new inbound conversations waiting. When someone responds, a proposal takes minutes instead of hours. The system pays for itself almost immediately in recovered time."

The Takeaway

This build proved that a solo consultant can run an enterprise-grade lead and sales pipeline without hiring a team. One automated system replaced manual research, email templates, proposal software, contract tools, payment chasing, and spreadsheet CRM tracking.