4 AI Automations Running My 6-Figure Side Hustle While I Sleep

Read time: 6 minutes

These are the four automations that run my six-figure side hustle while I sleep.

They cut me from 10 hours a week down to about 2. I let go of my virtual assistants last year because AI now does their work more reliably at half the cost.

I’m still holding down a full-time day job.

What’s left for me is reviewing content ideas, recording, and coaching my students live. Everything around that runs on its own.

Each one below covers what it does, why it earns its place, and how to build it yourself.

1. Coaching calls turn into content

What it does. Every call records and transcribes itself, then an agent mines the transcript for the moments where a real problem came up and I taught something. Each moment becomes a structured packet holding the problem, the teaching, and my verbatim quotes.

Why it matters. This is how I grew past 300,000 followers on Instagram and TikTok without inventing new material. The teaching already happened on the call, so my job shrinks to reviewing ideas instead of generating them from nothing.

For each packet I decide one thing: does this become short-form ad copy, a talking-head reel, or a mini course video for current students.

The packets land in a spreadsheet, the least glamorous and most load-bearing piece of the whole stack. Once it existed, the AI had somewhere to put things and something to check against.

Teach the same framework across three calls and it adds each transcript to the row that already exists. A repeated idea gathers evidence instead of clutter.

To build it:

• Start with the spreadsheet, not the AI. One row per piece of content, a unique ID, a stage, links to its script and folder.
• Turn on recording and transcripts so every call lands in one Drive folder automatically.
• Have the agent write packets, not summaries. A summary is unusable three weeks later.
• Deduplicate on the transcript’s file ID so a repeated teaching merges instead of multiplying.

Full build guide, database to agent to script.

2. Instagram comments turn into leads

What it does. Someone comments a number on a post and ManyChat DMs them the matching free resource. I no longer build those flows by hand.

Why it matters. Almost 12,000 newsletter subscribers came through this one method. It runs on the platforms where my audience already is, and it converts attention into an email address while I’m asleep.

The setup underneath it matters more than the tool. Every piece of content should leave an unanswered question, and the resource you offer answers it.

Every newsletter I’ve written carries its own number. So the agent can look up which resource belongs with which post, which is that same spreadsheet doing a completely different job.

To build it:

• Number your free resources so a machine can match one to a piece of content.
• Write the content to open a question, then offer the resource that closes it.
• Describe the video and the link to a coding agent and let it drive the browser.
• Leave the automation in draft until the post is live, then attach and activate.

Full build guide, including the browser automation.

3. Call emails write themselves

What it does. A reminder lands in my drafts the morning of every coaching call with the join link and the filtered guest list. A recap lands the morning after with the recording, the transcript, and three takeaways.

Why it matters. These are the tasks my virtual assistants used to do, and the ones clients notice most when they stop happening. By hand they get skipped exactly when the week is busiest.

Both stay drafts, which I chose deliberately. An automation that drafts is still useful on the day it breaks, and one that sends is a liability on the day it breaks.

To build it:

• Install the Google Workspace CLI so an agent can reach Calendar, Gmail and Drive directly.
• Start with read-only calendar access and prove it works before adding Gmail.
• Filter the guest list. Invites contain you, meeting rooms, and people who declined.
• Have it check your drafts before creating one, so a second run never doubles up.

Full build guide, for total beginners.

4. Testimonials collect and publish themselves

What it does. Students who finish the 20 days of The Impromptu Speakers Academy land on a page I own and leave a testimonial with consent attached. Each morning I get one email telling me what came in, in the shape of “I scanned six students with consent, here are three you can review.”

Why it matters. Testimonials are the most persuasive copy on a sales page and the easiest thing to never get around to. Making collection automatic removed the excuse.

When I want one live I say “add number two to my website” and it goes up. None of that was possible while my site sat on Kajabi, because a closed platform gives an agent no code to edit.

To build it:

• Host your own site. This is the requirement everything else depends on.
• Ask at the end of the program, while the result is still fresh.
• Store submissions with an approval column that defaults to pending. Nothing publishes itself.
• Tie consent to the specific quote and block publishing when it is missing.

Full build guide, form to consent to live page.

You’re probably objecting

“This needs a technical person.” Three of the four don’t. You describe what you want in plain English, then read what the agent proposes before approving it.

Reading before approving is the whole skill. The first automation is genuinely heavy, and the guide says so.

“That’s a lot of setup for a few emails.” The setup really buys you the second automation, which takes an hour instead of a week because the connection exists.

“I’d rather hire someone.” I did, for two years. A system does the same thing to the same standard every time, and never needs re-explaining after a holiday.

Start with one

You don’t need a coaching business for any of this. A call that needs a recap, a comment that should trigger a DM, a customer whose kind words never reach your site.

That’s a consultancy, an agency, a course, a freelance practice, a side hustle you run at 6am before work.

Four automations, all buildable this week, most of them in an afternoon. Start with the one that’s been annoying you longest.

Preston

Free build guides from this issue:

• Turn your coaching calls into content. The full system, database to agent to script.
• Automate your call emails. The easiest one to start with.

All four live at prestonchin.co/resources under AI Resources for Coaches & Consultants. If you’d rather have one built for you, book a call.