How to Build and Sell AI Clones for Beginners ($0 → $1000/mo)

0:00Here's how to build and sell AI clones as a complete beginner and go from zero to $1,000 a month. Every one of these videos is an AI clone of me and I didn't film a single one of them. How many videos did you make? I didn't make any of them. What? I made him once.

0:14And now? Now he works more than I do. And people in my community are already making their own. One of them is still new to this. He posted an AI clone on his Facebook and a business owner commented asking him to call about advertising his business. I'll show you exactly what he did. So, in this video, I'll give you the three things you need to get started, the five-level roadmap I'd follow if I was learning this from scratch, and the truth about what it really costs to learn. Now, real quick, here's why this is worth your time. I run a social media marketing agency and I pull up our payment processor in every

0:45one of these videos. Let me refresh it live. There it is. $339,000 from our clients in our first month on Stripe from 300-plus clients. All right, so before we make anything, let's talk about why this is worth learning at all. Chapter one, and the reason clients pay. Most beginners start out selling AI websites and automations on their own

1:06because they're easy to build. But here's the thing, a business owner doesn't wake up wanting a new website or a new automation. They want more customers and more customers come from more people seeing them. That's what content does. I actually made a reel about this and yes, it's an AI clone of me, too.

1:26Okay, so why is it doing that? Because people are actually seeing it now. No, but it's not stopping and it keeps going and I think somebody got into my account. Nobody got into your account. Then why's my phone doing this? Somebody's in there and they're in there right now. Those are customers. Those are customers? That's what happens when people can finally find you. So, the thing you're really selling is the content and the problem with content is that most business owners hate being on camera and

1:51they don't have time to film every week. That's exactly where AI clones come in. Man, I ain't trying to be on camera all day. Who said you had to be? Meaning what? That's my page. That ain't me on none of it. I couldn't even tell. That's the point. I got you after this. And I'm not the only one who thinks this is the move. When I pulled my community on what they want to learn to sell, AI clones won with 64% of the votes over AI images and AI agents. Now, not every AI clone video is the same. So, let's look at what you can actually make for

2:24people. Chapter two and the two video types. There are two main types of AI clone videos and each one can get even more niche depending on who you're making it for. The first type is short form. These are 15 to 30-second videos and they're great for organic social media reels and even ad campaigns. Most of mine land between 20 and 30 seconds

2:45like this one. So, what do you have so far? I have a login page. You've been at this a year. It's been a busy year. Does it log anybody in? Not yet, but it looks incredible. You're supposed to be making content for clients. I will. I just want to own the tool first. You don't own a business. You own a

3:05login page. I don't know what else to do. Try HighLevel. It already works and I'll give you 30 days for free. And if I hate it? Then you go back to your login page. And you can put yourself anywhere like a barber shop, a city plaza, or somebody's kitchen without ever leaving your desk. The second type is long form, which is 5 to 15-minute videos for course lessons, video sales letters, and even YouTube videos like this one. Because this is my AI avatar talking and I built it in a tool called HeyGen. If you want to try

3:35HeyGen, my link is in the description. Today, we're going to focus on short form because it's a lot more beginner-friendly. But if you want me to make a full video on long form, comment the word long below. And if enough of you want it, I'll make that one next. All right. So, this is where we get into the meat of it. Chapter three and the five-level roadmap. Before you make your first clone, most beginners are going to want three things. The first thing is your favorite AI chat tool, like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude. You'll use it to flesh out your ideas, write your scripts, and turn them into video

4:06prompts. And trust me, these prompts get long. The second thing is an all-in-one AI tool. So, you can use the newest and best video and image models in one place. At our agency, we use OpenArt because it's simple to use and it's cheaper than a lot of other platforms. So, if you want to follow along, my OpenArt link is in the description, and you can use code Shawn at checkout for a discount. And the third thing is two

4:29assets from the person you're cloning. You need a high-quality headshot and a clear audio clip of their voice that's 15 to 29 seconds long. Don't go over 30 seconds because the video model won't accept it. I learned that one the hard way when a 45-second voice clip got rejected and I had to cut it down to 26 seconds. Once you have those, here's the five-level roadmap I'd follow to actually learn this. Level one is to start by cloning yourself. You already

4:54have your own photo and your own voice. You don't need anybody's permission, and you'll know right away when something looks off. Every video you've seen so far is me, and that's how I started, too. Level two is to do it manually. Don't try to automate anything yet. Sit down, block off two to three hours, and build your first video by hand, one step at a time. You write the script, you make a character sheet, which is one image of you from the front, the side, and full body in the same outfit. You write the video prompt, and you generate it. Because if you automate something before you understand it, you'll just

5:28make mistakes faster. Level three is to start from someone else's exact video, and this is the one that speeds everything up. In my community, I shared eight of my own AI clone videos with the exact OpenArt links for each one. So, you can open one, click recreate, and then change a few details, like putting in your face and your voice and changing the words in the script. That way you see it working first and you build your confidence with small changes. Here's what that looks like. On the left is my original and on the right is Andre's

5:57version. I don't like people that won't do what you do. Andre is a member of my community and he kept the same diner and the same lines, but he put in his own face. He changed his outfit to a Go High Level real estate shirt and he put his wife's coffee brand Shiro on the mugs.

6:12You. 30 days you're all anybody sees. What's the cost? Less than doing nothing. All right, I'm in. And this is the exact video that got that comment from the start. And once you're making these for clients, you need somewhere to run the business and that's Go High Level. You schedule their reels in the social planner and each post can wait for your client's approval before it goes live. You turn comments into DMs automatically and you bill every client each month without chasing anyone for a payment. It's the platform I use to run my entire agency and all my clients. So, if you haven't tried it out

6:44yet, use my link down in the description and you'll get a 30-day free trial. When you sign up with my link, you get added to my community automatically, so you don't have to email me. Inside, you get over 100 video lessons, those eight AI clone videos with their exact open art links, the AI agents and skills I'm building and other bonuses completely free. And if you already have Go High Level, you can join my community directly for $497

7:11a year. All right, back to the road map. Level four is to iterate on your first win. Once you have a clone video you like, go back to your AI chat and tell it to keep the prompting style exactly the same, but change the idea, the script, the location and the extra people. Watch what happens when people do this. This is my social media doctor video. Then, Alfredo, another member, remade it for painters where the bad

7:35news is that your house won't sell. Your house is not going to sell. And then Andre took Alfredo's idea and turned it into a flooded house where the plumber tells the owner to sell for cash, which ties right back to his real estate offer. Sell for cash. As is. You skip the repairs, we take it from

7:53here. Even the indoor waterfall? Especially that. He changed the whole scene, but he kept the format that already worked. And when he posted it, I told him I was really impressed by this one because it isn't my template anymore. That's level four. Now, you're going to run into problems at this level. A line comes out wrong or a face doesn't match and you'll have to redo it. But that's the practice every beginner has to go through before they get good. Level five is to try a brand new idea from scratch. After enough rounds, you'll start to learn how these models work, what has to be in the

8:25prompt and what doesn't. And that's when you can make fresh ideas with new scenes and new looks like this one that Kenny, another member, posted in my community. Am I the only one sick of these AI creators? Bro, you didn't make anything. [groaning] Tough crowd, huh? You laughing? You one of those AI guys?

8:46Guilty. Yeah, but you couldn't even write your own jokes. Neither could you. And mine get laughs. Okay, wow. Now, I don't want you to walk away thinking this is easy because it isn't. Chapter four and the realistic expectations. Creating AI clones for people is probably the hottest offer you can sell right now. It's new, so there's less competition because most people only know how to sell AI websites that lose value over time or automations by themselves that don't bring in new customers. But the reason there's less competition is that it's harder and I want to be real with you about three things. The first thing is the money. AI

9:21video costs a lot more credits than AI images and if you don't know what you're doing, you can run out fast. I've spent over 50,000 credits making about 20 AI videos and that's around $100. That averages out to about 2,500 credits a video while I was learning. Now, I plan on about 1,700 credits for a finished video, and that already includes room for a retry. So, go into this with an investing mindset and plan on spending 300 to 500 dollars in credits to learn it the right way. I know that sounds like a lot, but it's less than a lot of people spend on a new phone or on a

9:56course they never finish, and you only have to learn this skill once. And whatever you do, don't end up like the guy in this reel. Credits. Anybody got AI credits? Just a few credits, man. Please. I burned every credit I had making videos. Still ain't signed one client. [snorts] Credits was never your problem. You know what actually gets you a

10:21client? This. Not another tool. Credits are the cost of learning, but what gets you paid is knowing how to sell it, and I'll show you that in chapter five. The second thing is that these AI models are still improving. To me, the best one right now is C Dance 2.5, but even that one isn't perfect. Sometimes words get mispronounced, and sometimes it does something weird you'd never expect. Andre said his AI stumbled

10:45over the words in his video. Well, we've got more than a plabbing problem. And in one of mine, the side of a police car was supposed to say police, and the AI made up a word instead. [music] He wants the bonuses. Sir, I want the bonuses as well. Send it to me, too. But remember, AI images were not that long ago. They used to misspell almost every word, and now they're close to perfect. AI video is on that same path, and when it gets there, you want to already know how to use it. The third thing is delivery. This offer is great at attracting new clients, and it's easy

11:21to sell because the video sells itself. The hard part is making them, especially at the beginning. Your first video can easily take two to three hours between the script, the character sheet, the render, [music] and all the retries. But, once you have a format that works and a process to run it, it gets a lot faster. It's about an hour a month of your time per client, and most of that is just reviewing and approving. So, if you're serious about making money online and you're willing to put in the work up front, this can definitely work. It just takes the right amount of effort and skill. All right. So, once you can make

11:54these, here's how I turn it into real money. Chapter 5, and the first $1,000 client. The offer is simple. You make 12 AI clone reels a month for a local business, and you charge $1,000 a month. The best people to pitch first are owners who are the face of their business, like realtors, dentists, accountants, and contractors. Their customers want to see them, but they don't have time to film. And one of my community members, John, found a really smart way to open that conversation. He noticed a new production studio near his house, and instead of pitching them anything, he walked in and asked one question. Who's doing your cloning? I

12:31said, "Who's doing your cloning?" And they're like, "We don't offer cloning." I said, "Oh, okay. Well, you ought to offer cloning, and then let me do all the clones for you, and then I can also do your social media with the clones, and you can offer that as a package, and I'll just be under the hood." That question is so good because it assumes they should already have somebody doing it, so it doesn't feel like a sales pitch at all. And that one question got him a meeting with their CEO. Before you make anyone's clone, get their written permission. Then, make them one free sample and show it to them, because the

13:01video does most of the selling for you. That sample costs you about $4 in credits. And if a client ever runs their clone as an ad, label it as AI. Now, remember Andre from the start of this video? He's still new to this, and he posted that Shiro version on his own Facebook page. It got a lot of comments,

13:18and one person even said they wanted in. Then, a business owner commented, "I like what you're doing with AI. Call me when you have a chance to talk about my business and advertising." And Andre told him he'd call him tomorrow. So, your own clone videos are your best marketing because every one you post shows business owners exactly what you can do for them. Then, once you have a few clients, that's when I'd upgrade. I built a skill inside of GoHighLevel's

13:43Ask AI called the AI Real Clone Skill. It asks a few questions about the business, reads their website, and gives you three original video ideas. Then, it writes the script, makes the character sheet, writes the video prompt, and sends it to OpenArt. And it can stop for your approval at every step. To run it across all of your clients, you'll want HighLevel's unlimited plan, which is $297 a month plus an AI assistant seat for $20 a month. But, this skill is

14:11really level three from the road map. It's a template to get you going because you're starting from something that already works. The people who do best with it will keep iterating on it until it fits their exact process and their niche. And here's my favorite part of the math. You might spend $300 in credits learning this, but your first client pays you $1,000 in the very first month. So, that one client pays back your whole learning budget. After that, it costs you about $48 in credits and $97 for HighLevel's starter plan each month. So, you keep about $855 a month before your time. That's how you go from

14:47zero to $1,000 a month. Now, if you want to watch me run that AI Real Clone Skill for a real local business step-by-step, I made a full video on it and it's right here. So, check that out next, and I'll see you over there.