20/08/2026
The Table by the WindowMarcus was already seated when David walked in, still wearing his work polo with the faded logo of his hardware store stitched over the pocket.
They hadn't seen each other since university — eight years, maybe nine —
and yet Marcus looked like he'd found a decade David hadn't."You look good, man," David said, sliding into the seat across from him. "Business must be treating you well."Marcus laughed, turning his phone screen around so David could see it. A dashboard. Numbers. Green arrows pointing up. "Business is treating me *very* well. But I didn't do anything special. I just stopped guessing."David raised an eyebrow. "Guessing?""
You remember how I used to run my consulting thing? Posting whenever I remembered to, writing captions for forty minutes and still hating them, replying to DMs three days late because I didn't know what to say?"
Marcus shook his head. "That was me eighteen months ago. Barely covering rent. I almost quit.""What changed?"
Marcus set his phone down and leaned forward, the way people do when they're about to tell you something they actually believe. "I found this book. *AI Sales Machine.* Sounded gimmicky, I almost skipped it.
But it wasn't a course promising overnight riches — it was just... a system.
How to use free AI tools, right from my phone, to figure out what my customers actually wanted before I wrote a single post.
How to turn my service into an offer people stopped scrolling for. How to actually hold a DM conversation instead of just dropping a price and disappearing.
"David stirred his coffee slowly, only half-aware he was still holding the spoon. "That's it? Just prompts and templates?""
That's what I thought too, at first," Marcus said. "But here's the thing — I run a hardware store, same as you, David. I know how it feels. You've got a good product, decent prices, loyal regulars. But new customers? They don't know you exist. And even when they do message you, you're not sure what to say back that doesn't sound desperate or salesy."David's jaw tightened slightly. That was exactly it. Last month, someone had messaged his store's page asking about bulk pricing on paint, and he genuinely hadn't known how to respond without either underselling himself or scaring them off. He'd left it unanswered for two days. They never came back."The book gave me an actual formula for that," Marcus continued. "Not fluff. A five-part prompt structure I still use every single day. A method for DM conversations that doesn't feel like a script but actually gets people to say yes. A 30-day plan that took me from posting randomly to having an actual system — research, content, DMs, follow-up, repeat customers. All of it running off tools I already had on my phone. Free ones.""And it actually worked? For a hardware store, not just... consulting stuff?""David, three months in, I had my first repeat-customer month where returning customers outspent new ones. That's not an accident. That's the follow-up system in the book — there's this whole section on staying in touch after the sale without being annoying about it. I used to think follow-up meant one desperate 'still interested?' text. Turns out there's an entire rhythm to it, and once I followed it, people started coming back *and* bringing their friends."David was quiet for a moment, turning his cup slowly on the table. He thought about the boxes of unsold stock in his back room. The Instagram page he hadn't posted to in three weeks. The customer who'd asked about paint and never came back."Okay," he finally said. "Where do I get it?"Marcus smiled — not smug, just genuinely glad. He'd been exactly where David was sitting now, not that long ago. He pulled out his phone, already opening the link. "I'll send it to you right now. Fair warning — it's going to feel almost too simple at first. That was my mistake too, thinking it needed to be complicated to work.""And if it doesn't work for me?""It's not magic, David. You still have to do the work — post, message people, follow up. But it tells you exactly *what* to do and *when*, instead of leaving you to figure it out at midnight like I did for two years."
Marcus tapped send. "Just promise me one thing.""What's that?""Actually start Day 1. Don't just read it and put it on a shelf."David looked down at his phone as the link came through: *AI Sales Machine for Small Businesses — by Coach Gerald.* He thought about the paint order that got away, the quiet page, the customers he knew were out there but somehow never found him.He tapped the link."Alright," he said. "Day 1 it is."
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