Guide
How to find clients for AI visibility work: the businesses AI never names
Published
The short answer
A kind of business, in one place
People ask an assistant for a business the way they would ask a friend: the best dentist near here, a plumber who comes out on a Sunday, a lawyer for a small company. A business left out of those answers can lose customers without ever knowing it, and that is the thing your pitch can show. So start with one kind of business in one city, ideally one you already have work for.
Then write about ten questions a customer would type, none of which names a business. A question that names a business only tests whether the engine knows it; the ones that name nobody are where it chooses. These are the ten we asked for dentists in Austin. Change the kind of business and the city, and they work for yours:
- best dentist for kids in Austin, TX
- most recommended dentist in Austin, TX
- which dentist is best for kids in Austin, TX
- compare dentists in Austin, TX
- how much does a dentist cost in Austin, TX
- affordable dentist in Austin, TX
- dentist near Austin, TX
- top rated dentists in Austin, TX
- how to choose a dentist
- what to look for in a dentist
Ask the engines, then read the map
Put each question to each assistant and write down every business an answer names, by its name or by a link to its site. Ten questions on three engines is 30 answers: enough that a business missing from all of them is not one unlucky answer, since answers change from one ask to the next. Then search the same kind of business for the same place on Google Maps, take the first fifty or so listings, and tick each one that came up.
- 3 leads with more Google reviews than most of the 9 named.
- 40 more leads, named in none of the 30 answers.
- 9 named in at least one answer.
Those three are where to start: the reviews say people choose them, the answers say the assistants do not know them, and a competitor is named in their place.
Not every lead is worth a pitch
Start with the busiest
Sort the leads by their Google reviews. A busy business that no answer names has the most to lose, and the clearest reason to listen.
Check you can reach them
Look for an email address or a contact form on their own site. A lead you can only phone is a different kind of outreach.
See who already builds their site
A footer that says “Website by” someone means another agency has the account: a harder sale, and sometimes a partner.
Read their robots.txt
If it turns away OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot or GPTBot, or Anthropic's ClaudeBot, those assistants are told not to read the site: a fix you can offer on the call. Our free AI crawler checker reads any site's live file.
Open with their numbers, not your services
Before you write, ask the questions that business's own customers would ask, about its services and its part of town, and see who is named instead.
Three short paragraphs are enough: what you asked and who was named instead; which lists the answers leaned on; and every answer behind a link, a shared document will do, with the offer of a short call. No price, no promise of a place in the answers, no deadline. If four days pass without a reply, follow up once, then stop.
Subject: Who AI assistants recommend for [kind of business] in [city]Hi [name],We asked ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode [number] questions people ask when they look for [kind of business] in [city]. [Business] did not come up in any of the [number] answers; [competitor] came up on [number] of them.Most of those answers leaned on the same lists: [list] and [list].If it is useful, I would be glad to take you through it on a 20-minute call. Every question and every answer: [link to the answers][Your name][Agency]Send it from your own mailbox, signed by a person. The call itself, what to call the work, what to charge and what to refuse to promise, is in how to sell AI visibility work to clients.
The same steps, in a scan and a pitch
In Passcite, a market's scan asks its 10 questions on ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode and sets the answers beside the Google Maps list, for 11 credits. Each lead's page says how to reach it, who built its site and whether its robots.txt turns the assistants away. A pitch asks 12 of the business's own questions, drafts the email from what they found and makes the private link it points to, for 12 credits, and the link counts its opens. The email goes from your own mailbox.
Prospects is on every paid plan, from $49 a month with 150 credits. Before that, a free account's 10 credits run one 10-prompt report: run it on one prospect's site to see who is named instead. See how Prospects works.
Discuss this post with AI
Opens your assistant with a question about this post, ready to send.
Questions
- Which businesses should I prospect for AI visibility work?
- Ones whose customers ask an assistant for a recommendation before they call: dentists, clinics, lawyers, home services. Start with a kind of business you already have results in, one city at a time.
- How many questions do I need to ask?
- About ten, none of them naming a business, asked of each engine. A business missing from all 30 answers is a lead you can stand behind; one missing from a single answer may only have been unlucky that time.
- Can I do this without a tool?
- Yes. Ask each question by hand, write down every business an answer names, and tick them off against Google Maps; then ask each lead's own questions before you write to it. A tool does both, and keeps every answer for the pitch.
- Should I promise to get them named by ChatGPT?
- No. Nobody controls what an assistant answers, and answers move from one ask to the next. Promise the questions, the work, and the same questions asked again once it is done, the two side by side.
- What makes a business owner listen?
- A competitor's name in an answer where theirs is missing. Show that first; how the engines work can wait for the call.
- How to sell AI visibility work to clientsWhat to call it, what to charge, and — the part usually skipped — what to refuse to promise.
- Why AI answers change on their ownOf 296 pairs of answers to the same question, 6% cited exactly the same sources. Why, and how to tell a change you made from one the engine made.
- Why AI recommends directoriesBuyer questions are comparative and your website structurally cannot be. What that leaves you, and the two things that change it.
- Prospects: win clients with a reportScan a market for the businesses ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Mode never name, pitch them, and turn the client you sign into a brand. On every paid plan.