BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING
Before anything else: pick up the lemon and take a bite. Everybody. Big bite. I'll wait.
DigiMarCon World · Las Vegas · Day 1 · Nov 4, 2026
Work Orders for AI: The Agent Harness
The Agent Harness for Service Businesses. Here is every slide from the Day 1 talk, with a short narration so you can see what you missed.
Being there in person is always better. I answer questions and meet people during the whole conference — and after this session I stayed around so anyone with a question could ask. The slides get you the method; the room is where the conversations happen.
Talk ran Nov 4, 2026 (extended to about 4:15–5:25 PM PT). Event hub: dennisyu.com/digimarcon · Download the PDF
That face you just made?
That face you just made? That's a stranger tasting your offer.
THE MIRACLE BERRY
Now chew the berry. Roll it all over your tongue. Count to 60 with me.
Bite the same lemon, again.
Bite the same lemon again. Sweet. Same lemon. Nothing about it changed.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED
Lemon is your offer — fine, the same every time. Sour is what's in the way: the sales page, the salesperson, a stranger's doubt. Berry is proof — reviews, stories, people who vouch for you before they taste the offer. Don't fix the lemon. Hand out berries. Scan the QR for the playbook.
The Golden State Warriors
Oakland, 2014. We ran the Warriors' Facebook and Instagram — #1 in the NBA for Facebook check-ins, and 300% social growth in a year. Then we renegotiated for a 1% revenue share. The slide shows a Warriors ad example with the numbers from that case study.
A minivan. A push mower. A toolbox.
Bloomington, Indiana, summer 2011. Anthony Hilb, trimming around mailboxes by hand. A minivan. A push mower. A toolbox.
ANTHONY TODAY
Anthony today: about $5.2M a year in sales, about 70 people counting contractors, #1 for "tree removal," 180+ five-star reviews. A Google Knowledge Panel. Four businesses. 145 cities. And I own a piece of it — owner-reported as of Oct 14, 2026.
One more million in profit adds six million in value
Example math for a company like Anthony's: $1M profit times a 6x multiple is $6M. One more million in profit, to $2M, becomes $12M in value. The SEO slice on the bar is teaching math, not his books. So we take a piece of the value — not a monthly fee.
Work Orders for AI
DigiMarCon World, Las Vegas, Nov 4, 2026. Work Orders for AI — The Agent Harness for Service Businesses. I'm Dennis Yu, CEO of Local Service Spotlight.
SHOW OF HANDS
Keep it up if you've used ChatGPT or another AI tool in your business this year. Keep it up if it saved you a real hour last week. Keep it up if you could show me proof.
Last year, in this room
DigiMarCon Vegas, November 2025. Eight of us flew in, mostly young agency operators. They spoke on stage, and we filmed it. A year later, their clips are in DigiMarCon's promo for this event.
It always starts with one recorded hour
Produce. It always starts with one recorded hour — one real conversation on camera.
One hour becomes a month of proof
The Content Factory: Produce, Process, Post, Promote. One hour becomes a month of proof. On this example, Harry Gold sat for one interview — 1 hour 41 minutes — cut into 7 clips and one article, 3,141 clip views with $0 spent, then Dollar a Day only behind the winners. Agents run every step now. The audits too. Even the negotiating.
THE SHIFT: You don't need to be an AI mechanic to drive.
Weekend mechanic is tools, models, settings — fine as a hobby. The driver still needs rules of the road, papers in your name, a destination, and a check that a business number moved: calls, booked jobs, revenue, and fuel from your proof. Checkup every 90 days. The car drives itself. You still pick where it goes.
Start at any stage. Stop at any stage.
Five stages: Ask, Brief it, Use your files, Hand off jobs, Run a team. Step up only when the next stage is worth it in a year and moves the bottom line. Most owners get the result in stages 1–4 — that's my view from our clients and our own shop, not a measured result. The bottom row names real cases from 2026, with sources on the slide.
Most teams run agents like islands
Before the harness: ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Cursor, Codex, Muse — each one smart, none of them knowing what the others did.
Every AI job gets a work order
Outcome, sources, owner, allowed actions, checks, and a receipt. The example on the slide is David Carroll's case study: real views, his YouTube and a screenshot, one agent with Dylan as backup, edit and publish our page but never touch DNS, numbers match YouTube, live URL with before and after.
Same crew you already run
Dispatcher, tech, inspector, owner, publisher. Buzz keeps the shared record. Agents write and check. I own money, promises, and judgment calls. One agent hits post, and only on approved jobs.
One shared record in the middle
After the harness: every agent reads the same task. Gold goes out as the job. Blue comes back as proof. You sit on the ring, not in the middle — alongside Muse, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Cursor, and Codex around one shared record.
"Done" has six levels
Sent: I emailed it. Received: they opened it. Saved: it's in their system. Live: a stranger can see it. Working: the phone rang. Worth more: the company sells for more.
The receipt closes the job
No photo, no invoice — the receipt closes the job. What was done, where it lives, how we checked it, which level of done, what's next and who owns it. The sample receipt on the slide is the David Carroll refresh from Sep 5, 2026, Level 4 · Live. No receipt, no done.
Done beats perfect. I only see one list.
Just do it: routine work you can check, tweaks the client already approved, publishing on our own sites. Ask me first: new prices, scope or promises, money, contracts and legal, passwords and access, deleting anything. Everything not on the second list ships without me.
Two tests for anything you build
Worth it in a year? Moves the bottom line? Hobby is fun on a weekend. Quick hit pays now and is gone later. Shelf lasts with no money yet. Keeper lasts and pays — build here. Connect shelf to money, and save quick hits in your own files.
Let's write one work order, right now
Live build with one volunteer. Business is their shop. Task: turn this week's best job photo and notes into a Google Business Profile post. Draft only — nothing goes live. Check every fact came from the owner, under 150 words. The volunteer decides if it posts. Backup ready for Anthony's tree company.
Metrics, Analysis, Action
Every Friday, 15 minutes. Metrics: calls, booked jobs, revenue, plus jobs redone and files a person had to carry. Analysis: which handoff or missing login stopped a job? Action: fix one cause this week and check the next job. Learn it by hand. Write the checklist. Then let agents run it.
One useful next job
Before you leave this room: write one useful next job. My AI job. Its owner and its check. The first result I'll inspect. Pick a job you do every week. Write it on paper first.
Give every AI job a work order.
Give every AI job a work order. Then ask for the receipt. Thank you, Las Vegas.
Questions?
Questions? Scan the QR for the playbook — slides, the Content Factory workbook, and the prompts at dennisyu.com/digimarcon. Find me after this session. Bring the work order you wrote.
29 slides · DigiMarCon World Las Vegas Day 1 · Nov 4, 2026
Download the slides (PDF) Back to DigiMarCon hub