I'm doing this right now -- AI automation for small businesses, started on Upwork about two months ago. The thing that actually moved the needle was writing proposals that were basically free mini consultations. Someone posts about needing their spreadsheet workflow automated, I'd write back describing their exact problem back to them and how I'd wire it up with n8n, what the timeline looks like, what usually goes wrong. No "I have 10 years of experience" stuff.

Took about 6 weeks to get 5 reviews. Before that I was competing on rate against people charging $15/hr and it was miserable. After the reviews landed I bumped from $70 to $95 and nobody pushed back. The reviews changed the entire dynamic of the conversation.