AI Sales Employee: find leads, draft the message, keep the follow-ups

I built this because prospecting eats the hours I would rather spend on actual work. Finding a company that needs what I sell is slow. Writing a message that does not sound copy-pasted is slower. Remembering to follow up a week later is the part I always dropped.

So I set up a Hermes AI agent to do the legwork, and I kept one rule: it never sends anything on its own. Every message waits for my approval.

What it does

You chat with it once and answer six questions: what you sell, who your ideal customer is, where it should look, how your messages should sound, how often to prospect, and whether you want each run emailed to you. It saves your answers and does not ask again.

After that it runs on your schedule:

1. Finds leads. It searches the places you chose and only logs a lead when there is a real, current reason to reach out, like a job posting, a public post asking for help, or news of an expansion. Each lead is saved with the evidence and a strength rating (low, medium or high).
2. Drafts the message. For each strong lead it writes a short message that points at that lead's own evidence, in the tone you picked. No generic template, no invented client stories, no made-up statistics.
3. Waits for you. Open the dashboard, read the evidence and the draft, then approve or reject. Approving does not send anything either. It only clears the message for you to send yourself.
4. Tracks the pipeline. Once you have sent it, mark it as sent. From there each lead moves through replied, meeting and closed, and follow-up dates are tracked so nothing slips.

What it will not do

• It will not make up an email address, a job title or a phone number. If it cannot find a real contact, the field stays blank.
• It will not send a message, ever. That is a rule in its instructions, not a setting.
• It will not force a weak lead into the report. A run that finds nothing says so.

Who it suits

Freelancers, consultants, agencies and small business owners who sell to other businesses and do their prospecting by hand today. You do not need to code. The installer sets up Python, the dashboard and the Hermes profile for you.

Getting started

1. Install Hermes AI and sign in with your Nous account.
2. Double-click the installer for your computer (install.command on Mac, install.bat on Windows).
3. Sign the new profile in once, then run ai-sales-employee chat and answer the onboarding questions.
4. Open the dashboard at http://127.0.0.1:5006/ and review your first leads.

The README in the package has the manual steps too, plus a way to add a test lead by hand so you can try the dashboard before connecting Hermes.

Premium add-ons

The base package is free and runs fully on its own. If you want it wired into the tools you already use, I offer five add-ons, each set up with your own accounts and keys:

• Verified contact enrichment: an email-finding service fills in real work emails, and leaves the field blank when it cannot verify one.
• CRM sync: leads, stages and follow-up dates flow to HubSpot or Pipedrive.
• Gmail or Outlook drafts: approved messages appear as drafts in your mailbox. You press send.
• Calendar and meeting booking: follow-ups and meetings sync with Google Calendar.
• Slack or Telegram alerts: run summaries, replies and due follow-ups reach you in chat.

None of them changes the core rule. The agent prepares and you send.

Good to know

Results depend on how specific your ideal customer is. "Small business owners" will give you a wide, noisy list. "Independent gym owners with one or two locations and no marketing hire" will give you a short list worth reading. Spend five minutes on that answer.

It is also not a guarantee of replies or revenue. It saves you the searching and the first draft. The conversation is still yours.