Building Your First AI Sales Agent

Imagine having an employee who monitors your inbox 24/7, reads every lead inquiry instantly, checks your calendar, and drafts a perfectly personalized reply within seconds.

This isn't sci-fi. It's the OpenAI Assistants API. Today, we'll build a basic version of this using **n8n**.

Prerequisites

• An OpenAI API Key
• A Gmail account
• An n8n instance (Cloud or Self-hosted)

Step 1: Create the Assistant

Go to the OpenAI Playground and create a new Assistant. Give it specific instructions:

Instructions: You are a helpful sales representative for [Company]. 
Your goal is to qualify leads and schedule a 15-minute intro call. 
Keep replies under 100 words. Be professional but casual.

Step 2: Setup the n8n Workflow

Our workflow will look like this:

Step 3: Testing & Refining

Send yourself an email posing as a potential client. Watch as the AI reads it and creates a draft in your "Drafts" folder.

Pro Tip: Never set it to auto-send immediately. Always start with "Create Draft" so you can review the AI's work. Once you trust it (after ~50 emails), you can switch to auto-send for low-risk leads.

Next Steps

This is just level 1. A production-grade Agentic Workflow would check your CRM to see if the lead already exists, browse the web to learn about the lead's company, and sync the conversation history.