Should I learn copywriting from YouTube or books, and do you have any recommendations?
I have a short guide on how I do copywriting in my cold‑email video “Watch Me Start and Sell an AS Service.” In that video I walk through finding leads, selling to them, and the mindset behind creating offers. I’ve read a lot of copywriting and sales books, as well as psychology books, and many of the concepts overlap. While I can’t point to a single definitive book, reading a mix of copywriting, sales, and psychology material will give you a solid foundation.
Yes, I have a resource. I recorded a four‑hour in‑depth course on cold email after a viewer requested it. If you search for “Nick’s cold email course” it will appear. The course walks through everything I use to close hundreds of thousands of dollars in deals with complete strangers, entirely through cold email. It covers my copywriting cadence, format, the four key lines you should include in every copywriting email, and includes a segment where I review real emails from my inbox, rewrite them, and explain the process.
You just start. The only way out is through. You do not need to know a specific platform, tool, or piece of technology, although obviously that helps. The reality is when you sell, you're only ever selling in the space of ideas anyway, so you can sell an idea the same as anybody else with any level of technical skill. What it really is, is putting the words in the right order and understanding, at least to a foundational level, why people make purchasing decisions. Some good books if you want to learn more: Influence by Cialdini, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, and Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff — probably my three best sales books out there. If you want a wild card, try When I Say No, I Feel Guilty — written 50-something years ago, it's about how to get over routine social inadequacies around asking for what you want and being assertive. So no, you do not need to know a specific tool stack or piece of technology in order to sell. All you need to do is go out there and sell. Learn the skill of selling and it'll work for whatever product you end up selling.
Sure, I can put together a short masterclass on copywriting sales calls and how to close automation clients. I won’t be able to do it live during the video because it would take away time from answering other questions, but I’m planning a longer sales masterclass in the future. In the meantime, you can search for ‘Nick Sarif copywriting’ on YouTube; I have several videos on that topic already.
That's an interesting point. I think the whole idea here about not pitching a specific service makes sense, but I don't believe it works in practice. I've tried not doing that and just being a results‑focused person who generates revenue, but I find uptake is a lot better when you can draw the shape of a solution for a client and then say, 'This is how I make money.' It makes it more believable. The good news is you have the ability to test this yourself. You could make a general vague offer that is 100 % results‑based around whatever you want, then compare it with a more specific copywriting offer where you guarantee the same thing, or a specific PPC offer with the same guarantee. I think you could answer this question and satisfy that part of your brain that's itching to know, but it would be more powerful for you to try it yourself. As a five‑year copywriter you probably have some capital saved, so you could try it instantly on your own. Keep those AI systems in the background if you want, but you can also sell to traditional copywriting clients. This is basically the idea behind my business.