I'm close to landing two retainers (a web agency and a consultant) and need guidance on selling their web design and coaching services, given I already sell my AI services. I'm booking two meetings a day using your advice. What framework or thoughts do you have for selling these services?
First, great job on locking in those retainers and crushing the cold‑email outreach—two meetings a day, five days a week is exactly the kind of consistency that works. To sell web design and coaching, start by watching my video 'Watch Me Start and Sell an AI Service in 10 Hours'; it walks through the exact copywriting and offer‑creation process I use. Then run a niche‑discovery exercise: pick a few niches (e.g., website agencies, video editors, real estate), go into the communities where those niches hang out (Facebook groups, Reddit, School pages), and pull out the actual questions people are asking. Don’t assume—let the community tell you their day‑to‑day struggles. Compile those questions; you’ll see recurring themes like follow‑up, content‑generation systems for clients, and clipping. From those pain points, craft simple, first‑principles solutions—ask yourself, ‘Could I do this?’ and use your copywriting skills to turn them into concrete offers. Source audiences that match those niches, then send targeted emails presenting the offers. Finally, create three offers and split‑test them against slightly different audiences to see which resonates best. That’s the exact framework I recommend for web design and coaching.
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.
Obviously you're very financially and resource‑constrained, lacking a laptop, webcam, microphone, and custom domains, yet you’re actively thinking about how to get things done despite those limits — that mindset will take you far. When I say ‘asset,’ I’m referring to the asset‑based outreach strategy I’ve discussed before: you create a high‑quality, customized piece of value that solves a specific problem for a prospect, give it to them with little or no ask, and use it to break the ice instead of sending a plain cold email. These assets are high‑value and very effective when they truly address the prospect’s pain points, though they do require considerable time and effort to produce. Examples of assets include: using AI to generate newsletters from a prospect’s website, then formatting them into a polished newsletter (about 80‑90 % complete) that you send for free; for coaches or consultants, running an automation that pulls the top‑10 trending videos in their niche, feeding those titles into AI to generate a set of strong title ideas, and delivering those titles; video editors editing a prospect’s video and sending it over with a note like, “I love your channel; I’ve edited a bunch of your content for you — just wanted you to have it”; taking long‑form video content, running it through a short‑form clip generator (e.g., Opus, Stockclip) to produce a bunch of short clips, then sending those clips to an influencer or creator with a message such as, “I clipped your content for free; feel free to use it — I do this professionally and would be happy to help you further.” You can mix and match any of these ideas in your outreach. In your situation — no Loom video, no custom domain, no paid cold‑email tool, only an old PC and Gmail — your best leverage is your ability to build such assets rather than relying on pure sales skill. If you need a laptop for a Zoom call, borrowing one from a friend works well. Your resourcefulness and gumption are exactly what will move you forward.
If you're running an automation agency, you have three main options to find clients. First, Upwork: it's the simplest, straightest path for beginners to get your first dollar online, though the ROI is lower than other methods. Second, cold email: cost per acquisition is super low, you can scale it, and you can use AI to personalize outreach; check out my previous videos on my main channel @Nix for details on customizing and personalizing emails. Third, communities: post high-value content daily or every few days in groups where your target customers hang out; this frames you as an authority and quickly builds an inbound presence without the hard work of recording hundreds of videos. In Maker School I provide a daily regimen: send 10 Upwork applications, make a community post, and do cold email outreach each day. I recommend about 270 cold emails per day (nine mailboxes with 30 emails each). With a two-step sequence, that yields roughly 3,240 contacts per month, leading to about 90 engaged people, and assuming a third respond positively, you get around 30 leads per day—fantastic for your pipeline. This is what's working today given your photography background; you don't need to cold‑approach bigger businesses unless you want to, as it's often a pain.
Most low‑hanging e‑commerce fruit—like automated product descriptions, recurring emails, and checkout flows—is already handled by platforms, so you need to look beyond those basics. If the store is mostly B2C, reframe the problem as B2B: help the owner reach retailers, distributors, or influencers and set up partnership automations. In practice that often means building an email campaign and an affiliate funnel that contacts influencers, gives them free products, and tracks resulting sales. Many influencer‑marketing services are generic and lack personalization; you can improve them by scraping a creator’s recent post, paraphrasing it as an icebreaker, and offering a simple promo or swag kit. You can also layer AI into newsletters or marketing sequences—using survey data, product‑history, or other signals to personalize outreach. For coaches who feel stuck on choosing a niche or services, the real issue is a lack of confidence; pick three niches you feel about 70 % confident in and start acting (LinkedIn cold outreach, short videos, Upwork applications) rather than waiting for certainty.