I'm good at copywriting but unsure what to offer and who to target. How should I approach this strategically when starting a service‑based business?
I wish I had a magic formula, but the practical approach is to generate a list of potential niches and offers, then test them quickly. Pick enough ideas, throw them at the wall, and expect about a 50 % chance that any given niche is viable. The key is to avoid over‑planning; instead, focus on rapid feedback. Build a minimal product, reach out to as many potential customers as possible, gather their input, and iterate. A good starting point is the Maker School niche discovery template: list several niches, draft copy for each, and send outreach to see what resonates. Combine that with your copywriting skills and any automation templates you have, and you’ll quickly identify a market that works.
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.
He explains that IT companies are service businesses and follow the same funnel as any other service business: lead generation, sales (discovery/scoping call), conversion (proposal/agreement/invoice), onboarding (kickoff call), fulfillment (building IT systems), and retention (ongoing management/managed service). Because the funnel is universal, you can adapt systems from other niches—cold‑email, speed‑to‑lead (PPC), content (SEO), automated referral/follow‑up/reactivation, proposal generator, asset generator, CRM, sales admin, webhook‑triggered kickoff calls, AI‑generated project briefs, and a template library for one‑click implementation. The key is to take a bird’s‑eye view, draw inspiration from adjacent niches, and teach the client to fish rather than give them a fish.
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The niches from my videos aren't necessarily saturated; even if many people use the same lead‑finding method, there are many variants of the niche you can try. You don’t have to target the exact same recruiting agency I mention—you could aim for executive recruiting agencies, or a specific sub‑vertical of SaaS companies instead of a broad SaaS target. If you feel stuck, it’s likely just fear of failure or of getting started. My advice is to look inward: ask why you’re hesitating, then pre‑commit to testing three niches for 14 days; if it works, keep going, otherwise move on. There are plenty of niches out there, and new ones appear daily. Check out my niche‑discovery exercise in Maker School (also offered as a lead magnet) to help you find something that works.
We already work with any industry on anything they need—AI systems, business software, automations. The simplest way to start productizing is not to invent a new service, but to look at what you’ve already delivered that clients liked and double down on that. Make a list of every project you’ve done over the past year, pull the email threads, project files, and note the industries and types of work. Patterns will emerge: you’ll see which systems you built most often and, more importantly, which ones generated the most revenue. Use that data to decide which services to package. Then, reach out to the clients you built those high‑value systems for, remind them of the results, and ask for referrals and repeat business. Reactivating past clients is a low‑effort way to generate upsells—typically a 3‑4% uptake rate, and I’ve seen 15‑20% when I first started. Identify the most profitable, least time‑intensive product you’ve created—often an automated follow‑up agent or similar—and turn it into a repeatable checklist or product. Streamline the delivery: ask if you really need three discovery calls or if a single call or a form will suffice, reducing time investment and allowing you to raise prices, which is pure leverage. In short, catalog your past work, find the high‑margin, low‑effort services, market them to similar clients, reactivate old customers, and refine the process into a sellable product.