In this monologue, Nicolas Cole explains how entrepreneurs should handle prospects who request broad, unfocused services. He outlines two options: politely decline, preserving time for higher‑value work, or educate the prospect about the real need they have. Using a recent encounter at the gym where a potential client asked for a writer who could do ads, SEO, and everything else, Cole demonstrates why saying “yes” to such a request is a mistake. He stresses the importance of specialization—he only offers email copywriting—and shows how to frame that specialization as the solution the client actually needs. The core message is that saying yes to every request incurs high opportunity cost, while focusing on a niche creates better outcomes for both the business and the client.
Chapters
What do I do when I have a conversation with someone and they're interested, but they're just interested in something else? You have two options. You either say, "No, I cannot help you," which is a win in and of itself because remember the opportunity cost. You can divert that time and attention elsewhere, or you find a way to educate them and frame to them why the thing they want isn't actually the thing they need. I just did this. We are building our own ghostwriting agency. Met a guy at the gym. He was like, "Hey, I've seen I've seen a bunch of your YouTube videos. What's your business? I'm like, yeah, this is what we do. By the way, we also have this agency arm. Let me know if you need help. And he goes, great, I'll be in touch. I think we could use your help. He texts me a couple of days later and he's like, hey, I thought about it. Actually, I realized that we need a writer who can help us with everything. We need a writer who can write our ads. We need a writer who can help us with SEO. He doesn't know. He just thinks we do everything. And what do I say? Does anyone here think that I sat there and went, oh, this guy said he needs a writer for everything. I should go pivot our whole ghostwriting agency to cater to this one person. Of course not. And when you hear it outside yourself, you go, "Yeah, of course, that's a stupid decision." But that is the mistake that everybody makes. What you do is you explain back to them and you go, "Oh, no problem. So just so you know, I don't specialize in any of those things. I specialize in email. That's the only thing we do." And then you educate them on why that's actually the thing they need. They don't need all the stuff that they just said they need.
