This is a multi-speaker YouTube discussion about how copywriters should prioritize skills to increase income: whether to focus on managing email lists (email copy) or mastering long-form front-end copy (headlines/leads and sales pitches). Stefan and Ben weigh trade-offs: email has high demand and is an easier entry path but more competition and lower upside, while long-form headlines/leads (and front-end channels like Facebook ads) are harder but can command much higher fees. They also recommend offering small, easy-to-deploy deliverables or doing a low-cost/beta project for clients as a lead magnet to build a portfolio and proof-of-concept; Stefan gives livestream-selling/consulting as a concrete opportunity he plans to test.
Chapters
Steph, I wanted to ask you because it makes me think. And just thinking back to Justin's email this morning about being a specialist and you guys harping on that so much, do you recommend. Because I look at it two ways. Being able to write long form is the most complicated and arguably the most valuable. Whereas you can start with something like email marketing, like what he did with Tanner and Alex. Right. Like if someone's new. Well, obviously if I master this skill that's transferable into these different areas, that's going to be a lot more time consuming, but there's a lot more friction there. Or do I master something that's simpler and kind of ascend? Do you have a preference as to. Or what you would recommend? It's.
It's. That's a great question. Justin will say email 10 out of 10 times. I know he will. I have advised people on email before, too. I mean, it makes sense because there's a demand for it. What I don't like about email is that there's a high demand, kind of, but there's also a ton of email copywriters out there. And you know, and then the upside is not usually that high. Like you're gonna, you know, it's a way to start making income as a copywriter. So there's, there's value to that. I think the. What I just mentioned, like the kind of headline lead approach, you know, frankly, it could be way more upside, way faster. You can make way more money in less time with it. However, there's, yeah, like Jaz said, harder and less competition. You know, it is, it is harder. It takes a little more time to get good at it. Generally, you need to understand what good leads are and study a bunch of them. And then in addition to that, like, you have to have the initiative to like, go out and, you know, kind of do like client prospecting and stuff. I mean, you do have email too, but there's just more people who are like, hey, need an email copywriter? Then are like, hey, some. Someone want to write some leads for me on spec and I'll pay them if you beat my control. You know, that guy doesn't exist, really. You have to go out and like cold contact them and stuff. So for that reason, I, you know, I don't have a perfect answer. For me, I like, I like headlines and leads and stuff like that because there's more value to it. But, you know, I don't think Justin's wrong either. I think it really just depends. It's kind of contextual.
Right. Ben Saba, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I think if the focus is on front end and you feel like you have a knack for developing a good way to bring people into a strong offer, then you could even start with Facebook ads I would say would be your first versus emails. Because emails really most email copywriters are writing for warm lists. They're already, they're not trying to bring in cold traffic. If you want to focus on front end funnels, that's going to be like cold traffic types of offers. So it'll be harder I think if you got really good at writing emails to then suddenly transform into like cold offer sales pages. Whereas you know, if you start doing Facebook ads, it's likely that you'll not only be able to write Facebook ads for cold offers, but you'll also learn along the way. And then somebody who you know you wrote ads for might have sales page that they need written. So it might be easier for you to get those jobs. That would be my recommendation.
Ben, do you have any thoughts?
Nothing that I think will be any value to anyone. So yeah, that's awesome.
One thing I wanted to add there things that I've advised and there's some of our light folks on the call right now from copy accelerators. Like when you're doing your strategic follow up with clients and you're prospecting, I think having some sort of demonstrable value that's easy for them to deploy and isn't very time consuming on your part. And so that could be front end Facebook ads, that could be emails, that could be leads or headlines, whatever you start doubling down on and get really good at to add that type of value while you're going through that process, the applying process and just being cool, checking in once a week and just saying I noticed this, I'm sure you've got great metrics but hey, test this. I think it could really help you is like such a huge value add and no one does it and whatever that, whatever that deliverable is being able to consistently do that at scale. So basically getting paid to practice is a really cool thing.
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome for sure. And definitely most people aren't willing to do it.
No, no one does.
That's true for, for beginners who won't do it for whatever reason, fear or something. And then the experienced people might have an ego around working for free. So if you're willing to do that, that's pretty cool.
I mean if you look at it as a If you look at it as that whatever you're creating, whether it's the emails or the Facebook ads or something, that's essentially your lead magnet that you're giving away to these clients. So, you know, once they, you know, once they use it and they like it, then they're probably going to contact you for more, you know, for more jobs and more, you know, more projects. If you look at it as a lead magnet that you're creating this lead magnet for them, then, you know, it might be just. Just frame it a little bit differently so you don't feel so reluctant to do it.
Theoretically, even if they don't use it, you could be building your portfolio as well.
Yeah. And you're getting practice.
Yes. And just one more thing to add to that too. I mean, Saab and I were just talking about. I mean, I really want to start doing kind of consulting and I may even. Everyone knows I hate agencies, but I might build an agency around the livestream, kind of livestream, selling type stuff, like helping econ companies, right, to do like, live stream selling. Pick the right platform, you know, craft the message. Almost like a webinar. Someone on the team like, writes kind of like a pitch for them and then help them to execute on it. And like, I think there's a big opportunity there and becoming like the expert, the number one person on that. So, like, I'm gonna. I want to do that. And with Mixaba and Ben and Brooks helped me and Shaq Almond, you're gonna help me too. So, like, that's like sort of, you know, but the whole thing, I'm like, all right, why? Not much experience there. So I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna find somebody and do one or two for basically for free. And then, you know, once those crush and I proof of concept, then I'll start marketing it and, you know, charge a shit ton of money and charge a percentage of revenue on the back end and potentially build like a. Do all sorts of stuff that we can do afterwards. Um, but, you know, like, so just to that point, I guess, is like, I've sold about a billion, you know, a billion dollars worth of stuff. And, you know, I'm super successful. And yet I'm like, oh, hey, like, I'll just do it for free, right? So it doesn't even go away. It's like, you know, you're like a newbie. It's just like a good way to like sort of get your foot in the door or try new things. Right. You know, like, because the upside is tremendous. We do two of them, and one of them crushes it. And I can go bring that to 10 more people who each pay us, like, 20, 20,000, $25,000 up front plus a percentage of sales. So say that's like 200, $250,000 up front, you know, plus, you know, say you get percentage of sales and you do, like, I don't know, like, say you get like 10% of sales and you do $5 million or $3 million, because one of them just goes really well or something like that. It's like, oh, $300,000. And, like, you know, the point being, like, the upside is really great. So it's like, is that worth, like, you know, the investment and risk of doing one for free? Like, for sure. So just a way to think about that from a mindset perspective, too.
Yeah, that's a really good example, because think of somebody like Stefan, you know, is willing to do it for free, so you guys can. You know, he's willing to invest that much time and energy into creating this and doing, like, a beta test and everything just to get proof of concept. So, you know, on the email and Facebook ads level, it really shouldn't be that much. That much resistance.
Heard he's adding a Clubhouse mastery course as well. That ought to be.
No, I was launching that. Remember how to make your first six figures on Clubhouse is the.
People doing it?
I don't know. What's that?
No, go ahead. I do want to get to the questions because I want to stuff. I want to keep these calls, like, an hour, so.
