Nathan Baugh

Consultant → writer. I study the best storytellers ever and share with you what I learn. Writing fiction and writing to 77K storytellers every Saturday. Join us 👇

Founder

If you want to improve your writing and storytelling, I urge you to read some fiction.

Not necessarily for the prose but for the structure required to move you through a story.

- Cause & effect
- Intention & obstacle
- Hooks & cliffhangers

The internal logic builds the foundation of a great story, and it’s worth reverse engineering and trying to apply the ideas to your work.

PS. I talk about this stuff every week with 112k readers: nathanbaugh.substack.com

Ghostwriter. Exploring the art and science of storytelling. Debut fantasy novel sometime ~soon.

Here’s the problem with attribution:

1. I know of a business because I’ve followed the founder for years on twitter

2. Convo with friends around the topic

3. I don’t have link, so go to google to get link - accidentally hit sponsored link

4. Send link anyway

5. Friend applies for membership - it’ll be a low five figure a year thing

6. Business will see he clicked through Google ad

7. Attribute lead to Google ads

Reader, the Google ad did nothing, the twitter account did everything, and attribution will show the opposite.

Wonder how often this happens

Benjamin Watkins

Copywriter for health & SaaS companies. B2B landing pages, emails, and social ads for fast-growing health tech and SaaS companies. Dad of five adventurous kids (send coffee)

I help B2B healthcare and SaaS companies stand out with clear strategic product positioning through internal decks, a paid landing page, and a nurture sequence.

Collaborated with Tomorrow Health, Bristle Health, Focus Health, Sycle, Validic, PromptlyCheckin, and more.

"Ben is a fantastic copywriter. He understood our business and what we were looking for. He delivered copywriting that gave Opsera a voice that stood out to customers. Ben is a copywriter I highly recommend if you want results."

- Susmitha Vakkalanka, VP of Marketing of Opsera 

"Ben is awesome, folks! He went out of his way to help us get things right before launch! Hire Ben! 💯"

- Robin Singhvi, Founder of SmartCue

ThisIsCopy is a collection of the best copywriting and marketing examples on the internet.

www.ThisIsCopy.com

Just laid off my entire team today because they weren't meeting quota.

Goodbye to these fine folks:

Ben W - Head of Marketing
Ben W - VP of Sales
Ben W - Chief Revenue Officer
Ben W - Chief Copywriter

The good news is I've already found new talent that can start for me on Monday.

Say hello to: 

Ben W - Head of Marketing
Ben W - VP of Sales
Ben W - Chief Revenue Officer
Ben W - Chief Copywriter

Excited for this new team!

B2B Healthcare Positioning & Messaging | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

Never underestimate this as a LinkedIn strategy.

B2B Healthcare SaaS Positioning & GTM Messaging | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

My entire LinkedIn writing process changed when I changed my mindset.

I stopped repeatedly thinking:

- I can only write after a cup of coffee
- I can only write after a cup of coffee
- I can only write after a cup of coffee

I started thinking:

- I can write so much better after three cups of coffee
-.I can write so much better after three cups of coffee
- I can write so much better after three cups of coffee 

Change your coffee intake. Change the LinkedIn world.

B2B SaaS & Healthcare Positioning & Messaging | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

Underrated hook words you should be using in your LinkedIn posts:

1. Mystify
2. Gobbledygook 
3. Collywobbles 

Examples of how to use them:

1. "Charlie can mystify LinkedIn posts"
2. "Why are you such a gobbledygook?"
3. "My dog has the collywobbles" 

Give it a try.

A fundamental difference between good and bad copywriting comes down to pronouns (me vs. you).

Bad copywriting (all about me):

• Check out my product
• Check out what my product does
• Check out why my product is awesome

Good copywriting (all about you):

• You have a problem
• You are looking for this benefit to solve it
• You are looking for a product that has these benefits and solves your problem

Always make it about the customer.

The evolution of AI:

2023: "You're using AI?! You're fired."
2024: "You can use AI for spellcheck only."
2025: "You can use AI, just don't make it obvious."
2026: "You're not using AI?! You're fired."

Your Monday reminder:

- Positioning is the context that makes your value obvious
- Messaging is how you structure that context 
- Copywriting is the words that deliver it.

"What should our landing page say?"  

The better question is "what have we decided is worth saying?"

Answer questions like: 

- What's the one specific problem we solve? 
- What's the real pain we eliminate? 
- What's our actual mechanism for solving this that's unique?

Most B2B teams skip to product outcomes.

And it creates vagueness across your paid landing pages. Every vague line on your landing page is a reflection of your positioning.

Your positioning is a guide for your copy.

It tells your copy who you're for, what pain you solve, and what makes your approach different.

Because positioning is knowing what's worth saying. Copywriting is just knowing how to say it.

Your B2B Landing Page Has a Positioning Problem

People ask why I only do positioning for B2B healthcare.

Because if you can position a product that's bought by committee, sold through compliance, and takes 18 months to close, you can position anything. 

That and six shots of espresso before 8am.

Change your perspective, and you change your outlook on life!

Also, nothing beats Calvin and Hobbes.

How do you make your products feel more human?

You use a simile to bridge the gap between logic and emotion. And you add parentheses to make it feel even more human (like a friend talking to a friend).

That's how you make B2B copywriting more human.

B2B healthcare companies like to jump to "here's what makes us different."

But different from what? Different for who?

Positioning has to start somewhere. And where you start completely changes the messaging that comes out the other side.

Some companies should start from the buyer's problem. Name a pain the CMO feels but can't articulate. When you nail that, your messaging basically writes the diagnosis for them. You're not selling a product. You're giving them the words for something they've been struggling with.

Other companies should start from the category. Maybe the buyer is shopping in a space that doesn't quite fit what you do. So your positioning redefines where you compete. And your messaging follows with a totally different story (one where you're not being compared to the wrong products anymore).

And some companies need to start from the broken workflow. No competitor. Just a bad process everyone accepts. Your positioning makes the status quo look wild. And your messaging becomes the wake-up call.

Most healthcare SaaS companies never pick a starting point. They just describe features and hope it resonates.

It doesn't. Because the messaging has no foundation underneath it.

"When is a B2B company ready for positioning work?"

B2B healthcare startups ask me this a lot. Positioning is nerve-wrackinig if you don't have the data, or the customers. 

On the flip side, it's even more stressful when you're growing like crazy, but there's no real clarity around your positioning.

They both have something in common: You need to make the decision nobody's made yet.

Positioning is ultimately about pattern recognition. Can you name who you win? Do you know why you win them? Can you describe what they were doing before they found you?

That kind of clarity doesn't come before the work. It comes from the work.

What I tell founders is that picking a segment is a sequencing decision, not a forever decision.

And as the market changes, you have to revisit your positioning. 

The healthcare companies that struggle aren't the ones that position too early or too late. It's avoiding a decision altogether that impacts how your team sees you and (even more important) how your customers see you.

Everyone should follow and learn from Darren.

The best of the best when it comes to LinkedIn. I learned every single thing I know about LinkedIn and social selling from this dude.

LinkedIn & Social Selling took me from the mailroom to the boardroom in 10 years | Founder of Darren McKee Co. & 531 Social

Been a wild 4-5 weeks. 

I’m tired but it’s hard to even say that because I dreamed, hustled and prayed to eventually have days like these.

Now it’s happening. 

Time to rest, recover and ge the work life pendulum back in line.

Saying who you're for and what you do eliminates 99.999% of the market for you.

It also frees up 99.999% of the market for you.

For the 10ish years I've operated as a solo founder, the top question I got was, "What do you do?" followed by, "How do you do it?

For years, I was a professional rambler because I didn't have a clear offer for a specific segment. I customized everything (hint: it didn't work).

And sure, you can call yourself a copywriter or a positioning expert. Or the super general vague one that should be set on fire, a brand strategist.

But nobody really knows what that means. And by that I mean nobody knows what you offer.

Because there are a bajillion offers underneath those umbrellas. 

That's why I'm getting more vocal about what I offer as someone who does product positioning sprints for B2B healthcare.

For the last year, I've zeroed in on an offer that's specific to a healthcare audience with a specific timeframe and a specific set of deliverables. I even showcase my pricing on my site! (Bold, I know).

I'm showing who I'm for. And I'm declaring who I'm not for.

Where do I start winning → Why do I win there → How do I say that

Or think of it like this: 

Wedge → Positioning → Messaging

Your wedge is the strategic choice that makes positioning possible. Especially if buyers don't know who you are.

Now, if you're in a known category, competing head to head, and buyers know what they are looking for, then you don't need a wedge.

My 8-year-old son likes to ask me when we're going to get a new car.

Even though our 2019 Honda Odyssey works perfectly fine.

I try to tell him that new does not equal better. You don't need the newest thing especially when the old thing isn't broken. 

I don't have a sense of urgency to get a new car. I don't want to spend money on something I don't need. And what I have works perfectly fine.

And that's a lot of the problem around AI.

Don't get me wrong, I love testing out new AI tools and projects.

But when you're trying to sell an AI product, you're not selling something brand new. Because nobody sees a need for that, no matter how cool it is.

You're showing the cost of something broken. You're showing the pain. You're walking them through the feeling of something that doesn't work.

A lot of AI tools, especially in healthcare, have to show that.

Otherwise, it's just something that's new. It's making an announcement where nobody cares what you have to say.  

Just because it's new doesn't mean it's useful.

Just because you can release an AI product, doesn't mean you should unless you're actually solving a tried and true customer pain.

I'll also be keeping my honda odyssey for a good while.

Nobody ever bought B2B healthcare software because of a "unified real-time platform." 

They bought it because something was broken and they were tired of pretending it wasn't. 

They care about the thing that's broken today. So that's where you start. You position around the pain they already feel. You use their words, not yours. 

But you don't stop there.

Once they see themselves in your positioning, you shift the story. You explain why that pain keeps showing up. 

The old game was built on manual processes and lagging indicators. The new game requires real-time data and proactive intervention. You're not selling yet. You're changing how they see the problem.

And then the sales conversation becomes easy. Because you're not convincing them they have a problem. You already did that on the homepage. You're not reframing their world. You already did that in your content. 

Now you're just showing them why your approach is the one that actually solves it.

Three steps. And each one earns the next. And the messaging at each step sounds completely different.

Most B2B healthcare companies try to do all three in one homepage headline. And that's why it reads like "Empowering organizations to deliver better outcomes through innovative solutions."

Which could be about a hospital. Or maybe even a really good sandwich shop.

The most successful B2B healthcare companies earned their positioning.
 
They didn't jump to the top of their category because they built a ton of products or claimed it.
 
They started with a wedge in the market. Because that's the clearest and easiest sell to customers.
 
These B2B healthcare companies became known for something early on and then expanded.
 
And it helped them build credibility.

Here are some examples I put together in B2B healthcare.

Stop thinking of your B2B product as horizontal vs. vertical. Because it doesn't matter.

You need to first think about how it's positioned.

B2B companies get stuck on the entire strategy of horizontal or vertical, and then let it become their positioning. 

For example, the horizontal company says, "We're the #1 CRM, now for healthcare." 

The vertical company says, "We're built exclusively for healthcare." 

And yet, both are describing what they built. And neither is telling the buyer why it matters to them.

Take Clarify Health. They built a horizontal concept around data analytics. 

❌ They didn't say "we're a cloud analytics platform for healthcare."

Instead, they found the context that made their value obvious (healthcare executives are making billion-dollar care decisions with gut feel). 

✅ They gave it context: "Moneyball for healthcare".

CarePort Health is an example of going vertical. 

❌ They didn't say "we're a vertical discharge platform." 

✅ They named the pain no one had solved: "Nurses calling facilities, one by one, to place a patient."

Remember, horizontal or vertical can win. 

You'll never win by leading with what you built instead of the value it creates for the buyers who care most.

Find the context that makes your value obvious.

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The Battle

Nathan Baugh

Benjamin Watkins

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Nathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreNathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance