James Laurain

James Tech Copywriting

Freelance Technical Marketing for some of the best brands in tech.

Freelance Technical Marketer

Aampe

Building the first truly AI-driven approach to CRM Marketing Automation, allowing apps to create personalized, omni-channel customer experiences proven to increase customer engagement and retention.

Head of Growth

Propel, Inc

Growth Advisor

Thought Bakery

Helping some of the biggest brands in B2B pull fresh business from the oven with damn delicious copy and content! 🧁

Content Strategy

Avnet

Wielding the awesome power of over 2,500 engineers, best-in-class design houses, a decade of personal experience and the resources of a near $20B company like Thor's mighty hammer.

Let's build something!

**Achieved rank in the top 50 account managers in the company for 3 quarters running.**

Account Manager (Non-Traditional)

AMA Southwest Michigan

Helping connect fellow Marketers to brilliant ideas from the best thought leaders in the industry - which ultimately saves our customers from having to suffer though the horrible marketing they've almost come to expect. 😐

Director, Membership

YETi CGI

We need to stop making things that suck.

YETi CGI is a team of misfits with a strong background in Game Theory and creating Ambient User Experiences. With extensive cross-industry experience, they focus on and dream up amazing user experiences and then bring them to life – with an incredible, diverse team of experts who can make large amounts of complexity seem completely transparent. 

I get to help YETi talent scout for new technologies, architect hardware platforms, and find places where they can add huge amounts of value…but mostly I learn from the wisdom of each unbelievably talented member of the group.

Field Engineer

Bear VAI Technology

Built great relationships, gained invaluable experience, won multiple awards, and had, what I consider to be, great successes - not by pushing products - but by doing what I love - connecting with people, connecting people to technology, sharing cross-industry best practices and innovations, and pushing technology forward for the sake of mankind.

Field Sales Engineer

Stryker

Working with world-class suppliers (domestic and international) to ensure world class designs and products. 

Strategic Sourcing: Evaluating suppliers and supply chains to ensure the best match and most efficient choice for the production of components, assemblies, and finished products.

Supplier Assessment/Development: Understanding strengths and weaknesses of suppliers and supply chains to ensure proper supplier positioning, selection, and utilization, and spearheading development activities to equip suppliers with the knowledge of industry best practices (pertaining to validation, calibration, safety testing, etc.) needed to improve their processes.

Liaised between Stryker and suppliers for R&D Projects, translating designs, feedback, and requirements to suppliers and facilitating discussions around supplier-proposed Design for Manufacturability, cost reduction, and quality improvements.

Staff Advanced Sourcing Engineer

Ensuring Compliance of Medical Devices under the design control of Stryker Instruments to the applicable, industry-recognized safety standards.

Created a simple excel macro which took several input parameters and, from them, manipulated the related six tables in the IEC 60601-1 Standard to output the correct creepage and clearance values. 

I posted this "tool" on LinkedIn, and, since then, I've been asked for copies by dozens of engineers in several countries (including members of the safety agencies themselves).

Sr. Product Safety/Certifications Engineer

Working closely with Product Design Teams by relating standards to products and creating inventive solutions to ensure end-product compliance to the relevant Medical Industry Standards.

Acting as a liaison between Stryker and CSA, IEC, UL, TUV and other certification bodies to ensure proper application of standards, and, ultimately, end-product safety.

Product Safety/Certifications Engineer

Managing a floor of 60+ assemblers by maintaining and improving fixtures, processes, designs and work instructions with a focus on line balance, process efficiency, and end-product quality. Overseeing and evaluating rework processes from a risk perspective. Supporting the unit through 2 FDA audits.

Electrical/Manufacturing Engineer

Haden

Gallivanting across the countryside from automotive plant to automotive plant in an all-to-stylish hard hat that made even the strongest safety officers quiver in fear.

Technical Service Engineer - Co-op

💬 Learn your users through the messages you send | Featured in Forbes, TechCrunch

Looking for a way to tell your kids how beautiful they are on the inside? 👨‍👨‍👧‍👦

I was, so I wrote a book about it. 😅 

Get your copy here!!! 👇

🦎 MabelTheChameleon.com! 🦎 

---

My dad always told me that the key to success was to surround myself with brilliant people...and I think he was on to something. 😅

All in all, I've had an amazing career filled with incredible opportunities that I never would have even dreamed of or imagined, and it all stemmed from following this simple principle. 

I've done everything from medical device engineering, to growing my B2B Tech copywriting business from $0 to 6-figures in less than a year, to leading the growth engine for an up-and-coming SaaS startup fighting against the status quo of crappy push notifications. 🤺

...and who knows what's around the next turn.


👉 Please connect with me if you'd like to share with me on this journey!


Interests:
👶 Kids/Family
🪕 Banjo
🍞 Sourdough bread baking
🧔 Dad jokes
🤷‍♂️ Random Facts

Conversational Tech Copywriter

You're probably really proud of your tech - No one knows it better than you do.

...which is exactly why you shouldn't be writing your own copy.


Wait...What?!?


Yep. That's right.


See, when you're 'too close' to your tech, you start to develop your own language and assumptions.

Worse yet, you start to get blind to what your customers do and don't know.

It's not unique to you, it's just really hard to read the label of the jar you're in.


As an Engineer with an unhealthy obsession with consumer psychology, I can come alongside your technical team and help translate your features and differentiators into relevant and relatable messaging that speaks to your customers where they are.

Interested? Drop me a DM. 

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

Founder

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

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.

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."

A friendly reminder that it's never too late for an espresso.

Founder of ThisIsCopy.com | B2B Healthcare Positioning & Messaging | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

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.

This week I got an exclusive, top‑secret look at how a B2B AI startup really positions itself:

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.

Healthcare startups need to ask the right questions. 

Instead of jumping right into messaging, consider diagnosing which part of your positioning needs work.

Maybe your differentiation is unclear across the board. Maybe your buyers keep putting you in a category that you don't want to belong in.

Different symptoms require different fixes.

Flatiron Health didn't win by writing better copy. They won by narrowing to EHR for oncology. 

Veeva entered a known category (pharma CRM).

Most healthcare teams skip this step. They rewrite the homepage, landing pages, and emails when the real problem is upstream.

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.

"We sound just like our competitors."

Healthcare founders say this when they are comparing their positioning (in the wrong way).

Homepages sound exactly the same. Landing pages are identical. And buyers can't tell the difference.

As an example, if you look at health benefits startups, you see how they all sound the same.

Nobody is getting specific. Nobody is catering to specific markets, segments, or workflows.

Every healthcare company promises lower costs and better care.

But can you show how you do that for a specific market?

Can you prove the results of that to a specific market?

Differentiation is 10x more valuable when it matters to a specific market with a specific use case.

And when you know that, you have a much better idea of what to write on your homepage, landing pages, and emails.

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.

Which is the better healthcare startup?

Choosing a positioning direction is about choosing the best entry point.

These two healthcare companies found the best entry point into their market that made them the most obvious choice to their buyers.

They weren't trying to be everything to everyone.

They had a narrow focus that allowed them to compete at the highest level.

Most healthcare companies have a belief problem before they have a messaging problem.

Like this belief: "Decision-makers care about outcomes, not features. So we need to lead with outcomes."

Sounds warm and fuzzy. Feels strategic. And it's the reason every healthcare message says "improve patient outcomes and reduce total cost of care."

What's actually happening when a healthcare company makes that choice is they're climbing away from the thing that makes them different.

Your product does something specific. And that specific thing leads to a result. And that result leads to a bigger result. And eventually you arrive at "better outcomes, lower costs" 
 
Congrats!! You've arrived at the same conclusion as 100% of every healthcare company.

Here's an example: A remote monitoring tool that alerts the care team when vitals trend outside baseline for CHF patients? That's different. Nobody else can say it.

"Improving patient outcomes"? Everyone says it.

I call this the falsified belief. It's the assumption your buyer holds that your product proves wrong. 

The falsified belief for an RPM startup isn't "outcomes need to improve." 

Instead, the falsified belief is something like: "Most care teams assume they'll catch patient deterioration during scheduled follow-ups. They won't. By the time a CHF patient shows up at the ER, the warning signs were there three days ago."

That's a narrow message in a specific workflow for a specific segment.

The further you climb from what your product actually does, the more you sound like everyone else.

Lead with the belief you're falsifying, not the outcome everyone promises.

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.

taplio

The Battle

James Laurain

Benjamin Watkins

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreBenjamin Watkins's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

James Laurain

Benjamin Watkins

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Benjamin Watkins's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreBenjamin Watkins's LinkedIn Performance