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

In light of Sanderson’s Apple TV deal I’d like to remind you one of the best selling authors in the world has 17+ hours of free lectures on writing and storytelling on youtube:

-> Brandon Sanderson
-> Playlists
-> Writing Lectures (2025)

An insane amount of value.

I’ll share my notes on the class this weekend: https://lnkd.in/gXaqKe2u

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

Turned 30, hiked the Inca Trail, went to two great friends’ wedding in Lima, and finalized the cover of my debut novel. What a month.

No alternative text description for this image

After my freshman year, I did freelance writing to the tune of $0.04 per word. I'm a horrendously slow writer -- I like to take my time with each sentence, it's a habit I've tried to break for years -- and the clients were the sketchiest sites you can imagine.

The experience taught me you can't make good money as a writer, that writing is a commodity paid for by the word. A dream killer.

I could not have been more wrong.

When we moved to Madrid, someone liked my tweets and asked how much I charged for writing. Without a clue, I told him $2k per month. I made up this number. It felt like a loonshot.

He said sure sounds good, and I worked for his agency for the next year. Eventually, I went out on my own, and his advice was basically charge a lot more.

So I did, and today ghostwriting makes up about 60% of my revenue -- the rest comes from newsletter ads and info product sales.

Are there ups and downs? Absolutely. But I'm more convinced than ever now's the best time in history to be a writer. There's demand for the work, and there's non-gate kept access to distribution and knowledge.

***

My friend Nicolas Cole taught me more about this world than just about anybody. His ship30 program changed my life, and his PGA is incredible for anybody thinking about ghostwriting as a business or side gig.

They're doing a free masterclass tomorrow on nailing your client's voice. Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/eKQ-E67v

It's my favorite part of ghostwriting because it's the most like fiction writing. Essentially, I create a character for each client and part of my editing process is, "Would this character actually write / say this?"

If yes, it's good to go. If not, then back to the chopping block.

A friend asked me what metric his company isn’t measuring about their linkedin activity but should be.

I could tell he expected me to pull out some obscure metric but instead I simply told him number of posts per month.

Everyone tracks impressions, followers, leads, etc etc

But those are all outputs. The only input is the post, of which volume and quality are the only things that matter.

Quality is an intuition thing, but volume is a number. 

More volume, almost always good.

Decided I’m taking my own advice. Gonna post here more often, even off the cuff like this.

Aiming for 5x per week.

Here’s a collection of the 10 best books I read in 2025 — probably the most eclectic mix you’ll see:

In no particular order.

1. The Inner Compass by Lawrence Yeo
2. The entire Sun Eater series by Christopher Ruocchio
3. The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd
4. Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley
5. You Can Just Do Things by Jay Yang
6. Persians by Lloyd Jones
7. Consider This by Chuck Palahniuk
8. The Sword of Kaigen by ML Wang
9. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
10. East of Eden by Steinbeck

Tried to read very little business books given I consume that content all day. What’d you read? What’d you enjoy?

The fact Randall Wallace is casually on linkedin teaching screenwriting and storytelling with examples from his incredible career is the most underappreciated wonder of this site.

This morning I got to read the novel Tommy Clark’s working on and I regret to inform you he’s as good a fiction writer as he is on the internet.

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

"We just need better messaging."

Actually, you need better positioning.

Positioning always comes first.

Here's the down low: Companies hire a copywriter to fix their website. And a copywriter often rewrites everything beautifully. Professional. Polished.

But you need a foundation before you create demand. You can't write your way out of unclear positioning.

Messaging is how you say it. Positioning is what you say.

If you don't know who you are for and what makes you different, no amount of copy will save you.

It's like asking someone to wrap a gift when you haven't decided what's inside the box.

B2B Healthcare SaaS Positioning & Messaging | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

Happy to share that I'm drinking more coffee in 2026.

Please join me in this celebration.

"It's crazy how fast AI is replacing copywriters and marketers."

...is what I typically say when talking to copywriters and marketers.

Really frees up the job market for me.

Last year was a wonky year for me.

It was my best year in some ways, but also a year of endless headbanging against walls (still doing a bit of it right now).

For nearly 10 years, I've done all things copywriting. And gotten pretty dang good at it (so my kids tell me when they see a YouTube ad that they think I wrote).

But last year, I pivoted even more into the realm of B2B positioning.

I tested new offers like a madman constantly tweaking the perfect cup of espresso. 

I leaned into it. Failed. Leaned into it a bit more. And failed a bit more. And more and more (until I drank my sorrows away with more espresso).

And that's why I'm leaning more into B2B positioning. 

I know, weird.

Because the handful of amazing clients I worked with this year were absolutely amazing. Sure, I got hundreds of "no's, go away, and wrong person."

But that's part of building a solo consultancy. 

The best basketball players make 40% on 3s. The best baseball players hit a pitch 3 out of 10 attempts.

Rejection is part of the game. Falling on your face is part of the game. Even losing is a part of the game.

Giving up is not part of the game.

B2B healthcare SaaS positioning | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

Bienenstich or bee sting cake. 

Divinely delicious. Will be making this again and again and again.

Your homepage or landing page hero section is your three-second argument.

I like to think of it as: 

- What's compelling to the readers? 
- Is your headline, subheadline, and proof all compounding to what matters? 
- And does the reader have confirmation that your promise actually works?

Positioning steers all of this.
 
Good copywriting follows good positioning.
 
Every headline sounds good until you realize that the product you're writing copy around has zero positioning strategy.

When a B2B product has a clear roadmap, the messaging has a roadmap, and the copywriting has a roadmap. 

Everyone has a roadmap. 

Even more importantly, your customers have a roadmap of how to see your product.

Made sponge cream cake (Erdbeerrolle), so I have the right food supplies during this ice storm.

Didn't really turn into a roll. But it was still delicious.

Stay safe out there!

There are those who get in shape at the beginning of a new year. 

And there are those who double down on making pie and cheesecake.

Starting the year off strong 💪

B2B Healthcare SaaS Positioning | From Decks to Email Messaging | ☕️ Espresso connoisseur

B2B healthcare startups should avoid overhyped messaging.

Stop overpromising outcomes on a new feature. Stop talking about how excited your company is to launch that product.

Your customers don't care about super overhyped messages:

"We're launching our biggest product yet"
"Our product will change your life"
"Our product will save you hundreds of hours!"

You throw believability out the window with overhyped products that your audience knows nothing about.

Your audience wants two things:

1: Clarity of what your product is
2: How it's different

And the more you can tie it to a problem (and the conversation inside your buyer's head), the more believable it is.

Because nothing matters if you don't understand the problem you're solving.

Nothing matters if you don't understand how your buyers think and feel about their current problem and what's pushing them to a new solution.

Your buyers need a frame of reference. They need certainty. And they want frictionless clarity on what you do.

Saying you can tell a story through email is like saying you can bake a cake.

Sure, you can make it but it doesn't mean it's gonna taste absolutely scrumpiously amazingly divine. 

And therein lies the magic of copywriting.

We know there are templates. And there's AI. And there are folks who don't use either and probably should.

Writing good emails about B2B products is never about writing about B2B products.

It's about knowing your reader's frame of mind, how they think and feel about your product (the pain they desperately hate being in).

And making them more aware of what your product can do for them. Not just by listing feature after feature.

But by painting a picture for them.

The last few months, I had the amazing opportunity to work with Britt Prim and Karias Health.
 
And they were the absolute best!

Loved helping them with all things positioning, messaging, and getting their prospecting emails dialed in (and talking all things Stranger Things with Britt).
 
And I love even more that they booked multiple meetings (and pipeline activity!) from these emails.
 
Nothing better helping healthcare teams win!

Britt Prim thanks for being awesome, kind, and an absolute joy to work with!

Easily one of the best flowcharts ever made.

11 signs you need to fix your B2B healthcare positioning:

1. Your story is built around product features, not market change.

2. Your competitive analysis only lists competitors, not the status quo being replaced.

3. Your prospect refills their coffee cup 3x before you finish your pitch deck

4. Your differentiation sounds amazing internally but never actually show clear buyer value 

5. Your positioning deck is built for multiple buyer personas in a single sentence

6. You think you're about to own market category and you started your company 6 months ago and have three customers

7. You're testing messaging with your team instead of actual ICP prospects before launch (skipping voice of customer validation)

8. Your homepage headline, deck, and emails describe three different products and solutions you're solving

9. You see your competitors win because they're positioned in a clearer category 

10. Your prospects (maybe) forward your cold email asking "do we already have this?"

11. Your pitch deck has more words and images on a single slide than your 3-year-old's drawing.

The hardest thing about pitch decks is getting them to lead the messaging of your emails and landing pages. 

The problem is taking a deck (written in your voice) and turning it into an asset (written in your customer's voice).

Your deck is the problem you're solving and how you differentiate yourself in the market. You have to tell that story through the lens of your buyers.

The challenge is knowing your reader's awareness.

You have to know what conversation is happening in their heads (hint: it can't be a big problem you think it is)

Even more importantly, you have to take the logical langugae of your pitch deck and turn it into emotional copy.

Positioning creates internal alignment across the board.

Great copy shows up when your team has a clear position, understands where your buyers are in their story, and knows how to turn that into words that win people over.

The worst advice on hero sections is:

"Just make it clearer"

Something that's clear to an engineer could be wildly unclear to a clinical director. 

And it's only bad if you don't know how to make it clearer. The HOW of how to make it clear.

First, you need to know the 4 types of readers (h/t to Joanna Wiebe for this):

- Spontaneous (fast, emotional) They are the skimmers that want to know “What is this?” and “What can I do here?”

- Competitive (fast, logical): They are scanning for “What is this?” + “Who is it for?”

- Humanistic (slow, emotional): They like to read the whole page, but feel uncertain if they don't know what the hero section communicates

- Methodical (slow, logical) They notice the hero, but treat as a map for directions

And what they all have in common is these want these questions answered (and 8 seconds or less):

- What is this? 
- Who is it for?
- What can I do here?

Especially in B2B healthcare SaaS, when you have to be clearer than ever who your champion is and how you're helping them (and what category you're competing in).

It's easy to sound good internally. But does it make sense to your buyers?

P.S. I share more copywriting (and positioning) examples in my newsletter every week: https://lnkd.in/emV7YTJP

Love working with the Promptly team!

They are doing amazing things in healthcare, especially around specialty practices. Like seriously amazing.

And they have an awesome amazing team behind it all. I had a blast working with them on positioning strategy to messaging. 

P.S. If you're a B2B healthcare company and need help with positioning and messaging, I have a few spots for my positioning accelerator in February!

Don't sign up for my newsletter.

Unless you like espresso, B2B healthcare, copywriting techniques, positioning decks, and that's about it.

Then definitely sign up for it. 

Here's what I'm sending out today in my newsletter (one of three examples) that I'll be explaining.

P.S. Here's the link if you want to give it a looksie - https://lnkd.in/emV7YTJP

I talked to a B2B healthcare startup last year that had two positioning problems:

1. Differentiation doesn't show up in messaging (especially around AI products)
2. Closed / lost calls showed that buyers didn't see the urgency to act

In essence, their product “does AI for healthcare” with almost endless use cases.

It was difficult to identify a champion. And it's difficult for champions to accept change when there's urgency to change.

All in all, there are two things you have to remember about B2B healthcare positioning:

Put your product in a clear differentiated box and make the cost of staying with the status quo feel higher than the cost of changing.

If you're in B2B healthcare, you have a huge positioning opportunity.

The launch of ChatGPT and Claude Health shows how they are positioned around accessibility.

The mistake would be to chase the same positioning narrative:

- The most accessible AI for healthcare professionals
- Your personal AI assistant for health records
- Making AI healthcare simple

These are broad, vague, and you're competing in a category that never gives you a chance to win.

To stand out, you need to identify:

- Your champion (who cares the most)
- Define the alternatives (what did your champion use before you)
- Anchor into a problem
- How your differentiation solves that problem
- How that's framed around the market
- Take that frame and built out voice of market messaging

The mistake is that B2B healthcare startups will choose competitors (that aren't really competitors) and call out how they are different.

The mistake is picking the wrong competitor (like ChatGPT). And not listening to what your buyers really care about.

It's about going narrow and not trying to own a category that you're not really competing in to avoid category confusion.

Choose a roadmap that allows you to win over and over.

Abridge is a good example of this:

Narrow positioning: "Leading healthcare AI infrastructure powering the most trusted clinically useful, billable, and compliant notes at the point of care."

(If) they chose poor positioning: "The most accessible AI assistant for healthcare professionals"

Abridge chose a positioning that made them the obvious choice for clinical documentation.

As a B2B healthcare startup, your reaction shouldn't be, "Oh no, we can't own healthcare accessibility anymore."

Your job was never to own it. Because your startup had no business being in that category.

Show your customers, teach them, why your B2B healthcare's strengths are perfect for specific niche markets.

Most positioning fails because it doesn't go anywhere.

It stays hidden in a deck without ever traveling into the world of landing pages and emails.

Positioning is the story you tell to align your entire team. And it's the story that you express in your emails and landing pages to your buyers.

Why emails and landing pages?

1. Emails are a sequence of telling that story
2. Landing pages allow you to focus on one problem, one reader, and one promise

Positioning gives your product context. And that context has to be communicated clearly.

Positioning isn't a standstill deck. It should travel internally to align your team and externally to tell a story to your buyers.

taplio

The Battle

Nathan Baugh

Benjamin Watkins

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreNathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreBenjamin Watkins's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Nathan Baugh

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);}Nathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreBenjamin Watkins's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreNathan Baugh's LinkedIn Performance