Author: admin

A longtime coaching client of mine, Ben Bader, passed away on Thursday night.

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He was 24.

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I won’t get into the details, because that’s not what’s important right now.

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What’s important is who Ben was, what he stood for, and what he would want us to learn from his life.

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He was clever, scrappy, and talented in ways hard work alone can’t explain.

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He was also warm, curious, and overwhelmingly generous.

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Impossible not to like. A joy to work with.

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Ben had a unique way of flowing through life without fear:

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A rare type of fxck-it-let’s-do-it enthusiasm that comes from a deep excitement at the endless possibilities of life.

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Which, I think, is why he realized so many of those possibilities in such a short time.

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Looking back at the goals Ben set for himself:

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Total financial abundance.

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His dream home in Miami.

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A group of true friends.

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A girl he loved.

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In the end, he achieved them all.

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He did exactly what he set out to do, and became exactly who he wanted to be.

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He did the damn thing.

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He lived free.

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As I’ve processed my shock over the past ~12 hours, I’ve noticed my mind zooming out:

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Gaining a rare, wider glimpse into how fragile, how fleeting — how strikingly beautiful — our lives are.

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It’s the type of perspective that is so hard to gain, and so easy to lose in the rush of everyday life.

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I suppose that’s one of the hidden blessings of tragedy.

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But I also know tragedy isn’t necessary to gain that perspective.

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It’s always there, because it’s always true:

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We are free to live our lives however we choose.

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To do exactly what we want to do, and become exactly who we want to be.

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To dream wild dreams and turn them into reality.

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That’s what Ben did.

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And I know that’s what he wanted, for everyone he touched.

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At the end of our first coaching call a few years ago, Ben invited me to Miami.

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“You gotta come party with us man — it would be a blast.”

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I laughed:

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“You caught me about ten years too late… Maybe in our next lifetime we’ll be born at the same time. If that happens… pray for Miami.”

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So until we meet again, Ben Bader:

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Godspeed.

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And fly free.

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I know you will.

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T

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It’s very rare for me to get annoyed at anything.

But customer support is where most businesses go to die.

Whether you’re a solo business owner or some corporate behemoth, it’s wild to me that the thought of ignoring your customers and clients is nuts.

You call a company with a problem and immediately get trapped in phone tree hell, bounced between departments, forced to repeat your issue seventeen times to people reading from scripts who clearly couldn’t care less if your problem gets solved or if you spontaneously get set on fire and burn your place down…

Although you’d also expect if you buy something from someone off of eBay or whatever, that they’d at least have the common courtesy to hit you up with a “I might have an issue getting your package out because I went out and got shit my pants drunk last night, but when I’m back to my regular self. I’ll drop it off at the post office for you…”

Simple really.

Communication isn’t THAT hard.

Taking someone’s money and letting them wonder when they’re getting the goods is just piss poor in general and so that’s what I’m dealing with right now.

I want the thing that I bought because it’s something I’ve genuinely wanted and have been looking around for it since forever.

But I’ve gotten ZERO communication about shipping or what’s up or even if they person is okay.

It’s just a hope and pray that I get said thing.

(I’m gonna be big sad if I don’t get it. I need my nerd fix of stuff before this year ends)

And so I’ve done the polite thing and just emailed them yet again to see if they’re all good and if they can hit me up.

The last thing I want to do is ask for a refund and all of that bullshit cause that’s not my style.

But it brings me to my point.

Whether you’re offering a product or a service as a creative.

Make it easy as shit for people to give you money. Make it fun. Make sure they get what you said you’re giving them. Follow up if they get stuck and show them that you’re grateful for them being a part of your world.

And for the love of all things holy. Give them a god damn tracking number if you are shipping them something…

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Tonight I am doing absolutely nothing but revisiting childhood memories by playing the best strategy game ever made. Plus their track list is just amazing.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom

Hey you.

Yes you.

Put down that copywriting book.

Stop reading another blog post about “the secret to high converting headlines.”

Quit circle jerking with other copywriters who all learned from the same three gurus who learned from the same two books written in 1966.

Cough Breakthrough Advertising cough

Pick up Lee Child’s The Killing Floor instead.

You want to learn addictive prose? Study how he opens that book.

No wasted words. No throat clearing. No setting up context for three paragraphs before anything happens. He drops you straight into tension and refuses to let go for 500+ pages.

He understands something most copywriters have forgotten…

Writing isn’t about tricks or formulas or psychological manipulation tactics which we get to hear about non stop on Facebook or Twitter.

You basically want to grab someone by the throat with the words and make them need to know what happens next.

Every sentence in a Jack Reacher novel has a job to do. Move the story forward. Build tension. Reveal character. Create momentum. There’s no filler, no self indulgent descriptions, no showing off how clever the writer is.

This is what your copy should feel like. Lean, propulsive, impossible to stop reading.

While you’re studying “power words” and A/B testing subject lines, he is demonstrating how to make readers physically unable to put something down.

He creates narrative tension that translates directly to sales copy. The desperate need to know what comes next.

Your favourite copywriting guru won’t get mad if you read actual writers. They might even learn something.

The best copywriters aren’t just marketers who learned some writing tricks, it’s more we learnt to sell things while writing.

Stop learning from people who learned from other people who learned from books. Learn from someone who actually knows how to make words sing…

Read real writers. Write better copy.

Stephen Walker.

P.S. Get your best damn education in writing solid copy for £2.99 over here.

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Stephen Walker, Unit 146317, PO Box 7169, Poole, BH15 9EL, United Kingdom