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Whatup Reader!

A few weeks ago, I lost a battle to a cone while play beach volleyball. Let the record show that it was one of those flat donut cones, not a huge pointy one. I wear glasses but my eyesight isn’t that bad.

Either way, I lost the battle and the big toe on my left foot has been jacked up since.

Fast-forward to last week and I was chatting with the homie, Dr. Becky, pelvic floor PT extraordinaire who just so happens to have quite the penchant for the foot-pelvic floor connection. Spoiler, nothing is wrong with my pelvic floor, but we did have the following nerdy exchange that inspired this email:

Y’all, she knew it was back toe. All I said was “Adios, lunges”, and she knew it was my back toe.

Now, yes, one could argue that any PT worth their salt should know that lunging requires a significant amount of big toe extension at the trailing leg, but I’d also argue that many PTs aren’t worth their salt. Which brings me to the point of today’s email: Great copy is a blend of domain expertise and deeply understanding your audience.

When it comes to marketing and messaging, one of the most common lines thrown out is something to the effect of, "If you can articulate someone's problem better than they can, they'll assume you have the solution."

I don’t disagree one bit, BUT, I think that when folks hear that line, they get super fixated on trying to articulate the problem as opposed to simply leaning on their expertise and then spending way more time trying to understand their audience.

My “recent” pivot into messaging services has been incredibly fun (I'd love to work with you if you're looking for help), but it has also exposed me to a lot of copy, and I say this in the nicest way possible, that doesn’t actually say anything.

Everyone is quick to talk shit about the copy that AI produces, (don't get me wrong, I hate = 99% of what AI spits out), but what people often forget is that AI is trained on copy written by humans! AI has a tendency to just put a bunch of words together that sound nice and read well but don't actually say anything…because so much of the data that it was trained on is simply writing that is just a bunch of words put together that sound nice and read well but don’t actually say anything!

That in mind, my tip today for anyone who might be thinking about their copy, is to focus less on the words, and more on the person who is going to be reading those words.

Like Dr. Becky demonstrated, expertise is the price of admission, so I’m gonna assume you’ve got that part covered. If you don’t, puhlease start there.

Step two, focusing on the reader, means prioritizing their wants, needs, desires, circumstances, understanding, beliefs, values, etc., and then letting that information guide what you put on the page.

Words like “empowered” and “confident” come from a good place, but I just want to be able to lunge without my back toe hurting.

Happy Tuesday, Reader.

Maestro out.

PS – For those of you wondering about that salt phrase, historically, salt was valuable. Go figure. Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt (fun fact: the word "salary" derives from this). So, someone "worth their salt" earns what they're paid, aka they're competent and capable. The MOAR you know! 🙌🏾

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Less advice, MOAR musings.

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