All consumer motivation can be simplified into two drivers: moving towards pleasure or moving away from pain. While marketers often focus on aspirational, pleasure-based messaging, addressing a customer's specific pain points can be an extremely effective and underutilized strategy for driving action.
After quitting his agency job, copywriter Cole Schafer took a construction job tearing out carpets. This seemingly backward step gave him hours of solitude to listen to business podcasts, effectively providing a "paid MBA" that taught him more about his future career than his previous corporate role ever could.
Unlike creative writing, which aims to entertain, every piece of copy must be reverse-engineered from a specific desired action. Before writing, a copywriter must first ask, "What do I want this person to do after reading this?" This focus on a clear call-to-action is what separates effective copy from mere content.
The opening line or headline determines if your work gets read. Writer Cole Schafer advocates for the "20% rule": if you spend five hours writing a sales page, one full hour should be dedicated to brainstorming the headline. Media companies like Buzzfeed see up to 500% increases in click-throughs by following this practice.
The motto "it's all material" allows creatives to view adversity—from a client dispute to a personal crisis—not as a setback, but as an opportunity. These experiences can be recycled into compelling stories, art, or business lessons, turning negative events into valuable assets for future work.
Creatives often get stuck in "perfection paralysis" because their skill doesn't yet match their taste. The solution is to release a "make do" version to prove you can complete and ship a project. You can always iterate and improve it later. The initial goal is simply completion, not perfection.