3 core principles to become an influential writer

Happy Wednesday! Welcome back to The Copywriting Gig.

I'm Jim Hamilton. Over the past 7 years, my copy has contributed to 30m+ in sales for clients across health, biz opp, and B2B.

Each week, you get 1 actionable tip to grow your business.

Persuasion and influence get a bad rap sometimes.

As if invoking their name is like channeling the dark side of the Force.

But when you boil it down, that’s what everyone who writes online is chasing after.

Whether that’s in service of:

+ Building an audience
+ Landing sponsors
+ Finding a partner
+ Attracting clients
+ Selling products
+ Or anything else

The process is the same…

Influencing another person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions with your words.

Lately, I’ve been working to clarify some of my values on the topics of writing and business…

And it’s been an enlightening exercise, to say the least.

So today, I’m sharing my 3 core principles to become an influential writer.

Let’s dive in.

Read time: 1 minute and 51 seconds

Together with Fireflies

Automatically record and transcribe client calls using AI

Fireflies is an AI assistant that records your meetings, creates a searchable text transcript, and generates a concise summary for anyone who wasn’t there.

No more taking notes or flipping through recordings to find when something was said.

I’ve also found it to be much more accurate than Otter dot ai (a similar competitor).

It’s been a huge-time saver for me.

Plus clients love it because you can share the link to the recording with them too.

Click below to check it out:

Try Fireflies for free today

1) Your 1st draft should be good enough 90% of the time 

As someone who writes online for a living, I’m in the volume business.

I can’t afford to spend hours doing multiple rounds of edits on everything I publish.

Speed matters.

Put it out, analyze the response, then iterate.

Imperfect action beats perfect inaction.

Edit when the stakes are high.

But you shouldn’t need to hack it to pieces before you hit send.

2) Influential writing flows from clear thinking 

My job is not just to organize words, but ideas.

And the more time goes on, the more I see writing as a leading indicator of someone who can think.

Those who can’t write well often don’t think clearly.

Ultimately, influential writing is about so much more than whispering the magic words.

It’s about the logical argument behind them.

There’s a strategic element infused in everything you choose to put on the page, and more importantly, everything else you decide to leave out.

3) ChatGPT can put words on a page, but it can’t give you a personality 

AI can help make my job easier in many ways.

But people follow people. And people buy from people.

Information is now more commoditized than ever before.

So if you’re looking to become an impactful and influential writer, you need to learn how to communicate your own unique ideas, experiences, and points of view.

And you won’t find those hiding in your swipe file.

It’s why writer and comedian Whitney Cummings says, “in order for art to imitate life, you need to have a life.”

Putting It All Together

3 core principles to become an influential writer:

1) Your 1st draft should be good enough 90% of the time
2) Great writing flows from clear thinking
3) ChatGPT can put words on a page, but it can’t give you a personality

And remember: these are my values.

You don’t have to accept or even agree with them.

In fact, I encourage you to spend some time clarifying your own values on the topics that matter most to you.

I’m willing to bet you’ll find it helpful.

That’s it.

Thanks for reading!

See you next week.

Jim Hamilton