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What craft means (and why you should care)

When I first started learning copywriting, my “practice” looked pretty old school: I’d sit down with a notebook and hand copy sales letters word for word.

Page after page, until my wrist ached. It was boring, sure, but it drilled into me the rhythm and flow of persuasion in a way no shortcut ever could.

Today, you can ask AI to draft a landing page in seconds. It’s fast, cheap, and often passable. But that raises the bigger question: how do you stay rooted in the craft when technology makes “good enough” effortless?

That question came back to me on a trip to Venice last week.

At the Leonardo da Vinci museum, I flipped through reproductions of his notebooks. Pages crammed with sketches, notes written backwards, and wild inventions. Detail. Patience. Turning theory into practice, and laying the groundwork for countless ideas, products, and strategies we still use today.

Craft means patience over shortcuts.

In a tiny Venetian mask shop, I watched the craftsman at his bench, carefully shaping and painting a mask. Slow. Methodical. Confident. He welcomed us in without interrupting his rhythm, letting us take in the display while he stayed absorbed in the work.

Craft means trusting your process, same as copywriting when you know your system is solid.

On the Grand Canal, I saw a gondolier caught in the middle of the waterway as our ferry approached. One quick, precise move and he slid the boat aside. No panic. No hesitation.

Craft means instinct built from years of practice, the kind of reflex you can’t fake.

And over lunch near the Rialto, the restaurant owner made the whole experience feel crafted. The spaghetti allo scoglio. The setting. His presence.

Craft means weaving the parts into an atmosphere, so the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Copy works the same way: it’s not just the words, it’s the experience they create.

All of it drove home the same point: AI can churn out words like rows of tourist shops selling fridge magnets and Venice T shirts, all the same forgettable souvenirs. But craft shows up in the details, the process, the instincts, and the atmosphere. That’s the difference between average and memorable.

At the beginning of this year I set three words to guide me. Two of them were intuition and mastery. To respect those, I’ve decided to stick with what I call my Craft Practice. At a minimum, it means:

• Re reading the classics like Breakthrough Advertising, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, Ogilvy’s books. Not just to remind myself how to write good copy, but to remind myself how great copywriters think.
• Setting aside one day each week to hand copy proven sales letters. The goal isn’t output, it’s to absorb that artisan feel and sharpen the intuition we risk losing.

Here are a few optional things I might try as complements to the two above:

• One option is to reverse engineer modern ads or pages I admire. Instead of just reading them, I could map their structure, rhythm, and persuasion flow into my own framework to sharpen pattern recognition.
• Another is to keep a daily micro practice. For example, pick one element (headline, lead, CTA, subject line) and write 5–10 variations in a notebook. Small reps, big compound interest.
• I could also run craft debriefs. After a project, re read my own copy a week later and annotate it: what holds up, what doesn’t, and why. Treat it like a craftsman inspecting his own joinery.
• I also try to always study outside copy. Spend time with other crafts (architecture, film, jazz improvisation) and note how they create rhythm, tension, or flow, then borrow those techniques into my copy.

So here’s the question I’ve been asking myself, and now I’ll ask you:

What’s your practice?

What’s the routine, the anchor you return to when you notice yourself drifting into easy delegation or lazy work?

That practice is what keeps you sharp. And it’s the part your readers will feel.

DISCOVERY

Behind the scenes of ow real SaaS messaging gets built

If you’ve ever wrestled with SaaS messaging that feels generic, stuck, or just plain invisible, this episode is worth your time. I joined Arman Eshraghi on SaaS Scaled to break down how strategy gaps sabotage conversion, why most teams stall on messaging, and how AI tools (used right) can shortcut the grunt work without sacrificing clarity.

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We get tactical: from using AI-powered research to build sharper personas, to practical ways founders can overcome inertia and finally make their value impossible to ignore. If you want a peek behind the scenes—process, pitfalls, and the frameworks I actually use—it’s all in there.

RESONANCE

Seneca, Letters From a Stoic

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Chris

Chris Silvestri Founder & conversion alchemist

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