excusez-moi? 😳 Next century?!
Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast
I'm doing a routine security scan, when Avast pings me askin’ when I want to schedule the restart.
The usual option A of restart now, and option B, remind me later.
Boyyyy, I got work to be doing, no time to restart my computer right now.
So, I click the remind me later option and the list comes up as usual, in 15 minutes, in 1 hour, tomorrow, next century…
Wait wait.
Next century.
I snickered. Out loud. At a dropdown menu. In an internet security app. Da hecks?!
And then I sat there for a second thinking about it.
Because Avast could've given me the exact same options every other security software gives. And I would've clicked through and moved on and remembered absolutely nothing about that interaction.
But someone, at some point, decided that even a restart scheduler is a place where this brand gets to sound like itself.
That's a positioning decision that just happened to show up in a dropdown menu.
the brands that stick aren't the loudest ones
It's the same reason I use Windscribe over basically every more well-known VPN out there.
Their app updates read like a real person wrote them…albeit a slightly unhinged, but genuinely funny real person.
They call out buzzwords. They're a little self-aware.
You can tell zero AI was involved and that someone was actually having fun.
And they still do the job. Great ratings, works exactly as it should.
Kinda reminds me of someone. Me. Well at least the unhinged yet serious part.
That’s the thing here, some people will hate it, and some people will love it, but with AI pumping out content that sounds the same everywhere, the businesses that are going to stick aren't the ones with the best strategy decks or the most consistent posting schedule.
They're the ones where you can just tell a person made that.
Where something in the way it sounds is unmistakably theirs.
But it all interconnects, because if you approach a different part of the business, say customer service, or perhaps a element during the service or on the product - it’s still the same vibe. 👇
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A second brand. A new offer. Another location. It all looks like momentum until the original thing starts cracking with confused customers, divided staff, and a message that doesn't know what it's saying anymore.
Amanda Green, award-winning journalist and business newsroom systems builder, and John Hanrahan, franchise strategist and the man who's 4x'd EBITDA on a multi-billion dollar automotive portfolio, get into exactly where it breaks and what to do before it does.
We cover:
The first signs that show trouble (beyond financials)
How internal communication become a public brand problem
What it takes to keep things pulling in the same direction when scaling across offers, locations, or audiences.
If you're sitting on a growth decision right now, this The Art of Positioning Podcast episode one's perfect timing - listen here.
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"our industry is too regulated for that"
(the excuse I hear on many calls)
I had a call recently with a mortgage broker who cares about his clients and has already made it a decade in business.
He was frustrated at newer businesses getting more of the clients, even though they actually did a better job.
He came in saying the industry is heavily regulated, every claim has to be substantiated, disclaimers on everything, the works and that had been his blocker that far.
His immediate response to the whole "brand voice" conversation was that they basically couldn't have one.
Too restricted.
Too many compliance hoops.
Too many different kinds of clients who all needed to be spoken to differently.
He'd essentially decided the industry made it impossible.
Except... Avast has to follow data protection regulations. Windscribe operates in a privacy-focused industry where one wrong word could destroy trust. Both found a way.
The restrictions weren't actually the problem. He just hadn't decided what the brand felt like yet. So every touchpoint was doing something slightly different, every advisor was winging their own version of the company voice, and the whole thing felt like six separate businesses wearing the same logo.
Not because of the FCA. Because nobody had made the call.
That's what I keep seeing across industries that get written off as "too serious" or "too regulated" or frankly too boring to have a personality. Dude, I promise you, it’s not the industry. It’s the lens at which you look at it and subsequently the decision that hasn't been made.
And when you haven't made it, the default is blendin’ in with all the industry noise.
And if that's ringing some bells, the full breakdown of what happens when positioning doesn't make it past the website is in marketing's doing exactly what you told it to. Worth a read.
when nobody makes the call, the default is forgettable
And the ones that never make this call?
They become forgettable, without you recognizing it until it’s too late.
Where you’re still doing good work.
But still losing ground to the newer business that just... felt more like a person.
The ceiling that keeps not moving despite doing everything right, that's a whole separate conversation. That conversation starts here.
the quirk doesn't live in the disclaimer
Now, the quirk doesn't have to be in the disclaimer. It can be in:
The auto-reply.
The invoice.
The way the team answers the phone.
The out-of-office.
The onboarding email that every single new client gets and that currently sounds like it was written by a committee of people who'd never met.
Consistent small human moments compound.
That's how brands stick.
Especially when the founder isn't the only face of the business and you need the whole team to carry something coherent. (And long term the founder shouldn’t be everything to the business - at a certain point the business is going to need a voice - usually one carried over - but still. It needs to be clear to everyone and everywhere.)
🏏 The Badass Tip
Pick the most mundane touchpoint in your business.
Nah, I don’t mean the website or the pitch deck, something boring… like an automated email. An invoice. A hold message. An out-of-office. Your 404 page.
Now rewrite it like a human who actually works there wrote it.
Not quirky for the sake of quirky.
Just... like a person. With a point of view.
One touchpoint. This week.
Because here's what that one thing does: It forces you to make the decision about what this brand actually sounds like. And once you've made it once, you can make it everywhere.
So…What's yours gonna be? 👀
🦘 B
Often, I see businesses hit a growth wall when their offers and brands don't complement or build on each other (to the point they end up unintentionally cannibalizing each other), so I put together two decades of knowledge from serving brands across various industries and built a tool intended to find the best solution for your brand mix and business goals.
It's a honed-in set of questions where you get direction right up front (best use of 10 minutes): Align your offers and brands today.
