she doesn't date hot guys
Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast
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Was swiping with a girlfriend of mine a while back (her phone, calm down), and she kept going nah. Nah. Too hot. Nah.
So obviously I asked what was wrong with hot.
She said she doesn't date hot guys.
I squinted my eyes at her, and she finally elaborated: “They've usually got an ego, or a long list of options, and the package never quite matches what you actually get once you've unwrapped it.”
This isn't about dating. Okay, maybe a little bit about dating.
Because I keep seeing established businesses go make themselves ‘hotter’.
Another service. Another vertical. Another thing on the menu so there's more for the buyer to scroll through.
And now all I can think about is her thumb going left.
I was chatting to someone recently, totally outside my world, different industry, different everything, who was adding a new line to his business. So I asked him what the motive was.
"Having more products."
Then, "making the customer experience better."
Okay, that's the answer most of us would give, me included. But those are two different reasons under the same umbrella, and only one of them tends to end well.
Does offering more services bring in more clients?
So there's two reasons people add a service line.
Your existing clients keep asking for it. They already know you, they already trust you, and they'd rather get it from you than go find someone new. That's a relationship doing what relationships do.
You want more on the menu so new buyers have more to choose from. More options, more chances someone bites.
The first one I've got basically no beef with.
The second one is the hot guy (or women, take your pick).
When a buyer who doesn't know you yet looks at a long list and they don't think "wow, they can do everything."
They think "right, so what are they actually good at?"
And then they go with whoever answered that question for them before the call even started.
The ego bit is "we do it all." I get it, but just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
The long list of options is every service fighting for the same bit of your attention.
And the package not matching what you get? That's the buyer who signed up for the thing you're known for, then got the new thing delivered by whoever in the team had space that week.
She'd swipe. So do they, they're just more polite about it.
👇
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BURN. IT. ALL.
Not the business. The bullshit around it.
This is the final episode of The Art of Positioning Podcast.
And no, this is not a neat little farewell episode where everyone pretends they had the plan all along.
Beatrice sits down with Elijah Drown, the person who helped turn a random conversation into this podcast, has been behind the scenes since day one, and has never been afraid to call her out when she is talking nonsense.
They talk about why The Art of Branding became The Art of Positioning. What changed when the podcast stopped trying to fit inside a familiar category. And what happens when you stop forcing a business, a brand, or a plan to keep going in a direction that no longer fits.
There is talk of letting go of control, unexpected opportunities, guru bullshit, AI templates, the category trap, and why “being nice” is not a positioning strategy.
But there is also a harder question underneath all of it:
What do you burn when you are done pretending the old way still fits?
"Burn it all" is up across platforms - listen here.
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Where does the full-service menu come from?
The big full-service firms can do full-service because they've got the people for it.
A department per line, someone whose whole job is that one specific thing.
Essentially, the menu works because there's a kitchen behind it.
And the rest of us look over, see the thick menu, and copy the menu. Without the stocked kitchen.
Which is the rulebook thing all over again where your marketing works for your competitor. Best practice comes from whoever was best placed to write it, and "offer more" is legit only best practice if you've got forty people to staff it. For a founder-led company, it's just more ways to spread yourself thin, with a nicer-looking website.
Inc. Magazine ran a piece last month where we spoke about avoiding that thin spread. When a rebrand is the answer, and when it's lipstick on a pig.
Why can't my team sell it without me?
Usually, when a new service is added, it’s because the founder wants the business to grow without them. And dude, it’s a totally fair goal. More revenue streams without the reliance on the one person every client wants on the call.
Except now there's two things only the owner can sell properly.
The original one, because the owner is the one who can explain WELL why it's different. And the new one, because nobody else in the business has a clue how to talk about it yet. So the plan to get off the calls just put you on more calls.
You know the text. It doesn't stop coming. It doubles.
Doh.
Should you say no to services clients ask for?
Not always. The first reason for going into this is fine.
Back in my first year or two of business, I got asked to do social media a fair bit.
So when a client asks, the question I'd be asking is whether saying yes makes you more of the thing they hired you for, or turns you into the firm that also does that. One makes the relationship deeper. The other makes you a bit more like everyone else they could've picked.
I ended up helping with the strategy for the socials so that it actually aligns with the market positioning and the angles to approach from. But the write-up I turned down each time.
When does adding a new service actually make sense?
When putting the two together makes you the only one who does that.
If the combination is something nobody else in your space has, that's a position. Buyers can actually see why you and not them.
If it just makes you one more firm that also does X? That's a menu item, and menus get compared on price.
It's the same check as any opportunity that looks good on paper. Does it make you more yourself, or more like the list?
🏏 Badass tip
Before you add anything, ask this.
Can the service you've already got be sold, start to finish, by somebody who isn't you?
If the answer's no, the new one won't be either. Sort that first. Then come back to the menu.
🦘 B
