🚀 What is Positioning?
How I used it from high school to business...
👆🏼You can listen here 🎧
⏳ Current status
📧 Email subscribers: 35.704 / 100.000
👥 Active users: 1.601
📝 New Developments: CRM table for more personalized messages 🎉
⏰ It took me this long to write: 9 hours 1 minute
I had a superpower that I used back in middle school. The problem was... it was all subconscious. It came instinctively. 🧐
It took me more than 8 years to realize how useful I was doing something useful at the time. 😩
And what a shame I didn't build that into my business from the start...
But before we get started, let's see... 🪓
🚀 How's the challenge?
🙏🏻 A common case
I would like to share with you an idea that is close to my heart. As you know, I take great pleasure in writing this newsletter and I hope it is valuable for you too. Although it takes time to write each newsletter, I love being able to help the community and I hope you enjoy reading it too. 😊
Sometimes I take so much of my time away from my own business or even from my loved ones. I've heard many times that someone has learned more from this free newsletter than from some brutally expensive "entrepreneurship course" that was 10,000+ HUF. 📚
One of my main goals is to keep this newsletter free, as the most important thing is to share knowledge and give as many people as possible the opportunity to grow. ✅
I have set a big goal for this year: to reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of 2023. This goal is not only important for me, but for all of us, but you'll understand that in a moment. 🗓
It's not impossible at all, because if each reader forwarded the letter to just 3 of their friends and they subscribed too, we could reach that number in no time. That is the true power of community and I know that together we can achieve it. 💪🏼
So, I've come to the decision that if we can reach 100,000 subscribers by the end of 2023, I'll keep this free section in the newsletter for next year! That way it will be a win-win for everyone. You can continue to enjoy my writing for free and we can help more people! 🤝
Thank you for being part of this community, and I appreciate the time and energy you spend reading the newsletters. Thank you in advance for helping to further distribute the newsletter and contributing to our common goal. 🙏🏻
You can click the button to share the Newsletter with a few friends, but don't worry it will NOT be sent immediately! 📨
🏆 The winner of the Questionnaire has been announced Friday
Friday, we have selected the winner of the Lifetime BookBase Membership on Instagram Story. 🍀
💌 More personal messages
A message is personal if you know what the user is going through and can help them "just in time". To do this, you need to know who opened the App when, what they read, etc. 📈
And a giant spreadsheet, in our own dashboard, where we can see and save this. This is called in Startup-speak, a CRM spreadsheet (Customer Relationship Management).
We spent all last week building the perfect CRM table in theory. And it looks like we did it! 😉
Now comes the black soup... this needs to be coded. #ripEdu 😪
I believe this will be one of the cornerstones of BookBase 3.0! 🧱
🔥 This is how the Streak System will work
As we found out from the questionnaire that a lot of people only use BookBase every 2 days. So, it wouldn't make sense to have a system that if you don't log in for 1 day it resets Streaked. 😒
Because of this, we came up with a revolutionary idea with the guys. Our Streak system will work like this:
Every day you log in and open 1 book, you will increase your Streak 🔥
If you read 3 books a day, ONLY 1 will increase your Streak 🔥
If you skip 1 day, you will NOT increase a 🔥, but you will NOT reset it to zero, but ❄️
But if you miss 2 days in a row, you will zero out 🔥
So, we give the option to those who only use the App every 2 days. Plus, it will also help in habit building with this method. 👍🏼
📕 Book recommendation. Book recommendation: the book Atomic Habits explains exactly this. It's okay to miss 1 day, just don't miss 2 in a row, because then the habit is broken! Of course, this book is also up in BookClub! 🎧
Okay, now we can start today's topic!
It all starts from the fact that in grade 12 we had a very close group of friends - a large part of which we still have -. 💪🏼
The members of this group were neither rich nor famous, or ultra-muscled - except for Taki - but we were quite well known here in Eger. And no... we weren't troublemakers either. ❌
You might ask, how then?! 🤨
The answer is simple! And, to quote a good friend of mine, he always said, "Positioning, bro."
🔍 Meaning of positioning”: Positioning is a word of English origin. It's about where you put yourself in the market, in which category people put you.
We did one thing very well...
We always positioned ourselves in the right place. We'd invite the coolest girl groups to house parties, we'd always do something with the Band - whether it was a trip, a party, or just something extreme - and it got our reputation out there. 🌟
The point was to subconsciously position ourselves in the "market". 😵💫
💡 Side note: Plus, at the time, we were positioning ourselves quite well in the market. A lot has changed since then, but I still believe that the people you surround yourself with position you. You can be a humble, skinny, poor guy, if Ronaldo was your best friend and you hung out with him 4 times a week, everyone would want to be your friend.
Because the "cooler" girls were at our parties, we were put in the "cool" category by the market. Rough, huh?
What's even grosser is that it works 1:1 in business... 🤯
Not with girls... 😏
And I didn't know that...
💭 Why is positioning important?
I'll start with an example and you'll get the gist:
"If you are a baker and you bake bread, you are still a baker. If you make the best bread in the world, you're not an artist, but if you make the best bread in a gallery, you're an artist." ~ Marina Abramovic
Context does matter! 🧐
Yet few people use it to their advantage! 🤏🏼
Often, it's not what you want to sell, but how you sell it. You can have a full product if you can't explain what it actually does. Unfortunately, that's what we struggled with when we started BookBase - and still struggle with a little bit now - not being able to communicate clearly what BookBase does. 🗣
💡 Side note: That's one of our challenges this week, to put it in a good and clear way. We needed the questionnaire for this!
📕 Book recommendation. This is exactly what Rory Sutherland's book, Alchemy, is about. Often illogical solutions, solve the problem because they are well communicated. Rory Sutherland is my favorite marketing guru. He is someone I can really look up to on this topic, of course his book is up on the App! 🎧
You can present a product in 2 different ways, depending on what you're comparing it to:
🅰️ Tesla is an eco-friendly sports car!
Or
🅱️ Tesla, the cheaper Ferrari!
Both of these statements are true, yet they present two completely different pictures. In one we excel, while in the other we are a poor alternative. 🤔
In the first, we compared Tesla to sports cars. What do we expect from a sports car?
⚡️ Be fast
🏎 Look good
📢 Be loud
The first two tick, the third doesn't - but we've written that it's environmentally friendly, so that saves us.
In the second case we compared the Tesla to the Ferrari. What do we expect from a Ferrari?
🏎 Be as fast as a Ferrari
🏎 Look as good as a Ferrari
🏎 Be loud like a Ferrari
The first is probably ticked, the second two are not. Let's be honest - the Tesla is not bad - but a Ferrari is a Ferrari. Plus, it has no sound, so it's nothing like a Ferrari.
Incidentally, we've also made a huge mistake by positioning ourselves based on price as a "cheaper Ferrari", which in this case may not be the best choice. 😕
So, context does matter and we need to be careful where we position ourselves in the market.
💡 Side note: I like Tesla a lot and it really is the future, but I will have a Ferrari one day, just for the sound of it. Maybe by then it will be "Old School".
But then...
🧐 How can you turn this to your advantage?
First, by understanding that not everyone will be your customer.
Here's a perfect saying for that:
"You can't be everyone's everything. If you decide to go north, you can't go south at the same time." ~ Jeroen de Flander
And next up, April Dunford's book - Obviously Awesome will help us out! Including the 5+1 Elements of Effective Positioning. 🔮
These 5+1 elements are:
Substitute products
Unique Features
Value (and Evidence)
Target Market Characteristics
Market category
+1. Relevant trends
Let's look at these one by one.
1. Substitute products ♻️
The products that your target audience would use if you were not.
However, they are very tricky because they are often not your competitors. 🤨
📚 In the case of BookBase: if we weren't around, many people wouldn't use Blinkist (because they don't know about it), but would instead use Spotify and listen to music/podcasts. (We need to review this; I just wrote it down because I've seen this specific example in some of the questionnaire responses).
2. The Unique Features 🌟
This is slang for the "Secret Sauce" that makes you different from the rest.
I might add, many times what you think is a negative is actually a positive in the eyes of your customers. 😳
📚 In the case of BookBase: there are several, the first one that clearly differentiates us is that we are Hungarian, while our competitors are not. The second is that we have an App that makes it easy - already, when... a little self-criticism - to get books quickly. And, what I considered a negative, but is actually a positive: we produce summaries more slowly than our foreign competitors, because we do it "by hand" and don't leave it to an algorithm to summarize. So, it is true that we are slower, but our summaries are also of higher quality. And that's a plus point in the eyes of customers! (at least that's what I've been told)
3. Value and the all-important proof 🔒
If your unique features are your "Secret Sauce", then value is why someone is interested in your product in the first place.
It's best to have something to prove and quantify that value. 🥇
"People love the App" is not good proof. It's too subjective...
📚 In the case of BookBase: written reviews can already be good, as well as nearly 1,000 Appstore/Play store reviews! These already quantify the value of the App. But honestly, I'm not satisfied yet, we will work on that!
4. Characteristics of the target market 📊
And the target market here is not the same target market as in all the other marketing books. It's more specific here, I'll show you:
The target market includes customers who buy quickly, enjoy your product, don't ask for discounts and tell their friends about your product on their own. Now that's your real target market! 🤩
💡 Side note: Alex Hormozi also noted in a video that he was able to scale one of his businesses from $5 to $50 million by looking at what he had in common with his best customers and only advertising to those people! It seems to me this is a very similar move in April's book.
📚 For BookBase: these are clearly young people who are in high school/university. They recognize the importance of knowledge! They want a better life for themselves and are willing to work for it. They are the ones we need to find and promote, as much as possible! (This will be further clarified on the basis of the answers to the questionnaire, as they will really support this statement)
5. The market category 📚
As you categorize your product into a certain category, from there your customers will have a baseline expectation.
Sports car? Then fast, cool looking and loud. 🏎
Organic? Then healthy, more expensive, higher quality. 🍏
And so on!
📕 Book recommendations: The Blue Ocean Strategy, by W. Chan Kim, shows you exactly how you can create a category for yourself. This is the most rewarding, but also the hardest. You'll find it in the BookBase!
📚 In the case of BookBase: this is exactly where we are stuck. Because here we have 2 options. We can create a completely new category, which is the best, but also the most difficult. Or we can put ourselves in an existing category, but we may not be the best in that category. If we say Spotify of Self Improvement, I wouldn't miss much, but they would expect features that are not included e.g., Playlists. If I said it was the Duolingo of Self Improvement, they would expect Quizzes that don't exist. That's why I believe that this step is one of the most decisive!
+1. The Relevant Trends 📈
+1 because it's not mandatory, but it can make a big difference to your positioning if it's well hit. For example, there's huge hype right now for AI if it were positioned as a Self-Improvement App that uses AI to help you personalize your learning plan. Then maybe we could ride this wave. 🤖
However, if we say this but have nothing to do with AI, our product could be a big flop. Like the Long Island Iced Tea Corp. of yore - you know the one that made the cocktail - hip-hop renamed itself Long Blockchain Corp. And the question of what Blockchain has to do with Tea came up, which is a valid question. As Blockchain was trending so the stock price shot up. If companies had a concrete explanation for this, they would have ridden this trend. But since they didn't have one, they just made "fools" of themselves and since they couldn't explain the reason for the name change, the shares fell more than your chin will drop when you read this Blog! 😲
📚 In the case of BookBase: AI can be a good line, if it can be introduced in a meaningful way. For example, AI recommended books, based on what you've read so far. Now that could be exciting. Or the Matrix theme is also quite catchy, you could even put a specific Challenge on it. The possibilities are endless, just don't make a fool of yourself along the way.
Now you see why positioning is important and how to do it in theory. Now let's look at exactly what you need to do step-by-step to position your product or service well! 👀
It's time for the Checklist... (and imagine that with such a wicked tone) 😈
✅ What exactly do you do?
[ ] Step one, find users who love your product. If there are none, then spread your net wide, advertise to everyone and see who stays in your net, who will be the one to love your product. 🔍
[ ] Step two, send out a questionnaire to these people and ask them what they would use if your product didn't exist. 📨
[ ] Step three, group and rank them. 📊
[ ] Step four, write down all the competitive advantages you have that make you better than these competitors. And remember sometimes negatives can be positives. 🌟
[ ] Step Five, try to turn those Functions you are better at into Benefits. For example, 15-megapixel camera = Sharper images = Images can be retrieved in a larger format. 🤩
[ ] Step 6, group these Advantages into up to 4 groups. It's okay if you only have 1, you can start with that. 📊
[ ] Step 7, see why this message resonates better with your best users than with other average users. Feel free to spend more time on this! 🤔
[ ] Step eight, see if there is a trend that fits your product that could boost your positioning! 📈
[ ] Step nine, create a "Positioning Canvas". Show:
[ ] Step ten, incorporate this Positioning into your Communication. Website copywriting, ad images, emails, etc. Work on getting people to see you as the best in the category you've placed yourself in. 🛠
I know it's not a short piece of writing, but it's all the more useful. I believe that if fresh businesses get just this 1 thing right, it will go a long way to their success! 🏆
Don't worry, if you don't have a business, you can position yourself in the Social Hierarchy, but I'll write about that another time.
I'm not asking for anything, just that if you liked this post, send it to 3 of your friends to keep the newsletter free. 🙏🏻
🔥 Challenge
The biggest challenge for us now is to apply the above well and successfully reposition the BookBase in people's minds. 💭
If we can do that, we can do the same with the newsletter. (Clarification, few = 22,000 active readers who actually read the mailings out of 35,704 subscribers, which I would like = 100,000 subscribers by the end of the year) 😎
The questionnaire is already done, many have filled it in, now it's time to analyze the answers and draw conclusions! 📊
💡 Side note: I was really looking for an AI that can take the whole Google Sheet document and analyze it on a Q&A basis for ME. Unfortunately, I haven't found it yet because the spreadsheet is too "big", so all the AIs failed. As soon as such an AI is ready, it will make the job of many Data Scientists easier or even harder.
📖 What have I just read?
This time it was "Obviously Awesome" by April Dunford. The whole article is based on it. It's an incredibly specific book, but in return it gives a very deep and practical knowledge on the subject of positioning. 🌟
I've heard it in 3 podcast episodes separately, so I decided to get this in full and read it through. Well... I don't regret it! 📙
I vowed that until I incorporate this knowledge into my BookBase, I will not read any new books so that I don't fall into the Self Improvement trap. ❌
However, I have already ordered one exciting book. So, I'm up to 2x speed to get my hands on it as soon as possible. ⚡️
By the way, this book is called Traction - by Gabriel Weinberg.
🎧 What have I just listened to?
In my Philosophy class on Monday, it was all about Community. That's when it occurred to me why not make a common goal worth sharing the newsletter. So far, it's only been a win if you shared it, since we were doing well because more people were reading it, but you weren't getting anything in return. 💭
But now it's a win-win and I believe this will be the breakthrough! 🏆
I listened to the SubClub Podcast this week. Including the story of Fitbod, a $20,000,000 ARR (annual recurring revenue) App. The topic is slightly different, but the strategy is similar. 🧐
As I listened, I realized that they read the same books, use the same strategies and yet have different results to them. Because they are incorporating them 1 by 1 into the App. And we often just leave it aside or don't take it seriously enough. It was a serious insight, but a useful one! ✅
✍🏼 Top quote
"How can you beat Bobby Fischer? You can play anything with him, just not chess." ~ Warren Buffett
♟ Bobby Fischer: 11x world chess champion, died in 2008.