It’s time for part four of How We Unclucked Our Messaging!

What’s been sent out so far:

1. ​We have a marketing problem
   • How did we know? Our lead-to-client pipeline slowed dramatically; we weren’t getting enough leads in, and growth wasn’t happening how we wanted it to happen.
2. ​Determine outreach and brand awareness activities ​
   • What did we determine? Go hog-wild on LinkedIn, create a lead magnet, write case studies, and rewrite our website.
3. ​Do the outreach… and fall flat on your face ​
   • What did we do? Brand awareness fails on LinkedIn, audience-building accidentally turned audience-retention so we still have the same problems, authority-building website rewrite that resulted in the third and final existential crisis.
4. Today! Positioning vs messaging showdown

Part four:

Positioning vs messaging hoedown showdown at the rodeo

I’m gonna start this one with a lil quote from last week’s email:

Janel and I had the very same problem that all of our clients have.

They don’t understand their positioning; therefore literally everything is hard.

Especially messaging.

And marketing.

And sales.

And pricing.

And hiring.

And growth.

And… well… everything.

Once we knew what was going on, we made an actual plan.

Not a “WELL WHAT IF WE TRY THIS” spaghetti-at-the-wall plan.

A real plan.

Let’s get on the same page on what the difference between positioning and messaging is.

Janel and I find that while most business owners theoretically know the difference between positioning and messaging, they can’t quite discern the difference.

Positioning

Picture a map. Whatever map you like. Game of Thrones, the Shire, your call.

The map is the marketplace. (heere be monsters)

Your business is a big bold X.

X marks the spot of where you can best thrive in the marketplace.

X puts you close to the right resources and transit routes.

X lands you right smack dab in the middle of your ideal customer.

Positioning is your address.

Messaging

Messaging is how you give directions to your spot on the map.

It’s how you tell people where you are.

We’ve all experienced bad directions.

“Oh, you know, go a bit that way, hang a tight left, then it’s past that one house.”

We’ve also experienced great directions.

“Go straight down this road for 2 miles, turn left on Main St, and it’s past the historical governor’s mansion.”

If your business has great positioning but bad messaging, no one will be able to find you, and conversions will tank.

If your business has great messaging but bad positioning, you’ll be talking to the wrong audience, and conversions will tank.

Positioning and messaging go hand in hand.

But positioning has to come first.

The reason we were strugggggggggling on LinkedIn and rewriting our website and feeling deep uncertainty when pitching ourselves and and and was because our positioning was way off.

Our X on the map was in the middle of the mountains, snowed in, with no way to call for help.

We had to move to a better spot.

How we figured out our positioning

1️⃣ Start with outcomes

Instead of closing our eyes and throwing a dart at the map - which is what we had been doing - we let ourselves slow down a bit.

We created a database inside our Notion portal where we could put all of the outcomes we had delivered to our clients.

We started with outcomes because we kept over-focusing on how we worked.

Frankly, no one cares about that so early. (except for us! we care, a LOT!)

But potential leads?

They care about how our work can help them.

We had a general idea of outcomes for clients.

I mean, we fricking deliver.

But we had never put it all in one spot before.

Janel focused on the work we had done together.

I went into the way-back machine and corralled together outcomes from before Janel’s time.

2️⃣ Pattern spotting

With all those cool outcomes in one spot, we began pattern spotting.

What comes up again and again?

What are we consistently great at?

What surprised us?

What had we NOT thought of before?

What patterns of clients are we seeing?

We tried to approach this work as if Strange Birds was a client and not our precious baby.

We were ruthless.

We were focused.

We put aside all of the assumptions we had made up until that point about who we thought we were and focused instead on what the data was telling us about who we were.

It wasn’t easy.

But it was incredibly enlightening.

With outcome gathering and pattern spotting done, we were finally ready for a positioning jam session!

I think I’m going to end this email here today.

Mostly because if you’re following along and thinking “oh my god this is me this is also my problem,” I want to give you a week to gather up YOUR outcomes and do some pattern spotting.

That way, when we walk you through our positioning jam session workshop, you can have WOW BIG EUREKA moments right alongside us.

Until next time!

Cheers,

Anna (they/them)

🏳️‍⚧️✊🏳️‍🌈✊🇵🇸

How We Unclucked Our Messaging series

1. ​We have a marketing problem​
2. ​Determine outreach and brand awareness activities​
3. ​Do the outreach... and fall flat on your face​
4. (this week) Positioning vs Messaging
5. (next week) Positioning jam session

What I finished reading

​We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice by adrienne marie brown​

Just... keeping this book here. Because if you're in movement building or organizing or just a human on this planet, read it.