F&C | Positioning & Messaging

Most studios fight for the same 5% of the market share that knows the value of good design. To get out of the competition, you must show why you’re special to the other 95%.

The uniqueness comes from compounding the artist's statement and numbers. You must show how 1$ invested in design, becomes $2 in sales for your clients’ business.

Show in every possible channel why are you unique and good for money, and you’re a winner.

Co-Founder 🧑‍🚀

Fedor Studio

Web Developer & Designer

Practicum

Built a research unit that discovers, accumulates and communicates to product teams all users' needs

User Experience Lead

Our team have designed a personal assistant app for the second-biggest Russian airport 
[Project suspended due to covid-19]

My task was to understand users’ needs in order to discover growth points and develop new digital products.

User Experience Specialist

Design & Communication ZOLOTO GROUP (OSTENGRUPPE)

Developed design processes and methodology for an entire design team. 

Our team built a wayfinding system for a 36,000-seat football stadium. 
We were participating in the project at all stages — from pre-project analytics to final mounting. 

I developed and implemented a design tool which reduced development time by 30% and dramatically decreased the error rate. 

I've been encouraged design team to implement agile principles and reduced average project time by 20%

Design Director

I was researching and creating user experience in large public spaces as well as creating wayfinding signage solutions. 

Developed wayfinding signage systems for three 50,000+ square metre office spaces

Wayfinding Analyst

Positioning & Messaging for Startups and Creative Studios | You’ve built a great company. Let’s write a story about it.

We find out why people love you, write a story about it, and  get it in the market. Fast.
Your value + Your clients’ words = Story your clients  want to belong

Look, no tricks will work, if you haven’t started with the fundamentals:

- Positioning
- Messaging

A confused buyer never buys, said Kyle Kushner on our call this week. And this is what positioning and messaging is about:

Make people feel clear about what you do, and make them want to buy from you.

You won’t do it from the bottom of your heart, but you will do it just listening to your greatest clients.

Fedor I.

Great messaging isn’t made inside an agency—it's created in the minds of your clients.

True messaging happens when your AUDIENCE believes it.

Here’s what can ruin your messaging and how to fix it:

1. Lack of client-centricity
  
↳ Ditch the jargon and fluff. Each word must fight for its presence.

↳ Focus on what resonates with your clients, not on what you think sounds good.

↳ Your clients should see themselves in your messaging, and feel that you’re speaking directly to them.

2. Not demonstrating benefits

 ↳ Saying you’re innovative isn’t enough. Show what ACTIONS you do.

↳ Use actionable language, not a descriptive one.

↳ Collect MEANINGFUL testimonials and use them.

  3. Not testing messaging.

↳ Messaging is MEASURABLE. Analyse how your communications work and what resonates with your clients. Then scale it.

↳ “Test, iterate, repeat” is your best friend till you find the message-market fit. When something is off, change and test again.

↳ Change one element at the time, don’t pivot 180 cold turkey.

Ask yourself:
- Is your messaging using your clients’ language?
- Are you showing, not just telling, your value?
- Are you testing your messaging?

Gab Bujold 💀  what did I miss here? 👀

—
♻️ If you found this valuable, share it with your network

🏎️ Follow me Fedor I.  for more insights on positioning and messaging strategies.

Your values are just words—until you bring them to life

You’ve got your company's core values: transparency, speed, innovation, empathy. You want to tell your future clients about those values.

But don't just list them.

Saying "Our customer-centric approach ensures we're always listening and adapting" is empty. It lacks action. Anyone can say it.

But put it like this:

—RedWolf ditches meetings. We use Loom and email, and hop on calls only if needed.

This shows action. It shows they mean it.

And it’s uniquely theirs. No one can copy it. People see the difference.

Remember: show, don't tell.


Use your customers' words on your landing page copy.

That's it for today.

Dear Network, please connect me with people from the seed-stage #startups that are either:

- about to launch;
- frequently change their messaging.

I'm asking because I want to learn how they handle understanding customers' language and improving messaging.

If you know someone, please send them my way. 

P.S. If you know something about this issue, please let me know.

Melinda B. C. Noel Wolf - Startup Advisor Matthew Curtis Adam Kyle Wilson Jacob Miller 🍌 Joumana Elomar Joe Kim John McCoy Tom Nguyen Thibaut Briere Jonathan Pipek Guys, can you refer me to somebody?

AI will replace you ONLY if you are replaceable. Be irreplaceable, and you’ll never have to worry.

It is finally happening. People are paying attention on how deceptive LinkedIn is.

I’m sure you’re also sick of all the:

- just build relationships
- post consistently
- build your personal brand
- create dope content
- build authority
- build audience

The list is going on.

The bad news: it all works as a SCALE, not as a starting point.

When you’ve got a killer portfolio, some initial network, testimonials, and —the most important— a DAMN GOOD OFFER, it works.

When you are like me, being a first-time founder at a new market and…

… figuring out your offer
… figuring out your market
… don’t have a strong network…

…you have nothing to scale.

Everybody who says the opposite wants you to be poor and miserable.

First, you build a solid foundation for your business.

Second, you find the PMF.

Third, you scale.

Unless…

Test, iterate, repeat.

And may the odds be ever in your favor.

Writing this post from the middle of Kazakhstan's Siberia, a little town of Serebryansk where my wife was born. We got here after spending two years in Portugal and trying to do business in a new market, eventually failing.

What led us here:
1. Lisbon is crazy expensive. Third-world countries are not cheap anymore.
2. Don't even try to do business with Europe.
3. Don't confuse the existing problem with the willingness to solve it.
3. Selling without proof is impossible.
4. Selling a complex service takes a lot of trust, which is impossible in the beginning.

What we'll do differently:

1. Go lean as hell: we'll stay at our grandma's and eat local affordable food, which was impossible in Portugal (the cheapest house, food, and bills would require a minimum monthly income of 1500 EUR).
2. Build with help from the community.
3. Offer cheap work with exceptional quality to earn trust, gain experience, and learn from doing, not from listening to somebody.
4. Target people who are already investing in the solution.
5. Our service must be niche, simple, and easy.

Our plan:

1. We'll do what EVERY business needs: a great website with a clear offer and undeniable proof, with a few tweaks (will share more later).
2. Build in public with full transparency via posting on Reddit, Twitter, LinkedIn, Indie Hackers, and Hacker News + our newsletter.
3. Give more than take: we'll share our industry insights, lessons, and expertise to help others avoid our mistakes.

We're starting over with just $500 in our bank accounts, so if you want to support us, you can do it in two ways:
Donate on GoFundMe (where you can also read a bit more about our story) and spread the page: https://gofund.me/0a07b4ba

Buy our services before we officially launch:

Copywriting/Marketing/Positioning

The price depends on the amount of research needed.
Case study writing: $300 — $700
Landing page copy: $500 — $3,500
Content writing: interviews, articles, manifestos: $300 — $600
Some examples: https://lnkd.in/g2AiBz5T

Web Design/Web Development — $40/hour
Web Design
Web Development
Webflow
React, Next.js, Astro, Vercel, TypeScript, Sanity
Web 3D and animations: Spline, Three.js, GSAP, Motion
Some examples:
https://www.pzk.design/ ~$1,500
https://catia.webflow.io/ ~$1,000
https://www.asaonze.com/ ~$2,000
https://lnkd.in/gchdfX8k ~$400/animation

The launch is on the 20th of June, and we'll be posting every day.

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