How Cooking Fjiatas on Tuesday in My Boxers whilst to Kanye West and Dolly Parton Taught Me ONE Hack About Brand Positioning

How Cooking Fajitas on Tuesday in My GymShark Boxers listening to Kanye West & Dolly Parton Taught Me ONE Hack About Brand Positioning

My Golly, Golly God…. please…. for one second… tell me…yes…YOU.. RIGHT NOW…yes… YOU… is there anything better in life than Tuesday’s and Fajitas ?

Growing up it was my Mum’s Second Best Dinner.
Home Run.
Six.
Out the park.

First, obvs, was Spag Bol with Garlic Bread (hard to top isn’t it?)

Unfortunately, her Casserole was a Casket of Dull. A slaughtered cloying pile of atrociously-anaemic wank. And, anything Jacket Potato related. No Fank Thuuuuu.

Anyhoo, I was cooking up Fajitas. Suddenly, everything about brand positioning made sense.

Yo bro. Before you ask… it was none of that El Paso Out-The-Packet-IKEA-Flat-Pack-Wank-For-Your-Tastebuds.

Nah bro, this proper El Mexi-fuckin-Cana, boiiiiiiiii-sheeee. Aribaaaaaa, Aribaaaa.

I whacked on my Spotify “Minimal Taco Tech House and Furiously Ferocious Fajitas Club mix”.

I always knewDuo lingo Training would come in handy.

“Hola Siri, Donde Esta La Certy Bangers, Mi Senorio?”

#DuoLengTho

Whipping up my guacamole:: perfect milky green cream :: like Portugese golf courses under sparkling ::: fizzy :: sunshine.

Aromatic aroma of brilliantly burnished red and yellow and green peppers smouldering in my wok. WokTheFuck

A song charges out the speakers like a pack of drooling, bug-eyed race hounds.

A song that SHOULDN’T be on my Minimal Taco Tech House and Furiously Ferocious Fjaitas Club Mix (Hey Siri, note to self… please remove off playlist… can’t have that at (various) Hackney Squat Rave.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
I'm begging of you please don't take my man
Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene

My mind, immediately, harked and scurried back to the first podcast I did with Strategy Sensei, Alex Smith

Alex said, “Dolly Parton, defines strategy in LITERALLY one sentence”

“Find out who you are. Do it on purpose.”

Seems simple, right?
Too simple, maybe?

Find out who you are.
Do it on purpose.

But, how do you find out who you are?
Then do it on purpose

I ravenously scoffed back the 15th Fjaitas like a parched sleepy dumpster truck. That’s when the answer came.

The next song drifted out the speakers as I built my 15th Fajitas like Van Smokers Cough - layer of sour cream, peppers, chicken, chorizo (chh-reee-thoo if you’re a twat)

Kanye West.

Love Kayne. Hate Kanye. You cannae deny Kanye.

The song: “Everything I am”

A lyric:

Everything I am made me everything I am not

So simple.
And, the answer to Dolly’s “find out who you are”

“Everything I’m Not, is Everything I am.”

As a brand and founder: the easiest way to find out what you are, is by finding out what you’re not.

1. Set Anti-goals

2. Realise love and hate are LITERALLY the same thing in branding

3. Positioning against something

4. Whats your disagreement position?

Very similar to Charlie Munger’s Inversion Rule. It’s much easier to stand for something when you know what you’re standing against.

GymShark is a great example. Came on this on LinkedIn (easy now, I’m not that addicted to LinkedIn)

"We're Gymshark.

We make gym stuff, and only gym stuff.
Built from the squat rack, not the running track.
We’re not good at everything, we’re great at one thing.’Cause we were born in the gym, and stayed in the gym."

NOT the running track.
NOT good at everything.

Everything I am not

Built from the squat rack, not the running track.
We’re not good at everything.

Made me everything I am

We make gym stuff, and only gym stuff.
we’re great at one thing.
’Cause we were born in the gym, and stayed in the gym."
Everything I am not made me everything I am.

The Strategy lessons from Kanye West and Dolly Parton:

Dolly Parton: Find Out Who You Are. Do It On Purpose.

Salute my G

P-Dizzle The 5th

Still Hungry? Course you are…

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4. How Grenade Exited to Mondelez for £200 Million and Lessons in Unapologetic Authenticity- Juliett Baratt

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