BM—07 / POSITIONING / EN The Foundation · work 01

Nobody asks for positioning. People ask for the symptom.

TO WHOM · WHAT YOU PROMISE · AGAINST WHOM · IN WHICH WORDS

The request comes as “I want better copy”, “I want a site that sells” or “I want more clients”. My first question isn't about the copy, it's about who buys. If you can't answer in two sentences, with an income threshold and a moment that makes them buy, the copy has nothing to stand on. That's where I start, even if it isn't where you asked.

I learned that a brand is like a person: it opens up, and its good sides show in front of the right people. Only someone who appreciates specialty coffee pays for 40 ml what people usually pay for a kilogram. So the first job is to see who knows how to appreciate you.

The result of an undecided message isn't that it looks bad. It's that the right people walk past you because they don't recognise you, while the wrong ones come in, take up time and leave.

01 — The order BM—07.1 / WHY FIRST

First what you promise and to whom. Only then, how it looks.

The visual part (logo, colours, typography) is the consequence, not the starting point. And here that matters twice over: the machine produces seventy-seven pieces a month and has no way of knowing what “yours” means if nobody wrote it down.

A strategic brand answers three things: what you promise, who you promise it to, and why they should pick you over the alternative. When the answers exist in writing, everything that comes after (site, ads, content) costs less and converts better, because it isn't reinvented every time.

When they don't exist, exactly what you see everywhere happens: each channel sells something different. The ad promises speed, the site promises quality, Instagram promises friendliness. None of it is wrong. Together, though, they don't add up to a single idea anybody could remember a week later.

David C. Baker puts it briefly: positioning isn't what you say, it's what they believe about you. The test below has four buttons. If you hesitate on any of them, that's the first thing to work on, not the logo.

02 — The test BM—07.2 / FOUR BUTTONS

Four questions. Answer them out loud.

What do they see when they find you? The first five seconds on the site or on Instagram decide whether they stay. Is it clear who you're addressing, or is it a catalogue?

Why you and not somebody else? “We have quality products” hasn't been an answer for ten years. You need a real differentiator — what you have and the others don't.

Do clients believe you're better? Not what you say — what they believe. With no concrete proof, the perception stays “I don't know, probably the same as the rest”.

What place do you hold in their mind? If the answer is “the cheapest” or “the fastest”, you're a commodity. If it's “the one who understands my problem”, price is no longer the first question.

If you hesitated on two out of four, you don't have a design problem. You have a positioning problem, and a new logo will only wrap it more beautifully.

03 — The work BM—07.3 / WHAT YOU BUY

One piece of work, with a beginning and an end.

A project, not a subscription: it ends, and it stays yours whatever comes next.

01 — PositioningThree weeks

Who you sell to, what you say, in which words.

The foundation documents, written with you in interviews, not filled in by me from a template. They come out of your head, only ordered.

On request

Three categories of people you help, each with their own situation and their own alternative to you.
The verbal architecture: three messages, each with one sentence and one concrete example.
The voice, checked against HAIL: what you say, what you don't, how it sounds when you get something wrong.
The documents go into Brain, so the machine reads them on every piece.

It can be taken separately. The next step is visual identity, which starts from what was decided here. Together with it, with Web and with Media production it makes up the complete Foundation, which costs less as one project than piece by piece. It's assisted work, run in Romanian; the price comes on request. Details on the services page.

04 — The voice BM—07.4 / HAIL

Four letters that decide whether your writing sounds like you.

Julian Treasure gathered them into HAIL. I use them as a checklist on every text written for a client — including the ones produced automatically.

Honesty You say what you do, what you don't, what it costs, how long it takes. No inflated promises. It's felt quickly, in both directions.

Authenticity It sounds like you, not like a corporation. The pressure to “be cool like X” makes you sound like everybody else.

Integrity When you're wrong, you admit it. When you change something, you announce it. When you don't know, you say “I don't know, but I'll find out”.

Love — real care Not in the romantic sense. The brands we remember don't manipulate us, they help us — and it shows in every line.

05 — How I work BM—07.5 / STEP BY STEP

Seven steps, in the order in which each rests on the one before.

At every step I tell you what I do, what stays written down, what you decide and how long it takes. Steps 01–06 take two to three weeks together, with you available; step 07, a few days. The real bottleneck isn't the writing: it's the approvals and the interviews.

What you asked for and what you need

What happens: I ask who your client is. If you can't answer in two sentences, with an income threshold and a moment that makes them buy, you don't yet have a place to put the copy. Then I read everything you've already written: site, sales pages, proposals you sent, posts. Not to criticise you, but to see what you believe about your own product when nobody is asking you directly.
What comes out: A written analysis of the existing material and one sentence about where we actually start.
What you decide: If we don't start where you asked, I tell you explicitly and tell you why. If you insist, I do what you ask, but it stays on record that I flagged it.
How long it takes: Part of the two to three weeks of steps 01–06.

Who you're talking to

What happens: I list four to six plausible segments and write, for each, how big it is, what hurts, what budget it has, how it buys and who else serves it. We set the selection criteria before scoring, so we don't score until we get what we already wanted. Then I ask you, separately from the scores, whom you want to serve, because you will be delivering for years.
What comes out: One segment, one income threshold and one trigger moment, in writing.
What you decide: You confirm the threshold, in figures. If the scores and your conviction don't match, that's where the conversation is: I don't overwrite either one.
How long it takes: Part of the two to three weeks of steps 01–06.

What you can deliver today

What happens: I take stock of what really works for you now, against what is still being built. Without it, I either write too cautiously or promise things that don't exist.
What comes out: The inventory and the working premise, written and dated: either we write only what you deliver today, or we start from everything you say is valid and design towards where you're heading.
What you decide: You choose the premise, and I write it down with a date so it isn't forgotten. The limit is the same whichever you choose: the premise says what we design, not what we send out into the world. Nothing is published until you confirm it's true.
How long it takes: Part of the two to three weeks of steps 01–06.

Their words, not mine

What happens: I collect how people in your segment talk about the problem (forums, comments, reviews, transcripts), copied, not paraphrased. I look at who else sells the same thing, with what promise, at what price and with what mechanism. I check every figure back to the original document. And I write the questions for the interviews with your real clients, in order.
What comes out: Their words, the map of competitors, the figures with sources and the set of interview questions.
What you decide: The interviews depend on you: you give me access to the people we talk to. If they get postponed, we don't block the rest. I hand over the questions and move on, but it stays written down that they're missing.
How long it takes: The interviews set the pace: they're the most valuable material and the one most often postponed. The rest is part of the two to three weeks of steps 01–06.

The four documents

What happens: I write them in order, each feeding on the one before. First the research document: the synthesis of the steps above, what kind of promise the market is already immune to, how much the person knows about the problem and why their solutions fail in a way they haven't heard. Then one single person, not a segment: their day, what they tell themselves at 11 p.m., what they've already tried. Then the offer in brief: what you sell, to whom, with what mechanism, at what price. Finally, at most six things they must believe in order to buy, in the order in which they get installed. The one about money always comes last.
What comes out: Four documents, plus one sentence that contains everything.
What you decide: You read the four documents and confirm the person: “that's my client”. If not, we go back to step 02. It's cheap now and expensive after the copy has been written.
How long it takes: Part of the two to three weeks of steps 01–06.

The offer and the price

What happens: I separate what is human work from what is system or product, and we decide whether they're sold one after the other or in parallel. We set a single mandatory component, the real entry price: the full package is the ceiling, not the barrier. We derive the prices from what you already practise (your published list and the last proposal sent to a real client), not from the market average. For every price line I ask who does the work and how much fits in your capacity. I package by outcome, not by deliverable: what disappears from the client's life, not “12 posts a month”.
What comes out: The architecture of the offer, with the derivation of every price in plain view, so you can challenge them one by one. And a negotiation floor, written explicitly.
What you decide: The prices and the floor are yours. I propose and show where each figure comes from; you challenge it or accept it.
How long it takes: Part of the two to three weeks of steps 01–06.

The name, and checking it against what is already public

What happens: I give you four or five name options, each tried out on real sentences from the page, with what you gain and lose in each, and one recommended. A name that does double duty (it's both a name and one of the things the person must believe) beats a name that just sounds better. Then I check what is published now, not what the documents say: I list every conflict between the new offer and what is live, and I mark what already works and must not be touched. I don't switch off a contact capture that works in order to replace it with something unproven.
What comes out: The chosen name, the list of conflicts with what is public (each with a resolution or a question for you) and the page-by-page plan.
What you decide: You choose the name. For every conflict, the resolution or the question is yours. And before anything is published, you confirm that every promised figure is true in practice, not just on paper.
How long it takes: A few days, at the end, after the four documents and the offer.

The texts that come out of these documents (the site, the capture page) are written in the Web work, on this basis. Before the text, you approve the page structure: 3,000 words written on the wrong structure all get thrown away.

06 — What I refuse to do BM—07.6 / WHAT I REFUSE

Rules drawn from real mistakes, not from theory.

These aren't style preferences. They're things I got wrong once, when I built the Boosted Mode positioning, and haven't done since.

I don't start where you asked if nothing can come out of it If your request can't be solved in the form it came in, I tell you so in writing, at the start. If you still want it that way, I do it, but it's noted that I flagged it.

I put no figure in without a source Statistics from marketing blogs are guilty until proven otherwise. At Boosted Mode I caught two widely quoted figures that the primary sources contradicted. If I can't find the original document, the figure doesn't go in the text.

I don't invent things in your place Delivery volume, contract length, exit terms, testimonials, results: if you haven't confirmed them, a marked gap stays. A text can be finished with marked gaps. It can't be finished with lies.

I don't rely on internal documents without checking them Internal documents lie, because they age: they contain products that no longer exist and fees removed in the meantime. Before I derive anything from them, I check what is published live or the document actually sent.

I don't take prices from the market average I start from your published list and from the last proposal sent to a real client: that's where the prices you had the courage to ask for are. The market average is context, not a source.

I don't fix a price without asking who does the work If the work is yours, the price is your time, and what's sold has to be closed into counted pieces, not weeks. “Two weeks of editing” isn't a scope, it's a hole.

I don't cut something from the offer without asking who it exists for A small service may be for a buyer who otherwise wouldn't buy anything. Most of the time the fix isn't deleting it but the order in which it's shown: it stays, but not on the main path.

I don't promise results I don't guarantee growth, sales or followers. How much somebody else's audience buys isn't mine to promise, in any wording.

I don't switch off what works to put something unproven in its place If you already have a contact capture that brings people in now, I don't take it out to replace it with a piece that isn't published yet.

I publish nothing until you confirm it's true The working premise says what we design, not what we send out into the world. Every promised figure passes through you before it goes out.

07 — After BM—07.7 / WHAT STAYS

The documents stay yours. The machine reads them on every piece.

The documents Positioning, messaging and voice, written down. They stay yours and you can hand them to anyone, another agency included.

The machine, fed The documents go into Brain. From there, every piece produced starts from your positioning, not from a generic prompt.

The guide, as a PDF

The branding guide, in one document.

To read offline or send to your team. It starts immediately, not in three days.

One email, on request. I don't add you to any list and I don't pass the address on — see the privacy policy.

Do you know who you're talking to?

In a twenty-minute conversation I'll tell you whether the answers already exist in writing. And if you don't need positioning, I'll tell you that too.

Let's talk Or see all the pricing and visual identity.