F*ck you, I'm busy

Four super important words. Here's why.

Hey 👋

Welcome to the first edition of Brandish

Your guide to crafting an iconic brand

I'm super pumped to write this newsletter, and I hope you're equally as pumped to read it.

Before we jump into the content itself, I just wanted to take a moment to tell you what I have in store for you + what you can expect from this newsletter.

1) In case you didn't see it on Twitter, I'm launching a video series called "Roast my designs". It's pretty self-explanatory. You sign up - and you get your design roasted in public.

But

You also leave with valuable feedback that you can use to become better.

If you want to volunteer for this, then reply to this email or hit my Twitter DM's

2) I don't want my newsletter to be "yet-another-one".

By any means.

Because I HATE yet-another-ones

So I'll need your help in shaping the world's most valuable newsletter about branding & design.

This is what I need you to do:

If you have anything you HATE about other newsletters, then reply to this email and tell me.

If there's ever a point where you HATE something about my newsletter, then reply to this email and tell me.

If there's ever anything you LOVE about my newsletter, then reply to this email and tell me.

You get the point..

You help with shaping this newsletter.

Alright, that was enough of an intro..

Grab your Brez, kick your feet up, and let's get it

The most simple AND difficult concept in branding

"You can't be everything to everyone."

Pretty simple to understand, right?

Yet you'd be surprised by the number of brands who fail miserably at just being ONE thing for ONE select group of customers.

Here are two reasons why I think that is:

A) They're lazy, and they don't want to make an actual brand strategy

B) They rather want to grab quick cash than say, "you know what, this is not us. We don't need to sell this. Let someone else sell this"

Let me give you a few examples;

What's a Chevrolet?

A Chevrolet is a large, small, cheap, expensive car or truck.

What's a Miller?

A Miller is a regular, light, draft, cheap, expensive beer.

You see what I mean?

You can't really answer what they are and what they sell with 1-2 words.

Instead, they're a little bit of everything.

… and for that same reason - they can't occupy a single place inside the customer's mind

So instead of placing them in the "Best Product for XYZ" category, they place them in the "yet-another-one" category.

I think the best way to show you what I mean is by showing some examples from GREAT brands:

Instead of an expensive Swiss watch, you can ask for a Rolex.

Instead of a safe car, you can ask for a Volvo.

Instead of a fast supercar, you can ask for a Lamborghini.

Similar to how Rolex doesn't try to cater to broke people, your brand shouldn't try to cater to everybody on the planet with a credit card (exaggeration promotes understanding)

Here's the TL;DR of this section

Trying to be everything for everyone weakens your brand and makes sure you can't occupy a single place in the customers' mind.

So don't try to be everything to everyone.

Period.

F*ck you, I'm busy.

Vagueness has killed more brands than anything else.

Literally.

… And if you can't clearly articulate the following things to your customers - you'll die too.

1) Why should they care

2) Why should they trust you?

3) Why should they buy from you and not someone else?

4) Why should they buy from you today and not tomorrow

If you're lucky, you have 15 seconds to explain all of this.

If you're unlucky, you'll get a solid 3 seconds before they've forgotten everything about you.

This is why I like to run any messaging through the "F*ck you, I'm busy" test.

It's pretty simple.

You just ask yourself:

"Will this message get my customers to stop and think…

Hey, this could actually make my life better - let me check it out.

Or

Will they say, "F*ck you, I'm busy"

If it’s the latter, then you need to go back and review your message.

F*ck you, Ankit, I'm busy too.

Yeah, I know.

Me too.

Which is why I don't want to make this newsletter longer than it has to be.

Every week, I'll give you 2-3 digestible bites of knowledge and then tell myself to F*ck off.

Because I respect your time and know that you're busy.

Now, this week was a little bit different because I had to introduce the newsletter - but going forward, I want to keep this newsletter as lean & mean as possible.

Thanks for reading

I appreciate that you took the time to read this newsletter, and I hope to see you again next week 🤙