 Hello Aces, welcome back to module 7, lesson number 1, positioning your brand for some explosive growth. In this lesson, we're going to cover the three free tactics that's going to position to grow your restaurant. So make sure you guys dive in, take notes. What is brand positioning? First and foremost, I'm going to explain the theory behind what brand positioning is. So it is basically the image of your brand, how your customers feel and perceive about your brand. When we think about Chipotle, we're thinking about quality, we're thinking about healthy, we're thinking about much better than Tackle Bells because you're wanting that healthy fast food. So that's really what you think about in Chipotle and it comes at no surprise and it's not something that is accidentally you fall into this feeling. It doesn't come accidentally that they have lettuce and the greens and the beans in the corn and the brown to give you the feeling of being healthy, yet it is fast food. So everything that you have been doing in the modules one to six plays a huge role in how your customers see you from the values, from the wise to the mission statement, value proposition, all these things to the branding, the designs and the communication that you have with your team. All of this plays into the role of how your customers see you. We talked about the multiple different touch points. The more you can actually intendfully craft the experience for each of these touch points, the better you're going to be able to see your brand positioning. And that's the reason why we covered everything from module one to six before we talk about what brand positioning is. If you already have gone through all those modules and lessons and now you're here, you can actually leverage what I'm going to be sharing with you to position your brand for some explosive growth. So for example, your food and beverage may be positioned as a luxury status symbol or even just a trendy place to hang out. And that's how people see you as that's your brand positioning. Now why is brand positioning crucial for your success? Why is it important guys? Like you may be thinking, yes, I get what brand positioning is. I get it, but why do our customers care for us to build a successful restaurant? Let me ask you this. What feelings does these brand invoke in you? Domino's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, Coffee, Second Cup. So we understand these are all big brands. What is that one common feeling that it gives you? The common feeling is the fact that we can trust them. We can trust their coffee. We can trust the fact that they can uplift the status symbol because of the values, because of the way that it's positioned. It's not the cheapest coffee. It's not the best coffee. But when you're holding a cup of Starbucks, you can trust that there is a status symbol associated with it. You can trust that when you're holding it, other people will see you a little bit differently. That's trust. Trusting in what values and what is their value proposition that they deliver. Same thing with Domino's. You can trust for the fact that they will have your pizza the same way it is every single time and delivered to your door within 30 minutes. Otherwise, it's free. You can trust that on them. You can trust that on a game night. You call Domino's. They're not going to be like, yo, I'm out of pizza boxes or, hey, you know what, I'm out of pepperoni. You can trust that they'll give you your pizza and your wings on a game day. That's trust because every brand has a different type of value proposition and different types of values. But nonetheless, you trust that they can deliver on what they promise. And that's the reason why you buy from them. Trust, guys. Super, super important. Positioning provides trust. And trust is the only thing that matters when it comes to a purchase decision. So if I'm on a date and I'm trying to impress my wife and I want to be able to hit this new trendy spot, I need to trust that your restaurant can provide me with that experience. And if you could, then I'll come over. I'm not going to the cheapest place. I'm not trying to spend the least amount of money. No, if I know I can pay a premium to deliver this type of experience that I can wow my wife, I can provide a great experience to her, then I'm willing to pay that premium because I can trust that your restaurant is my solution. Positioning allows you to compete on value, guys, not price. And that's really, really important. What do I mean by that? Value is much more important to compete on than price, because if you're competing on price, if that's your value proposition, you're driving everything to the ground. Just like how Uber Eats is willing to pay $50 just to acquire a customer. Do you have $50 just to give out to acquire customers? You can't because competing on price is the surest and fastest way to run YouTube bankruptcy. We never, ever want to compete on price. We don't want to compete on price saying that, hey, you know what? It's only $199 for a slice of pizza. We don't want to do that because you're not going to make any money and it's only going to hurt you. We always, always want to compete on value. What is the value that you bring to your customer? That is really important. And that also allows you to not just charge more, but it allows you to build brand equity, which allows you to sell in the future. That's the reason why you want to be able to position based on values, not price. Now let's dive right into the triple A tactics to position your brand for some explosive growth. So we talked about what brand positioning is and why it's super important. We're going to go into the tactics on how you can actually build your brand positioning and put yourself this much higher than your competitors. Number one are awards, guys. Any type of awards are better than none. So if you're looking at, hey, you know what? Do I need to have top of the country award? No, you don't need that. Any type of award, once again, is better than none. So it allows you to be compared to the players in the game. And it also gives you the social status and this credibility. So much goodness comes into you winning any type of awards. For us, this is our first year of business and we were compared to the two top dessert places in Vancouver. We're in business six months only and this company is a premium dessert place and this is a premium dessert place as well in Vancouver for more than 10 years. And yet we are being positioned right in between them. So imagine people reading this and imagine us being able to share this within our social media and so on and so forth. How would people perceive us when they can see that? Oh, wow. This new brand is being compared to Thomas Haas. That's a top brand in Vancouver. That's social status. That's what gives trust. Trust that, oh, wow, their dessert must be pretty good in order for them to be talked side by side with one of the top players in town. Pro tip number one is that for a fact, you won't be nominated for any of these awards. So you will have to seek them out and apply. So for this award, we actually knew that we wanted to apply. We applied and we told all our friends and family to vote, vote, vote. And that's how we got up there because we were very intentful with us and with the strategy. We knew we wanted the strategy whereas these companies, they're not gonna be pushing forward for people to vote because they've been in the industry for so long. They clearly don't care, but yet their customers would vote for them. For you as a newcomer, always get your families rally everyone up and to vote and to make sure you win that award, okay? Seek out the awards within your area to stack on your credibility and you can apply for the most novel ice cream award with local magazines. That's the tip is to apply to your local magazines because oftentimes not a lot of people read those but then the whole idea here is not that you want your award to be shown to a lot of people on the magazines and stuff. You wanna be able to win the award and then let's say for example this award and you wanna post it on your social media. You wanna post it when people walk by on your windowsill. This is the reason why we need these awards. Second, articles. Articles are also great, always great if they are from well-known publications in town. In module 7.2, in the next lesson we're gonna cover how you're gonna find these outlets and how you're gonna approach the journalists so then that way they will write articles for you for free guys. For us, we got featured alongside some of our major competitors right when we got started, right? Which helped people to compare our food with the competitors automatically. It uplifts our status to the premium brands and when we're able to do this we skip the years of building and the years of turmoil just to be on top and to be side by side with them. People are talking about us side by side already. So imagine you have a coffee shop and people are comparing you to Starbucks. Just imagine that. When an article compares your brand new coffee shop with Starbucks saying that, hey, you know what? You may be a little bit shy of quality with Starbucks but you're still very good. That itself is a huge compliment to a new brand like yours, like mine. And that's basically what we had. When we first started it allowed us to fast track our growth. So you can do the same thing with reaching out to publications, journalists for these articles. And at the same time, if you feel like, hey, you know what, I don't wanna reach out. I have budget to spend, then you know what? So be it, you can actually pay for these articles and we'll go over this in the next lesson as well. Next up, number three, association. The third A guys, what does association means? It means that you need to actually associate yourself with associations that have values that are aligned with yours, okay? Because a lot of customers will look into the associations that you support and will support you because of you supporting them, because they believe in the same cause, which is the reason why it's so important for us to list out our values, mission statement, value proposition, all these things that we've been doing it from module one to module six, super crucial for us. We were supporting Greek Day on Broadway. Why are we supporting this association? It is because within our area that demographic is heavily Greek people, okay? That's the reason why we supported them. And on top of that, our values were very aligned with this association. And for us, we felt like that we wanna be able to be engulfed and integrated within the community because that's who we are. We did a lot of major events and we hosted a bunch of giveaways. And basically we did the four pillars, the four golden pillars to drive consistent and predictable results. And that's what we did, getting involved in these associations. Pro tip number two, be authentic with this. I'm telling you and sharing this with you because people see right through it. If you're just supporting organizations just for the sake of, hey, there's a brand awareness and a brand association, people see right through it. They think that it's bullshit and they're not gonna like it, okay? And they're not gonna support you. You truly will have to live the values otherwise it's just not gonna work, okay? So for us, we truly believe in supporting Greek Day on Broadway because it's basically ingrained in us to support our community and we have so many values that are aligned and that's why it was a successful matchup. So choosing association that you can be authentic with. So if you believe in sustainability then you could potentially partner up with OceanWise. Basically, it's a seafood sustainability program that allows you to not overfarm for fishes and to only offer seafood that are sourced from a sustainable manner. So if you buy these kind of fishes, you would have a logo that you can use on your menu and for the people that believe in sustainability they will come over and they'll be like, I really, really enjoy the cause that you're fighting for and I'll buy from you and I'll become a loyal fan because this is what I believe in, not a lot of places do that. That's the result that we're gonna go for. In this lesson, we just covered with you the three free tactics to position your restaurant for some explosive growth. In the next lesson, we're gonna cover the two advanced positioning tactics to grow your restaurant, okay? So in the link below, make sure you download the resources sheet. Otherwise, I'll see you guys in the next lesson.