Stand The F*ck Out (STFO) by Everyone Hates Marketers is an 8-week high-intensity online workshop designed for risk-takers who want to radically stand out from a sea of competitors and attract customers they love and respect.
I couldn't see it from the lens of my buyer. I wanted to figure this buyer research thing out because I had been percolating over it for two years. I had an obsession with this idea that comes back and attacks me every now and then.
I tried to launch this product and shared it with a whole bunch of different people. I had a bunch of conversations with people who I thought should buy this, but no one understood it.
I just had some spreadsheets with process ideas and questions to myself. And I had a failed landing page that didn't generate the business that I was looking to generate.
...before I'd even finished STFO.
I now have insights into a little area that could be mine.
The whole process of coming through and bringing this thing to life was so exciting for me. Because it's something I've been so excited about bringing to life and I just couldn't figure out how to do it before.
I have a better understanding of what exists in the market and what the unmet needs are. I have insights into a little area that could be mine very profitably and in a very differentiated way.
I do a lot of stuff all at the same time. For example, I'm taking Spanish lessons, at six in the morning, a few times a week. I'm doing a lot of work right now.
I took on this new buyer research, like a test pilot project, which is taking me three times the time. But that doesn't mean you don't take opportunities that are really good when they come. I think STFO was just like one of those opportunities, whereas it felt right.
The last person who did that is a really smart researcher with 20 years of experience working at Gartner. Radical differentiation is a concept that everyone needs to get their head around. Everyone needs to get this. It is the most important thing marketers should be thinking about.
They're thinking about their competitors and they're thinking that's how they differentiate, but real differentiation, which I love, is really about understanding your customers and figuring out what they're tired of and what they're sick of.
You don't get the insight from the competitors. You get the insight from your customers. And so that kernel of it is what I think a lot of marketers are missing.
I know that such a mean thing to say, but I'm just being fully honest. There are so many people who are just trying to build their careers versus actually serve customers.
I love the people that I met through STFO. I think they're super cool. Even though we weren't all selling to the same types of customers, there was very genuine respect for humanity and care for the people that they're serving in a very authentic way that just really spoke to me.
I really appreciated the thoughts and reflections I got from some of the other participants as well (not just you Louis).
I also liked the way you shaped those conversations. They were empathetic, but they were also “Cut the crap. You can figure this out.”
...no one, not even positioning and branding experts, explain how to *actually* do it.
That, my friend, is up to you to figure out.
I know the feeling.
It sounds almost comical but it has real implications:
You feel like something is missing but you can't put your finger on it. You've worked hard for years without the returns you were expecting.
You work on projects that do not excite you anymore. You've fallen into a routine that has sucked the creativity out of you.
You struggle to sell what you currently offer. You have a tough time explaining what makes you unique and what specific market you serve.
There are a lot of these storytelling courses where they all say “You need to find the unique positioning, and you need to tell a story about your brand.” And that was my biggest objection.
I didn't want it to be another one of those courses that you just buy.
And luckily it was not.
I needed to get clarity on how to position our agency in conjunction with our content that we send out every week.
And how all of these fit together. This was really not clear to me.
That’s why I signed up.
I was reading all those books, like Blue Ocean Strategy and all that, but it never clicked for me. It made me maybe feel tired and lose motivation a little bit.
It might seem like a luxury problem, but it isn't really. It's just tiresome to constantly every single time to send out a newsletter or record a podcast and ask yourself, “What is it that you're trying to do?”
I just didn't have that before. I have a story that connects with people and that I now use in sales calls.
I had a sales call with a lead last week and I could just immediately connect with her on the fact that I know how it feels to be a new marketing leader.
I think we’ve got the contract because of it.
...to learn a step-by-step repeatable process of how to narrow down my target audience and craft a unique positioning for my segment or niche that I can actually own.
It just makes me feel like very relieved because I don't have to think about how I'm going to do this every single time for the rest of my life.
It ultimately gave me the clarity that I needed.
Nope.
It's designed around 3 core principles...
You will learn timeless principles of business, psychology, and marketing. In other words, the WHY behind the WHAT.
Those mental models will stay with you for the rest of your career. After STFO, you will be in a position to make your own decisions without doubting yourself.
I've removed the fluff so every concept is simple to understand. You're going to feel like everything just "clicks" together.
The responsibility is then on you to do the work and ship, every week; and that, my friend, is not easy.
There's a reason why I run STFO twice a year — I give everything I've got for you to succeed. You're joining a community of folks with the same values.
It's also your responsibility to care personally for each member and while challenging them directly with thoughtful feedback.
When this came out, I was like, “Oh, I want to do it.” And I was talking with my wife, “I don't even know if I have the time."
I have marketed in isolation. I don't really meet up with people, not around marketing. I just live in my own world. I worked on this company and it proved successful, but I felt the process was messy.
I couldn’t do this again with a new product of just walking in the fog. I wanted a roadmap. I wanted structure. And that's something you always did with the podcast. You gave a step-by-step structure. And when it comes to launching a product, I wanted to see what a roadmap was like from you.
Once I made that mental commitment, I was like, “I'll just make time, whatever!”
The one thing I was not sure about was how you built the skills of a marketer, and the limitations, and the mental health aspect of being able to act on that roadmap.
I thought that was really clever.
I walked away with just a really clear step-by-step roadmap, which is an incredible feeling to have. I walked about with a precise positioning of our product. You really walked me through a competitor’s weaknesses, the customer wants, even the customer vernacular around the product. All these things, I was able to gather in eight weeks in a very clear way.
And I don't just mean positioning in marketing speak. I mean, positioning it for my understanding of the product. So I can have a lot of creative spring off of that.
If you have a quality product, you can just be totally transparent and make it interesting.
There's a lot of people who are just selling inspiration. I didn't know if I was just being overly moral. And coming across your podcast was just validation for me.
There was more inside of the program, more content, more strategy, more thought put into it than I had anticipated. I was thinking, what you would pull off in eight weeks was going to be probably modules one, two, and three. And that's it.
The promises you make about your podcast crystallized into a class. No bullshit, actionable, no fluff. It's a strong and true brand, and you put it into a class.
Do you believe you don't have to bullshit people to sell? Do you care about the customers you seek to serve (instead of just trying to build your career)? Are you a take-charge kind of person who doesn’t want to do what everyone else is doing?
Yes?
Then STFO might be for you.
To be more precise, you are likely to be a great fit if you are:
...who wants to scale their business but lacks a clear direction.
You want a laser-focused strategy to go with your tactics rather than making it up as you go.
...who's launching a new product or service in a saturated market.
You want to validate your market, your offer, and your differentiation before going all-in.
...who wants to help their business scale or launch a new product.
You want to work alongside your founder/CEO, influence what you're selling, and clarify your company’s positioning.
Throughout the week: Receive feedback from Louis and your peers on your work because you can rarely read the label when you're inside the jar.
Participate in candid discussions with the other students and give them feedback.
*During your application, you will be asked to pick one of two timezone options:
Option A
8am Dublin time to accommodate folks based in Europe, Asia, Africa, Asia, and Oceania.
This translates to London 8am, Paris 9am, Delhi 1:30pm, Sydney 7pm.
Option B
4.30pm Dublin time to accommodate folks based in Europe and America.
This translates to Paris 5:30pm, Los Angeles 8:30am, New York 11:30am, Rio de Janeiro 1:30pm.
Here's a snapshot of what you're going to learn over our 8 weeks together.
I pay close attention to the feedback I'm receiving from STFO alumni, so the content is likely to evolve from cohort to cohort.
Week 1: Challenging your self-limiting beliefs
Week 2: Using your time, energy, and talent more effectively
Week 3: Defining your minimum viable market (part 1)
Week 4: Defining your minimum viable market (part 2)
Week 5: Defining your status quo
Week 6: Engineering your radical differentiation
Week 7: Jolting people into action
Week 8: Building your brand to attract customers for years to come
Everyone is screaming out on the roofs, saying, “This technique is the best and it's the new thing you should do!” And then this person’s saying the exact opposite. And it's just so noisy. No one is talking about the fundamentals, right?
Forget about the internet, forget about anything, what is evergreen? And I felt that STFO was going to be that evergreen thing that was completely different from all the shiny things.
Before STFO, we didn't know exactly who was within our segment. It was so wide and so open.
We didn't know who to target online. And that was always in the back of my mind, “Maybe it's okay to cast a wide net and attract as many people as we can?”
It really felt like we didn't know where to go or what communities to activate. We just hadn’t done our homework.
Now that I've taken the program, I realized that we probably would have lost years and years lost business just because we would have been so general, so vanilla that no one would have really believed in such a small company.
STFO really saved us potentially months or years of not being well positioned.
To see the effects of all the work from the previous weeks being finally emerging together into that unified differentiation that we can activate and use as part of our strategy was amazing.
Now it's making sense for my own business and I see how to do this now. And this is freaking cool.
Now, whatever we do is based on very solid foundations and a very specific segment.
We know exactly who to activate actually. We know that we have to go for this blog, this blog, and this blog, this forum, and so on. It helped tremendously, too, to know how to focus our efforts as founders.
That's super interesting because there were several feedback loops. There was a feedback loop within the private forum. Then there was a feedback loop during the weekly calls. You created this group dynamic in a way that was genuine and that helped people really put it to practice, get that feedback, iterate, and close the loop.
...wondering if you will gain at the end of this program the answer is absolutely yes. So just do it, just trust that there will be a huge gap between where you are now and where you will be after.
There will be a lot of work involved but just freaking take that course and see the results for yourself.
You care as a mentor. I know that you're not there to just make a quick buck. It’s great knowing that you really truly care.
Tuition is $1,900 if you apply and pay by Feb 15th, 2021.
After that, if there are seats left, tuition goes up to $2,300.
If your application is approved, seats are granted on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The first cohort of STFO sold out in 3 days.
Everyone Hates Marketers is like a cookbook. You follow recipes from the best chefs in your own kitchen and get great ideas to impress your friends.
Stand The F*ck Out is like having you plus a bunch of cool people in a professional kitchen with a chef teaching you how to cook a tasty 7-meal, challenging you, and giving you feedback along the way.
STFO is the only online workshop teaching radical differentiation to no-bullshit entrepreneurs and marketers. You won't find anything like it anywhere else.
Most online courses teach you tactics that will stop working in a few months. STFO doesn't.
Most online courses envelop you with complex concepts that confuse you. STFO doesn't.
Most online courses can't care less if you don't complete them. STFO does.
Most online courses leave you on your own to figure things out. STFO doesn't.
There are two main criteria:
Credit card payments are processed via Stripe, through the online learning platform Podia.
If you're a business owner, you've got that covered. If you're an in-house marketer, this is a discussion to have with your founder.
Yes, upon payment, you will have the option to choose between a one-off payment or a 3-month instalment plan.
Yes, it's very much encouraged. Working together on radical differentiation is a great way to be aligned around the same goals and stand the f*ck out.
Podia to watch the video lessons and receive your assignments. Google Drive to complete your worksheets and templates. Circle.co to discuss with your peers in a private forum. Zoom for our weekly calls.
If you're committed, you will make the time.
Some weeks are more challenging than others, and I will let you know in advance so you can prepare.
Allow roughly 6-8 hours of work per week (which includes watching the videos, giving feedback, processing feedback, and working on your assignments).
If you're based outside Europe, you can ignore this question.
If you're based in Europe (excluding Ireland), you will likely NOT have to pay EU VAT as long as you have a valid VAT ID. Please check with your accountant.
If you're based in Ireland, you will likely have to pay VAT (23%) on top of your tuition (which you will be able to claim back as a business owner). Please check with your accountant.
There are two timezone options to choose from to accommodate you wherever you are. Weekly calls are a mandatory part of the STFO experience.
Louis Grenier, who likes to talk about himself in the third person, is the founder of the popular contrarian marketing podcast Everyone Hates Marketers, which's reached 1M+ downloads. He has 10 years of experience in marketing and worked with businesses like Dropbox or Hotjar.
He has a proven track record of launching products and services that made a huge flop. For this reason, he knows exactly what it feels like to do average things for average people. To be a watered-down version of himself. To not be trusted enough.
He's learned from his mistakes and loves to create stuff that stands out. It makes him feel good, it gets results, and he wants you to experience the same thrill.
First, how dare you. Second, I’ve created this French persona to make myself more approachable.
Start with this workshop with Joe Glover from The Marketing Meetup:
If you're in SaaS, have a listen to this interview on Forget The Funnel.
Email me: louis@everyonehatesmarketers.com. I read and reply personally to all my emails; crazy, right?
I can also introduce you to STFO alumni so you get an unbiased view of what the program really is.