Which NerdBird Setlist Slot Is Your Brand Stuck In?

Right, story time before we get into the quiz, because you need the context for why I even think in gig metaphors in the first place.

I've had a song playing in my head pretty much every waking hour of my entire life. Ask my partner Ian. He'll confirm it, usually right after asking why I'm humming something he's never heard of at 8am on a Tuesday. Music isn't background noise for me. It's structure. It's how I understand pacing, tension, build-up, payoff. So when I started thinking properly about how a brand should actually show up, month after month, it didn't come out as a marketing funnel or a content pillar spreadsheet. It came out as a gig.

Because a good gig isn't random. There's a running order. The Soundcheck. The Support Act. The Headliner. The Encore. Each one does a different job, and if you skip one or play them in the wrong order, the whole night falls flat, no matter how good the music actually is.

Turns out, most brands are doing exactly that. Playing gigs with no running order. Wondering why the crowd isn't sticking around.

So here's the quiz. Answer honestly (nobody's watching except me and possibly Ian), tally up your mostly-picked letter, and find out which slot in the setlist your brand is currently stuck in. Then I'll tell you what that actually means, and a bit about how I found my own way through each one, because SpIcY aF as I like to think I am, I didn't start out with any of this figured out either.

The Quiz

1. Someone asks what you actually do. Your response is:

A. A slightly too-long explanation that starts with your qualifications
B. Something punchy and memorable, but you're not sure it's true to you
C. A confident one-liner that gets a "oh, I need that" reaction
D. You panic and just hand them a business card

2. Your social media content right now mostly:

A. Explains things. Tips, how-tos, "did you know"
B. Tries to be relatable and fun, sometimes at the cost of substance
C. Sells. Offers, launches, "link in bio, DM me"
D. Barely exists because you haven't posted in three weeks

3. When someone lands on your website for the first time, they probably think:

A. "Okay, this person clearly knows their stuff"
B. "This is a vibe, but what do they actually sell?"
C. "Right, I get it, where do I buy"
D. "Wait, is this business still open?"

4. A client just left you the loveliest testimonial. You:

A. File it away, you'll use it "eventually"
B. Post it once and never look at it again
C. Already know exactly which page of your website it's going on
D. What testimonial, nobody's told you anything nice in months (this isn't true, you just haven't asked)

5. Your brand voice, if you're honest, currently:

A. Sounds a bit like a textbook
B. Sounds like you on a good day, if you squint
C. Sounds exactly like you, consistently, everywhere
D. Changes depending on who wrote the caption that week

6. If your brand was a gig, right now it would be:

A. All soundcheck, no show. Technically excellent, nobody's actually watching yet
B. A great support act that never quite gets its own headline slot
C. Selling out shows and people are already asking when you're back
D. Still figuring out which venue to even book

Your Results

Mostly A's: You're stuck in The Soundcheck 🎤

You're brilliant at the educate bit. You know your stuff inside out, and you're generous with it. But right now you're all preparation, no performance. You're tuning up in an empty room. The crowd hasn't been let in yet, because you haven't given them a reason to actually show up and watch. This is genuinely one of my favourite places to meet a client, because the hard bit (the actual expertise) is already done. We just need to get you on stage.

Mostly B's: You're stuck in The Support Act 🪩

You're likeable. Genuinely fun to follow. People enjoy you. But you're still opening for somebody else's brand in your own industry, because your positioning hasn't been given the mic yet. You've got the charisma. You just haven't been handed the headline slot. This one's an easy fix and honestly, a fun one, because the personality's already there. We just need to build the stage for it.

Mostly C's: You're The Headliner 🎸

Look at you, absolutely killing it. Confident, consistent, selling out the room. If this is you, my honest advice is: don't get complacent. Even headliners need an Encore, the trust-building bit that keeps people coming back for the next tour. Don't let the trust pillar slide just because the promo's working. That's usually where I see even brilliant brands quietly lose momentum.

Mostly D's: You Haven't Booked The Venue Yet 💗

And that is completely fine! Genuinely. This isn't a telling off. This is just where a lot of brilliant, busy business owners are, because you've been so heads-down doing the actual work that the brand's been running on fumes and good intentions. I was here too, in the very early days. The music's there. We just need to build the whole gig around it.

The Bit Where I Get Personal

Here's the honest version of my own journey through this framework, because I didn't invent the Setlist from a marketing textbook. I lived it, badly, before I got it right.

I spent a long time stuck firmly in Soundcheck mode. Ravenclaw brain, remember, I will research a topic into the ground before I'll ever put it out into the world. I had opinions on brand strategy for years before I trusted myself enough to actually say them publicly. Book nerd energy, but zero stage presence.

Then I overcorrected into Support Act territory. Trying to sound like the accounts I admired. Borrowing a tone that wasn't mine because it felt safer than fully committing to Barbie-meets-Goth-in-cowboy-boots as an actual personality, let alone a brand personality. It took embracing my own neuro-spicy brain, the one that wants to go in seventeen directions before breakfast, to realise that the scattered bits of me (the guitar, the 70% cocoa chocolate habit, the unreasonable number of hours in Jurassic World Evolution) weren't a distraction from the brand. They were the brand.

The Headliner bit came slowly, and honestly, it came from consistency more than confidence. Same voice, same boundaries, same "yee haw," repeated until it stopped feeling like a risk and started feeling like just... me, in public.

And the Encore is the bit I'm still actively building, if I'm honest. Trust isn't a slide in a launch deck. It's testimonials, it's showing up the same way every single month, it's not going quiet the second the metaphorical tour bus leaves town.

TL;DR

🎤 The Soundcheck is where you educate. Nail your expertise before you worry about being seen

🪩 The Support Act is where you entertain. Personality and relatability, but it needs its own stage, not someone else's

🎸 The Headliner is where you promote. Confident, consistent, converting, but don't let it replace the Encore

💗 The Encore is where you build trust. The bit that keeps people coming back long after the first gig

🦅 Most brands (including mine, for a good while) get stuck cycling through these out of order. There's no shame in it, just a running order to fix

If you fancy figuring out which slot your brand's actually stuck in properly (not just quiz-stuck, but strategy-stuck), that's genuinely half of what I do all day. No pressure though. Just glad you took the quiz.

J 🤓🦅