positioning

Positioning (Obviously Awesome)

When to use

Run this whenever you are defining or revising how a product/company is framed: category choice, hero copy, one-liner, pitch, competitive narrative. Also run it diagnostically when any weak-positioning symptom appears: current customers love it but new prospects can't figure out what it is; long sales cycles and low close rates; fast churn shortly after purchase; constant price pressure. Any one symptom means suspect the frame before the product.

The procedure

Mandatory ordering constraint: never run the chain backwards. Alternatives -> unique attributes -> value -> who cares -> market category -> (optional trend). Starting from features, a persona, or a category you picked at inception is how bad positioning happens. Each step's output is the next step's input.

1. Start from the customers who love the product. List best-fit customers only: understood it fast, bought fast, didn't haggle, refer others. They define what the product actually is. If there aren't enough happy customers yet, stop — keep positioning deliberately broad and loose, sell wide, and wait for patterns. Don't tighten pre-product-market-fit.
2. Assemble the deciders. Positioning is business strategy, not a marketing deliverable: the business owner must drive it, with one or two senior people per function (marketing, sales, product, success). Solo founder or agent-run? Fine — just make sure the output binds roadmap and pricing, not only copy.
3. Name and drop the baggage. State explicitly how the product has always been framed ("we set out to build X, so we are X"). Customers carry none of that history. Get agreement to suspend it for the exercise.
4. List true competitive alternatives. Ask: "what would our best customers do if we didn't exist?" Include spreadsheets, an intern, "nothing." Exclude rivals customers have never heard of, however closely you watch them. Rank by how common; cluster into 2-5 groups.
5. Isolate unique attributes — with proof. Only capabilities the alternatives lack, and only what you can prove (data, third-party reviews, approved customer quotes — your own opinion is not proof). "Easy to use" without evidence doesn't count. Prefer consideration attributes (drive the buy) over retention attributes (drive renewal).
6. Map attributes to value themes. For each attribute, ask "so what?" repeatedly until you reach a goal the customer already has (feature -> benefit -> value). Cluster into 1-4 themes. Positioning fronts the most critical value; it is not a feature catalog.
7. Determine who cares a lot. Segment by easily identifiable traits that predict loving the value — tools they already use, how they sell, skills they lack — not demographics. Target as narrowly as possible while still covering near-term sales goals (sizing test: deals needed this year vs. companies in the segment). The segment must also have a specific, important, unmet need.
8. Choose the market category — then the style. The category is a frame that silently sets assumed competitors, expected features, and price band; pick the frame where your strengths are assumed, not explained. Find candidates by abduction ("what kind of product has these features?"), adjacent fast-growing markets, and (cautiously) customer suggestions. Then pick one of the three styles (see reference below).
9. Optionally layer a trend. Only on an already-clear category, only with a real product link. A trend says why now, never what you are.
10. Capture it on the positioning canvas (fields below), then operationalize: sales story arc (problem -> today's gaps -> perfect world -> product-in-category -> value themes -> proof -> ask), one master messaging document to prevent drift, and roadmap + pricing realigned to the category. Recheck every 6 months or on landscape events (credible competitor, regulation, economic swing, tech shift, taste shift) — re-enter at step 4. What matters is customer perception of the change, not the change itself.