- Outlier Growth
- Posts
- Positioning 101 (made simple)
Positioning 101 (made simple)
Does your positioning need to be fixed?
Read time: 4 min, 37 secs
Listen to audio version
Hey there - it's Brian š
Confession time.
Iām obsessed with positioning.
But people donāt talk about it (because no one understands it).
Yetā¦ Itās the single biggest factor that determines whether your business will survive (or fail).
So Iāll make it simple:
Itās just a fancy word for ādoes my business model make sense?ā
Today weāll talk about:
ā¢ Why bad positioning can wreck your business (& how it stays hidden)
ā¢ How you can tell if your positioning is good (or bad)
ā¢ How you fix it
I specialized in positioning at Deloitte.
Weād spend months just creating a positioning before we built a business.
Or weād re-position a business that wasnāt working.
If youāre wondering why your business isnāt getting the traction you expect, this is for you.
Letās make your business an outlier: š
What is positioning?
In 2019 CEO of a $1B bank called us. Frustrated.
His promotion was on the line. He promised heād make his company $300M.
But it wasnāt happening.
He had one year to turn it around.
This bank was owned by one of the biggest banks in the world. If he can turn it around, heās next in line to be CEO of the parent company.
Miss it? Well thereās only one CEO role. Heād never get this shot again.
He risked it all on launching new products. But these products werenāt working out.
So he called us. āCan you help me get my business to actually work?ā
We set foot in his board room, listed out all their products, and found a big problem:
Their positioning didnāt make sense.
So we held workshops with their executives and fixed their positioning.
Re-launched the products.
Andā¦
Well today youād recognize him from his TV appearances.
We hit his target.
But who cares? Youāre not a $1B company is this still relevant?
1,000%
See positioning is just making sure your business model makes sense!
It comes down to answering 3 simple questions for your product/service:
Whoās your customer?
Whatās their pain?
How do you solve that pain better than anyone?
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/e607a168-adf8-4e5e-89d4-c4b6c6ee3a80/image.png?t=1707762824)
Get it wrong and customers donāt feel your business is for them.
Get it right and youāll have customers lined up to buy because they feel it resonates with them.
So letās get into it:
How can you tell if you have bad positioning?
The reason that business owners donāt understand if they have good positioning is because you only see symptoms of it.
ā¢ Customers leave fast? People think itās an onboarding problem.
ā¢ Your landing page doesnāt sell? People think itās a copywriting problem.
ā¢ Your ads donāt sell? People think itās a problem with the visual.
And sometimes it is.
But sometimes itās a business model problem. So you need to fix your positioning.
Positioning is the foundation of sales and marketing.
Get the foundation wrong and everything you do has friction.
Bad positioning means customers will not value your business as much as you need them to.
You want them to quickly see what makes you so valuable to solve their problem.
Youāll charge more. Get customers faster. And theyāll stay longer.
Sounds like a dream, right?
Okay so how do you know if your positioning is bad?
Hereās my own test:
Is your solution the best option to solve a specific pain for a specific person?
If I donāt clearly see this, then the customers canāt see it either.
So what happens when they canāt see it?
Symptoms of bad positioning look like:
Do your customers take too long to buy?
Do customers pressure you too much on price?
Do customers leave quickly?
How do customer explain what they like about you? (Is it consistent? All over the place? In line with what you expect?)
All of this is because they donāt understand how valuable your offer is. The better your positioning the higher customer perceive your value!
If I canāt quickly understand what helps you solve a problem for a specific person, AND thereās a problem with traction, then I assume thereās a positioning problem.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/2aaa6fed-1894-4536-81b6-a06f29c654e9/image.png?t=1707759975)
Okay so your positioning needs work. What can you do to fix it?
The end result is a simple framework with 3 questions (youāve seen this before):
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/892265f9-8f7e-4ab9-a3d8-6821d4a3c8f2/image.png?t=1707762527)
Hereās the steps to build your solid positioning:
Step 1: Whoās your customer
1) Whoās your customer?
Businesses solve customer problems.
This is that customer.
You need to deeply understand who this person is and what they need.
Hereās a few questions to get you thinking about which of your customers you focus on:
ā¢ Who loves your product/service the most?
ā¢ Do you have one type of customer you make the most money from?
ā¢ Who recommends you more to their friends?
Typically you break out your customers by who they are:
ā¢ Industry
ā¢ Company size
ā¢ Geography
If youāre B2C you can use customer avatars like the one below:
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/c6696af9-3a97-43c5-80af-4c5a4e6d09b1/image.png?t=1708011825)
Example avatar
Understand who your target customer is better than anyone.
Step 2: Whatās their pain?
Your business solves a specific pain.
Your business will win if you can persuade customers that you understand that pain and can solve it for them.
So talk to your customers!
Ask them questions to better understand their problem:
1) "What's the hardest thing about [doing this thing]?"
2) "Tell me about the last time you encountered that problem?"
3) "Why was that hard?"
4) "What, if anything, have you done to solve the problem?"
5) "What don't you love about the solutions you've tried?"
The business that wins is the one who understands the customer pain better than anyone.
Thanks to Y Combinator for those questions.
Step 3: How do you solve that pain better than anyone?
Goal here is to take your deep understanding of a specific customerās pain, and align them to your strengths.
So this way, no one can take care of your customer as well as you can.
A few questions to get you thinking:
What do customers love about you?
What can you do 10x better?
What do you do differently?
The more narrow youāve defined your problem or customer, the easier it is to stand out.
Fix your positioning to explode your business
Amazing.
If you do positioning right customers will see you as MORE valuable.
The more valuable they see you the easier it gets to sell. The more excited they are to stay. The more recommend you to others.
Thatās when you really start to grow your business.
And thatās why Iām so obsessed with positioning.
If you liked this post, and donāt want to miss future issues, sign up for free:
If you found this helpful, please forward this email to 1 friend or colleague. They'll appreciate you and you'll help grow the community.
See you next Thursday š
P.S. Do you run a management consulting practice over $3M in revenue?
Iāll give you free feedback on your positioning & marketing strategy. Then hand you next steps to become a thought leader in your space.
Interested? Reply to this email with āconsultingā.
Chat soon š
š Vote: Next Weekās Topic
Choose the topic that 13,753 readers receive next week (vote below):
What did you think of today's edition? |