Be the expert

Good positioning makes you noninterchangeable.

Expertise is the only valid basis for differentiating ourselves from the competition. Not personality. Not process. Not price. It is expertise and expertise alone that will set us apart in a meaningful way and allow us to deal with our clients and prospects from a position of power.

In a way, positioning is fake for a brief period of time. You’ve noticed just enough patterns to gain some credibility. Then you make the most of that driver’s permit to keep exploring, keep learning, and keep articulating insight. Eventually it feeds on itself and then you step into your expert clothes and really fill them out.

At a minimum, the team needs to be on the same page regarding: What positioning means and why it is important Which components make up a position and how we define each of those How market maturity and competitive landscape impact the style of positioning you choose for a product

POSITIONING Now consider how you want to ‘position’ your product. This curious verb is in great favor among marketing experts, but no two of them agree what it means. My own definition is ‘what the product does, and who it is for’. I could have positioned Dove as a detergent bar for men with dirty hands, but chose instead to position it as a toilet

What we’re essentially talking about here is the concept of Product Positioning: your ability to explain clearly and concisely what your product does and how it differs from the competition in a way your audience understands and cares about.