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Positioning

Positioning is a strategy choice about where a specific audience should place an offer relative to the alternatives they can choose.

It is not a slogan and it is not proof of demand. A useful position connects a real need to a credible difference, makes capability and sacrifice visible, and names a test that can fail.

Positioning Record v1​

Audience:
Situation and need:
Alternatives used now:
Valuable difference:
Evidence for the difference:
Capability fit:
Sacrifice:
Smallest market test:
Falsifier:
Review window:

Method​

  1. Choose the audience. Name the people who share the situation and value the outcome. “Everyone” prevents a choice.
  2. Describe the need in their terms. Use observed work, cost, risk, delay, or desire rather than an invented category.
  3. Name the alternatives. Include manual work, a competitor, postponement, and doing nothing where they are real options.
  4. Choose a valuable difference. Explain why the difference improves the audience’s outcome, not only why it is technically novel.
  5. Attach evidence. Distinguish demonstrated proof, informed inference, and a claim still awaiting a test.
  6. Check capability fit. State the human, agent, and business capabilities needed to keep the promise.
  7. Make the sacrifice. Name who is not served, which benefit is secondary, or which route will not receive resources.
  8. Test the position. Use the smallest real buying, switching, or adoption decision that can contradict it.

Venture teaching example​

For the estimating venture in the Strategy Choice Record, the position might be:

For owner-led residential renovation firms that lose time preparing repeat quotes, a review-first estimating service prepares evidence-linked drafts from prior jobs and current supplier prices. Unlike a generic chatbot, it keeps the estimator’s commercial judgment at approval.

This is a teaching example, not validated positioning. A useful test would ask three firms to compare a draft against their current preparation method and make a real paid-pilot decision. Compliments alone do not prove the position.

SME Journey transfer test​

An existing wholesaler should not position an internal purchasing assistant as if it were a venture offer. Its audience is the purchasing team, its alternative is the current reorder rule, its difference is evidence-linked recommendation, and its sacrifice is autonomous approval. The test is an operating decision with observed inventory consequences.

Checks​

  • Can the audience recognise themselves without private context?
  • Is the need observed rather than manufactured?
  • Does the difference improve an outcome the audience values?
  • Can current capability keep the promise within the stated boundary?
  • Does the sacrifice exclude a real alternative?
  • Can a buying, switching, or adoption decision falsify the position?

Failure modes​

  • Slogan without choice: memorable words hide an undefined audience or need.
  • Difference without value: novelty does not improve the audience’s outcome.
  • Proof stretch: aspiration or interest is presented as market evidence.
  • Capability mismatch: the promise depends on capability that has not been demonstrated.
  • No sacrifice: the offer tries to be premium, low cost, bespoke, and universal.

Context​

Questions​

Changes my mind: the audience chooses the offer for reasons unrelated to the stated need and difference.

Next question: Which real choice would show that this audience values the difference enough to switch, adopt, or pay?