My step-by-step positioning process

The thirteen steps I work through with clients

I’ve been running my consultancy business for a few years now, and positioning is by far what clients ask for most. Sometimes it’s to run a process for the company’s full product offering and its place in the market. Sometimes it’s a single product - either one that’s coming up or one that launched a while back and isn’t meeting expectations. And sometimes it’s narrower: do we need to refocus who we’re for, or just rethink how we differentiate now the market has moved underneath us.

For this week’s edition of The Product Marketer Plus, I went back over a few recent engagements to document my process.

One slightly contentious point to begin with. As an academic exercise, positioning is fairly straightforward. I could hand a founder or CMO a piece of paper with my questions on it and they could probably fill it in themselves, quickly and easily. The hard part is whether their answers match everyone else’s in the business, and whether what comes out is both true and compelling. Both are essential. Because together they’re what makes a good story, and it’s surprisingly difficult to tick both boxes.

I don’t think AI can do this. It can probably do the exercise. It can’t spend six weeks winning over the people who need to be on board, and we’re nowhere near a CMO telling the C-suite “this is our new positioning because Claude said it is.”

It’s also why I don’t offer a two-week turnaround. You need to sit with an idea for a few days, and you need the right meetings in the right sequence. See below for my step-by-step process - and if your company needs a fresh pair of eyes on its positioning, I’m always happy to chat.