“I want to nail my positioning, then I’ll go to market.”
A consultant said that to me recently about a new offer he’s launching.
The framing of the service, as it relates to other options in the market, felt off.
The core value wasn’t clear or differentiated, so he thought he had a positioning problem.
I don’t think he did, and I think his misconception of the positioning problem is a common one that I want to elaborate on here.
Positioning for experts doesn’t work like it does for other types of services.
Let me explain the pattern I’ve noticed among experts who become recognised as authorities in their market
It starts by identifying and observing a frustration as experienced by a particular group of people. It’s a frustration that group of people would pay to solve.
In the process of observing this frustration, and simultaneously working with clients to solve it, they develop methodology and frameworks that capture a proven solution. This is ownable intellectual capital.
Invisible experts typically cover those first two steps, though their approach may be undocumented and messy. They remain invisible because they haven’t developed the craft of communicating their unique perspective on the frustration and solution to strangers.
Execution of those three steps leads to a byproduct: unique positioning. Because you end up with insight that contrasts with best practice thinking in the wider market. You give a new perspective to the frustration in a novel way, or you give words to an intuition your people had felt, they just didn’t have the words for it.
When an individual experiences the frustration, appreciates your articulation, and resonates with your solution, where else are they going to go?
Nancy Duarte, for example, didn’t obsess over positioning her business in a market of communication consultants. She obsessed over how to tell great stories that sell ideas.
The insight derived from that obsession creates contrast with other options in the market.
So back to that consultant quote I started this article with.
He’s coming at positioning the wrong way. Because that approach of mapping the market, the solutions available to the customers, and then identifying a frame that contrasts beautifully, doesn’t work with authority-driven businesses.
It might be how you sell software. You identify the job to be done, look at how customers are doing the job elsewhere, and contrast your offer with those jobs.
It might be how you sell milkshakes when you discover customers are buying them at the drive-thru as a portable breakfast.
It might be how you sell a car. You recognise that there’s a growing demand among high earners for environmentally friendly cars, and that the existing market of eco cars is mid-range, so why not produce a premium electric car?
But I don’t believe that’s how an expertise-driven business creates unique positioning.
If that consultant wants to build an authority business, I urge him to forget the question of positioning. Instead, I want him to get clear on the frustration: what are you really solving, and is that a frustration they would pay to solve?
That starts by identifying a focusing question, which you can read more about here.