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🗒 Note: My notes are a mix of key ideas and quotes from the book as well as my own thoughts.

• Positioning is the foundation of every ad, sales pitch, and piece of content we create.
  • It is the key to the success of the business itself.
  • It gives our customers a reference point regarding our product.
  • It helps them understand to which category it belongs and what parameters they should consider when evaluating it.
  • Most products are exceptional only when we understand them within their best frame of reference.

<aside> 👉 Define yourself, or others will define you.

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How to know that you have a positioning problem:

— Your current customers love you, but you’re struggling to sell to new prospects.

— Customers often leave or ask for new features. They misunderstood what you’re doing, and now they want to recover the money they paid.

— You have long sales cycles and low close rates.

— People do not understand your real value, so they’re not satisfied with the price.

— Prospects and customers describe your business differently than how you see it.

Common positioning mistakes:

— Thinking that there’s only one way to position your product. There are always plenty of ways you can look at it.

— You’re stuck on the idea of what you were planning your product to be without noticing what it has become in reality.

— Market confusion: when we as product creators understand the product differently from how customers perceive it.

— You created your product for a specific market, but while you were busy working, the market has changed. Most products can solve many different problems. Many products had been sold for one purpose, but when the market shifted, their purpose (and positioning) changed as well.

— Ask yourself: is the history of my product and the way I describe it exist in my marketing today? If yes, ask yourself what has changed since then. Maybe those things aren’t relevant anymore.

<aside> 🧁 For example, baking soda was first marketed as a product for… baking. But when sales declined because baking wasn’t as popular anymore, Arm & Hammer started promoting baking soda for its ability to absorb bad odors. This repositioning helped them grow their sales. When the founders freed their minds from the old beliefs they had about the product, they could grow more.

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Source: aprildunford.com/post/a-product-positioning-exercise

Main topics that positioning covers:

1. What we do

2. Why we are special

3. Which customers can we best serve

4. The market we intend to win