Kelford Labs Daily: Where your position is built
In the prospect, not the product.
“To find a unique position, you must ignore conventional logic. Conventional logic says you find your concept inside yourself or inside the product. Not true. What you must do is look inside the prospect's mind.”
— Trout & Ries, Positioning
A business’s “position” in the market is something they can influence, but it is not something they decide.
Because our “position” resides in the mind of our ideal buyer. It is the category they place us in.
Our position is the way—or whether—they think about us when they encounter a problem we can help them solve.
Think about it this way: When a situation arises in your life or work that requires you to buy something, the possible options you could choose from rush forward in your mind based on the position they held—the opinions you held—before you had the need.
And those positions will be determined based on your priorities, preferences, and experiences.
That’s why the “very best” phone for half the world is the very worst for the other half. Not based on the phone, but based on the person—their priorities, their beliefs, their budget.
So the question is always: What are we doing to help our ideal customers categorize us—position us—in their minds such that they’d want to buy from us when their next need arises?
Do we want to be the cheap but reliable option?
Do we want to be up-market, luxurious, and rare?
Do we want to be easy, convenient, and always available?
Do we want to be specialized, focused, and unquestionably the best in a narrow category?
And how can our marketing messages help our ideal buyer place us—position us—in the category we want to be in?
