Positioning
Positioning is the upstream work of understanding how you address customer challenges that others overlook. It is built on five elements: job, alternatives, struggles, segment, and category. It is not a tagline exercise. The words come last, not first.
What most people mean
Positioning is treated as a messaging exercise. You sit in a room, workshop some language, write a positioning statement, put it on a slide, and move on. The output is a sentence. The input is opinions.
April Dunford made this more rigorous with Obviously Awesome. She mapped positioning to competitive alternatives, unique attributes, and market categories. Good framework. But most teams still treat it as something you figure out in a workshop and then “have.”
Where the definition breaks
The problem is sequence. Most teams start with the statement and work backwards. “We’re the leading platform for X.” OK. Says who? Based on what? For whom? Compared to what?
A gazillion other brands are screaming, “We’re the best!” through megaphones pointed to microphones attached to amps set to 11. How are you supposed to stand the f*ck out so the right people choose you?
You can’t start with the words. The words are the last thing. Before you write a single sentence, you need to know the job your customers are trying to get done, the alternatives they’re currently using, the struggles those alternatives leave unsolved, the segment you serve, and the category you compete in. Five elements. Skip any of them and your “positioning” is just a slogan with no foundation.
The other mistake: treating it as permanent. Positioning moves. It morphs. I completely f*cked up the initial positioning of my own certification program and had to pivot based on brutal feedback. That’s normal. If you think positioning is something you nail once and never revisit, you’re setting yourself up for a slow drift into irrelevance.
How we define it at STFO
Positioning is understanding how you address customer challenges that others overlook. It’s built on five elements:
- Job: the specific goal your segment wants to achieve
- Alternatives: the different solutions available to them (far broader than competitors)
- Struggles: the obstacles preventing progress, especially the irrational ones
- Segment: a group of people with shared ignored struggles you can serve with a distinct advantage
- Category: the group of things that solve similar struggles in a similar way
The output is a unique positioning statement: “Unlike [alternatives], [your brand] is the only [category] to solve [ignored struggles] and [get job done] for [segment].”
That statement is not meant to be seen by customers. It’s a tool to give you and the people involved clarity. Make it as long as you want. Don’t worry if it sounds awkward. It’s not meant to become your next homepage headline.
What it is NOT
- Not a tagline or headline (that comes after)
- Not a one-time exercise you “finish” (it’s a work in progress)
- Not something you figure out in a boardroom without customer research
- Not the same as messaging (positioning is the strategy, messaging is the execution)
- Not about being different for the sake of it (the difference must solve an ignored struggle)
"Positioning is a work in progress, even for people who wrote books on positioning. And I have no problem admitting this."
From Stage 2 of Stand The F*ck Out (2024) by Louis Grenier.
Related terms
Go deeper
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Positioning is like playing a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. If the marbles are your potential buyers, and if your product/service is the hippo, you'd better position your hippo to gobble up enough marbles so it doesn't starve.
Product Positioning in 6 No-BS Steps [From 7 Real Experts]
One of the hardest-to-miss symptoms of poor positioning is this: Buyers do not understand what you're selling. And, because they aren't sure if they want any, you probably aren't selling all that much.
Challenge Category Conventions in 7 Steps (+ Examples)
In a way, challenging category conventions is something I've been doing since I was a kid. Channel your intellectual terrorist mindset with this question: 'What's the one thing you hate the most about this category?'
Narrative Design: Craft a Story Using Conspiracy Principles
When I'm designing a product narrative, I think back to when I was in high school. I had a friend who believed in all sorts of conspiracy theories. Weirdly, believing in them made me feel better. I was making sense of the world.
Hear it discussed
The Stand The F*ck Out framework, introduced by Louis Grenier in 2024, consists of four stages: insight foraging, unique positioning, distinctive brand, and continuous reach.
