What do positioning and sex have in common? Every generation thinks they invented it.
Every generation thinks they invented positioning. The truth? The core elements haven't changed since Jack Trout wrote about it in 1969. What you are, who you're for, who you compete with, why you're different, and why you're great—that's the molecular structure. You can't change it any more than you can change the molecular structure of water.
What do positioning and sex have in common? Every generation thinks they invented it.
The great sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein once wrote, “Each generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace both in Pompeii and in Victorian England; the differences lie only in the degree of coverup - if any.”
I humbly submit that while I’m here to add whatever I can to the discipline of positioning, I have zero interest in redefining what it is.
I’m also going to break a bit of news. All the positioning experts banging away on LinkedIn and vying to tell you that they have finally cracked the perfect positioning framework are full of shit.
The perfect positioning framework is the one you will actually use, that helps you think clearly, build consensus, and take deliberate action. As long as it covers these five topics:
If you want a nice, clean definition in a sentence, then I'll give you mine.
If you’re doing a good job with positioning, you have a strong command over the category where you compete, the buyer you win, the reasons your buyer chooses you (I prefer to frame these as advantages, not differentiators. More on that later.), and the unique value you offer.
Maybe you want to add to it. Maybe you want to play with the order, or say something a different way. I say, do what works.
The single best thing I did for my career was to stop and ask where “best practices” actually came from. It became an incurable habit.
I love learning about the provenance of ideas. And I think it’s incredibly powerful. Knowing where your ideas came from can keep you from getting stuck in an intellectual rut. It can help you see the precepts and assumptions surrounding your work for what they really are: mostly opinions.
Even about positioning.
The term "positioning," as I’m using it here, comes from the book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind by Al Ries and Jack Trout, which was published in 1980. (You probably know that.)
But Jack Trout first wrote about “occupying a unique position in the mind of the buyer” in 1969.
So, the idea of positioning as we know it today is at least 57 years old. It’s also totally made up. There’s no research mentioned in that article or the book. (You probably know that, too.)
Does this mean positioning is bullshit? I don’t think so. Yes, I think the idea that human beings have tiny slots in their brains for the things they buy is probably an overstatement.
I’m going to jump ahead to what I think is actually the book that gave us positioning as we know it in the B2B tech universe, Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey Moore.
In the book, this is the exact way Moore breaks down this positioning statement formula.
If I bring back up my five unassailable elements of positioning, they’re all covered.
I’ve read Crossing the Chasm many times. I still think it’s great. I think Geoffrey Moore’s positioning statement formula is sound. But here’s the funny thing about the provenance of ideas. I don’t actually think the positioning statement came from Geoffrey Moore.
In the 1970s and 80s, there was a consulting firm named Regis McKenna that set out to be a McKinsey for the technology industry. You can dig into it yourself, and you’ll see that many of the ideas in Crossing the Chasm came from Geoffrey Moore’s time at Regis McKenna.
Maybe he came up with the approach all by himself while at Regis McKenna (and in fairness, Moore mentions the firm in the acknowledgements at the end of his book)...but that’s not really how things go.
I’m willing to bet the positioning statement formula was bouncing around Regis McKenna for a good while before Moore published it. I’m sure he shared it because he knew it worked.
Call me old-fashioned. I think it still does. (Even though I don’t use the run-on format, which I find clunky.)
Let’s jump ahead to the other major book about B2B positioning, April Dunford’s Obviously Awesome. I think it’s a great book and it's a huge inspiration for In The Kitchen. I could write a long piece about what I appreciate about that book, and April is one of the giants upon whose shoulders I stand.
But I don’t think April Dunford changed Geoffrey Moore’s elements of positioning, which he probably picked up from his colleagues at Regis McKenna, who were probably influenced by Jack Trout.
Here’s a list of what April Dunford calls the “Five (Plus One) Components of Effective Positioning”. (I’m skipping the sixth, “relevant trends”....I don’t think it really holds up, and she calls it optional.)
Which is why my second-least favorite part of Obviously Awesome is the opening where April Dunford says positioning statements are dumb and tells people not to use them. (I’ll get to my least-favorite in the next Deep Read.)
I think Dunford gave us a useful framework for working on positioning.
I don’t think she changed it, though.
Long-form writing may be a dying art. But if you love a good stemwinder, these are genuine, human-being-made articles that explore topics that don’t fit in a 600-word box.
What do positioning and sex have in common? Every generation thinks they invented it.
The great sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein once wrote, “Each generation thinks it invented sex; each generation is totally mistaken. Anything along that line today was commonplace both in Pompeii and in Victorian England; the differences lie only in the degree of coverup - if any.”
I humbly submit that while I’m here to add whatever I can to the discipline of positioning, I have zero interest in redefining what it is.