October 26, 2016
3 common mistakes when writing your laser-focused positioning statement
So far I’ve received 15 positioning statements for review. Thanks for sending them in! I know they’re challenging to write and I commend everyone who took a crack at it :)
I just sent out confirmation emails to double-check that everyone is cool with me sharing their statement in the review email.
Hopefully I’ll get those answers soon and can share the review email this Thursday or Friday.
Having read through them, I noticed three common issues:
- Lots of conjunctions - I know it’s painful to omit a big chunk of what seems like critical information from your positioning statement. BUT the more you ruthlessly cut, the more effective all of your subsequent marketing efforts will be. It seems counter-intuitive, but remember: strategy is focus. Pick something to focus on in your marketing (even if you do the other stuff in practice).
- Lots of “How” - There will be plenty of time to explain how you will achieve your fabulous results once you have established a conversation with your prospects. With few exceptions, you shouldn’t include it in your positioning statement. Other than general curiosity, your prospects don’t care how you achieve your results; they just care that you do.
- Weak differentiators - Of the four “blanks” (i.e., discipline, target market, expensive problem, and unique difference) the one that is consistently the weakest, wrongest, and downright weirdest is the unique difference. It’s also the toughest for me to judge without some discussion because I don’t know what your competitors do or what your prospects will consider persuasive, novel, and credible. But still, people got pretty, uh... creative on this one :) I’ll see what I can do to clarify how to write a good unique difference in a future message.
BTW - It’s not too late... if you want me to include your LPFS in my forthcoming review email, please send it in now.
Yours,
—J