October 11, 2019

Soggy Test Redux

It seems I did more harm than good with yesterday’s email about reversing positioning statements to see if they are soggy. Oops! Sorry about that :-/

Y’all sent lots of perfectly reasonable questions about yesterday’s test that I could try to answer but... rather than attempt to explain it, I’m going to give you a much clearer sogginess test, which is this:

If people who are exposed to your positioning statement immediately have a Rolodex Moment, then it’s not soggy.

For example...

If someone I just met at a party asked, “So... what do you do?” and I replied:

“I’m a pricing consultant.”

... I’d be extremely surprised if the next words out of their mouth were something like:

“No way! I know someone who needs a pricing consultant!”

If instead I said:

“I help self-employed software developers increase their income.”

... then the odds are a LOT higher that my new friend is going to say something like:

“No way! I my brother-in-law is a freelance Rails dev. I should introduce you two!”

Of course, not every single person is going to have a Rolodex Moment, but if you bounce your positioning off a bunch of people and your batting average is low, you should probably think about going back to the drawing board.

Yours,

—J