--- name: positioning-statement description: Use to draft or critique a positioning statement using Geoffrey Moore's template, sharpened by April Dunford's framing. role: product-manager intent: | Produces a sharp, specific positioning statement. Surfaces fuzzy elements before they propagate into copy, sales decks, and product strategy. Bad positioning kills good products; this skill catches it early. type: component theme: positioning best_for: - Defining or revising product positioning - Pre-launch alignment across product, marketing, sales - Diagnosing why "buyers don't get it" or sales cycles are stalling - Repositioning after a category shift or competitor move scenarios: - "PM and marketing-expert aligning on positioning before launch" - "Reviewer diagnosing a positioning statement that's true of every competitor" - "Sharpening positioning when sales reports 'buyers think we're just another X'" estimated_time: 45-90 minutes (collaborative draft); 5-10 minutes (critique) --- # Positioning statement > v0 draft. Combines Moore's template (canonical) with Dunford's sharpening method. Editorial review recommended. ## Purpose Produce a positioning statement that is specific, differentiated, and useful as a decision-making reference for product, marketing, and sales. The skill exists because positioning is most teams' weakest artifact: a "for everyone, against no one" statement that fits every competitor in the category. ## Key Concepts ### Moore's template Geoffrey Moore (*Crossing the Chasm*): > **For** [target customer] > **Who** [statement of need or opportunity] > **The [product name]** is a [product category] > **That** [statement of differentiated benefit] > **Unlike** [primary competitive alternative] > **Our product** [statement of primary differentiation] Six slots. Each must be filled with specificity. A positioning statement where any slot is generic is a positioning statement that doesn't position. ### Dunford's sharpening April Dunford (*Obviously Awesome*) extends Moore's template with five components that must be defined *before* the template is filled: 1. **Competitive alternatives** — what the customer would use instead. Broad: includes manual approaches, do-nothing, adjacent categories. Drives the "unlike" slot. 2. **Unique attributes** — what your product has/does that the alternatives don't. Specific, not vague. 3. **Value** — what those attributes enable for the customer. Translates attribute → outcome. 4. **Market category** — what frame of reference puts your product where buyers can find it. 5. **Who cares most** — the segment for whom the value is most acute. Drives the "for" slot. Most positioning failures happen because teams skip these five and jump straight to filling the Moore template. ### The differentiation test A positioning statement that survives this test is sharp: > Replace your product's name with a competitor's name. Does the statement still read true? If yes, the positioning is generic. If no, you have positioning. ## Application ### Step 1 — Define the five components (Dunford) Before drafting the statement, walk through each component: **Competitive alternatives.** What would the customer use instead of your product? Cast wide. Include: - Direct competitors - Adjacent-category tools used informally - Manual approaches (spreadsheets, paper, email) - Hiring people / consultants - Doing nothing **Unique attributes.** What your product has/does that the alternatives don't. Be specific. "User-friendly" is not an attribute; "completes the X workflow in 3 clicks vs Y's 12 clicks" is. **Value.** For each attribute, what outcome does it enable? "3 clicks instead of 12" → "user can run this 4x more often without thinking about it" → "decisions get made on fresh data." **Market category.** Frame of reference that puts the product in the buyer's mental shelf. Categories like "BI tool" or "design tool" are crowded; sometimes a sub-category ("BI tool for data engineers" / "design tool for marketing teams") or a new category ("revenue intelligence") is sharper. Don't invent categories nobody knows; do find the frame that makes you most-different. **Who cares most.** The segment for whom the value is most acute. Specific: title, company stage, current pain. "B2B SaaS founders, Series A–B, no in-house data team" beats "businesses that want insights." ### Step 2 — Fill Moore's template With the five components defined, the template fills almost mechanically: ```markdown For [who-cares-most segment] Who [the pain or opportunity the value addresses] [Product] is a [market category] That [unique value] Unlike [primary competitive alternative] [Product] [primary differentiation translated to the alternative's language] ``` ### Step 3 — Apply the differentiation test Swap your product's name with each named competitive alternative. For each swap, ask: does the statement still read true? If yes for any swap, sharpen that line. The "unlike" and "that" lines are usually the culprits. ### Step 4 — Apply the "so what?" test For each clause, ask: "so what — what does the reader do differently because of this?" If a clause can be deleted with no loss of decision-relevance, delete it. ### Step 5 — Use the positioning everywhere The positioning statement is not a private document; it's the source for downstream artifacts: - Homepage hero copy - Sales-deck opening - Onboarding's first message - Sales objection-handling - Press releases / launch narratives If these artifacts contradict the positioning, either the artifacts are wrong (fix them) or the positioning is wrong (revise). ### Output discipline When the response critiques or produces an artifact: - **Ground each finding.** Name the framework and its author and work, drawn from this skill's References (for example "Cagan's four big risks, *Inspired*"). Cite only what the finding actually rests on. - **Name a trade-off.** State at least one cost the recommendation accepts and take a position on it. - **End with next actions.** Close with one to three concrete actions, each with a deliverable or owner (for example "rewrite the problem section with ticket counts and interview evidence"). Never end on "align", "iterate" or "more research". ## Examples ### Example 1 — Generic (failure) > For **businesses** who **want better insights**, **DataCo** is a **data platform** that **delivers AI-powered analytics**. Unlike **other tools**, **DataCo** is **easy to use and powerful**. **Failures:** - "Businesses" — no segment. - "Better insights" — vague pain. - "Data platform" — broad category. - "AI-powered analytics" — every competitor claims this. - "Other tools" — no specific alternative. - "Easy to use and powerful" — said by every product, contradicts itself. The differentiation test: replace "DataCo" with "Tableau," "Looker," "Power BI." The statement reads true for all. Generic. ### Example 2 — Sharp (good) > For **B2B SaaS founders at Series A or B without an in-house data team**, who **need monthly board metrics from product + revenue data but spend half the month wrangling spreadsheets**, **Metricly** is a **board-metrics service**, **not a BI tool**: we **deliver the 12 board-relevant metrics each month as a finished narrative**, not a dashboard to interpret. Unlike **Tableau or Looker** (which assume you have a data engineer) or **outsourced analyst firms** (which take 6 weeks per change), **Metricly** **ships ready-to-paste board updates within 5 business days, including the why behind each number**. The differentiation test: replace "Metricly" with Tableau / Looker. Doesn't read true (those don't deliver ready-to-paste narratives). Replace with an analyst firm. Doesn't read true (those don't ship in 5 days). Replace with a competitor in the "board-metrics service" category. If specific competitors exist, sharpen further. This positioning is also doing strategic work: it explicitly *narrows* the audience (excluding companies with data teams) and explicitly *categorizes against* both BI tools and analyst firms. Some buyers will self-select out; that's the discipline. ## Common Pitfalls ### Pitfall 1 — Positioning for everyone **Symptom:** "For businesses." "For teams." "For users." **Consequence:** Speaks to no one specifically; no segment self-recognizes. **Fix:** Dunford's "who cares most" — the segment for whom the value is most acute. Other segments are secondary, addressed later, or not at all. ### Pitfall 2 — Differentiation by adjective **Symptom:** Differentiation is "easier," "faster," "more powerful," "more flexible." **Consequence:** Every competitor claims the same adjectives; the differentiator differentiates nothing. **Fix:** Replace adjectives with concrete attributes. "Easier" → "3 clicks vs 12." "Faster" → "5 business days vs 6 weeks." If you can't quantify, name a specific behavior that's different. ### Pitfall 3 — Generic competitive alternatives **Symptom:** "Unlike other tools" / "unlike legacy approaches." **Consequence:** The "unlike" slot does no work. **Fix:** Name 1-2 specific alternatives. If the team is afraid of naming competitors by name in a public-facing artifact, the *internal* positioning statement still names them; public-facing copy can soften. ### Pitfall 4 — Category by aspiration **Symptom:** Inventing a category nobody knows. "We're a category-creating revenue-intelligence-experience platform." **Consequence:** Buyers can't find you; salespeople can't reference-sell. **Fix:** Place yourself in a category buyers already shop in, then differentiate. New categories are occasionally the right move (Salesforce did it; HubSpot did it) but require sustained investment in category education. ### Pitfall 5 — Positioning that no one believes internally **Symptom:** The positioning is sharp on paper; nobody on the team actually says it; sales reps use their own pitch. **Consequence:** External positioning erodes; the team telegraphs incoherence. **Fix:** Test internally before externally. If the sales team won't say it, either they don't believe it or the positioning is wrong. Address before launching. ## References - **Geoffrey Moore** — *Crossing the Chasm*; the positioning template is from this book. - **April Dunford** — *Obviously Awesome*; the five-components-first methodology. - **Bob Moesta** — JTBD-driven understanding of the customer for the "who" slot. - **Andy Raskin** — strategic narrative; positioning feeds the narrative's "promised land" beat. - **Related Hornero skills:** - [`jobs-to-be-done`](../jobs-to-be-done/SKILL.md) — JTBD identifies the customer and the alternatives that feed positioning. - a future `marketing-expert` role's `positioning-canvas` skill — Dunford-style positioning canvas as a more detailed cousin. - a future `marketing-expert` role's `strategic-narrative` skill — uses positioning as input.