Category: Your Business is Your Brand
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Why 99% of Experts Would Get Chexy’s position Wrong
Ask a LinkedIn “positioning expert” for Chexy’s position and they’ll give you articulation — who it’s for, how it’s different, what it replaces. That isn’t positioning. That’s framing. Let me show you the status quo (framing) versus the reality (positioning), and why Chexy is the counterexample that proves the rule. Quick primer if you don’t…
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The Industry’s Biggest Confusion: Why Framing Isn’t Positioning
Most positioning work isn’t positioning at all. It’s framing. And this confusion is costing companies their shot at mental monopolies. Here’s a simple test. Pull up any company’s “positioning document.” If it starts with “We are…” or “Our product…” or answers “Who’s it for?” and “How’s it different?” That’s NOT positioning. That’s framing. This isn’t…
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Why Everything You Know About Go-to-Market Strategy is Backwards
Note: Grant’s post about choosing between “rabbits” (many small customers) and “whales” (a few large enterprises) perfectly illustrates how even smart people can confuse tactical distribution choices with strategic positioning. He thinks he’s describing how to choose your go-to-market strategy, but he’s actually documenting symptoms while missing the disease (the causality flows opposite to what…
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The Day I Stopped Believing in Product Superiority
What would you have to believe for positioning to be more important than product? I’ve been asking this question for 20 years. To Fortune 500 CEOs. To startup founders. To myself. Most people think it’s a ridiculous question. Of course products matter more. Products are real. Products solve problems. Products create value. Positioning? That’s just……
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Air India’s Performance of Safety
This post is about the gap between what companies say and what they do. I wrote it to help you see the difference between a polished crisis response and a real commitment to change. You will get a look at the mechanics of corporate messaging versus the reality on the ground. We will use Air…
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The Lego turnaround story gets told wrong
The Lego turnaround story is often told. It is rarely understood. Most see operational discipline. Cut costs. Focus on the core. CEO saves company through efficiency. That reading mistakes tactical fixes for strategic architecture. 2003: Lego bleeds $1 million daily. Specialized pieces overflow warehouses. Star Wars sets rot after movie hype dies. Classic turnaround setup.…
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Great Jeans, Not Great Genes
American Eagle’s “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign triggered outrage, applause, and (crucially) 700,000 new customers. Everyone thinks they know why. They’re wrong. In this moment, we’re going to do three things: 1) The Hook: “It worked because celebrity + controversy” American Eagle hired a famous person, made a cheeky pun, Twitter exploded, and suddenly:…
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Brand: Where Executives Hide from Hard Decisions
When Tribune Publishing renamed itself “tronc” in 2016, the internet collectively cringed. But the real tragedy wasn’t the name it was what the rebrand concealed: a newspaper empire bleeding $14.8 million quarterly while its CEO had secretly paid $2.5 million to hide a racial slur scandal. The rebrand lasted two years. The fundamental problems outlived…
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The Autopilot Corporation: Eight Warning Signs Your Company is Drifting
Your company’s doing fine. Revenue’s up. Stock’s steady. Everyone’s busy. So why does it feel like you’re all just going through the motions? I’ve spent years studying companies that seemed invincible, only to find out they weren’t. Kodak. Blockbuster. Sears. General Electric. Nokia. They didn’t fail overnight. They drifted into irrelevance while looking successful. I…
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The Autopilot Corporation: Why Most Companies Drift (And How to Take Control)
Most businesses run on autopilot. They hit their numbers, serve customers, and keep busy. But they’re drifting, optimized for what worked yesterday, blind to what’s needed tomorrow. This isn’t about bad execution. It’s about something deeper: companies that mistake motion for direction, tactics for strategy, and busy work for meaningful progress. They don’t own anything…
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Becoming: The Architecture of Identity-Driven Positioning
Becoming is the quiet engine that moves every person and every company. It begins as tension: “What I am now” pulls against “what I could be.” When that tension is acknowledged and addressed, growth begins. But this tension is more than discomfort. It’s the fundamental force that drives all meaningful transformation. In individuals, it manifests…
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Beyond the Positioning Facade: Why 95% of Companies Stop at Level 1
The Great Positioning Delusion We live in an era where every marketing consultant has become a “positioning expert.” LinkedIn overflows with thought leaders coining new terms for old concepts, calling storytelling “narrative positioning,” rebranding customer segmentation as “micro-positioning,” or confusing brand messaging with strategic positioning. The result? A marketplace drowning in positioning theatre while missing…