Category: Positioning
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How do I create a position?
The position you think you have isn’t the position you actually own Most companies have it backwards. They sit in conference rooms crafting positioning statements, testing taglines, building messaging frameworks. They hire agencies to help them “craft their positioning.” They run workshops to align on “brand positioning.” Then they wonder why nothing sticks. The problem isn’t…
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Position Is Not an Opinion: The Neuroscience of What Actually Happens in Your Customer’s Brain
Most positioning conversations happen in conference rooms. Executives debate. Consultants facilitate. Post-its accumulate. Everyone leaves with an opinion about what the company’s position should be. Here’s the problem: position isn’t an opinion. Position isn’t what you decide in a workshop. It isn’t what you write on a slide. It isn’t what your leadership team agrees…
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Why “Just Do It” Actually Works: The Neuroscience of Positioning Done Right
Three words. Coined the night before a presentation. Inspired by a convicted murderer’s last words before a firing squad. “Just Do It” shouldn’t have worked. And yet, it’s become one of the most recognized phrases in commercial history. Nike’s market share jumped from 18% to 43% in the decade following its 1988 launch. The tagline…
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Brand, Reputation, and Health Are Not Strategies
They’re outcomes. And confusing the two is why most attempts to “build” them fail. This isn’t a semantic distinction. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of causality that costs companies billions, undermines personal credibility, and leads people to buy gym memberships they’ll never use. The pattern is identical across all three domains: Health is what happens after…
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Why Companies Buy Software They Can’t Use
The $1.2 Billion Question Nobody’s Asking Microsoft says 70% of Fortune 500 companies bought Copilot. Salesforce announced $1.2 billion in AI revenue. By any measure, these companies are crushing it. But here’s what doesn’t make sense: Salesforce’s CEO admitted in October that “the speed of innovation is far exceeding the speed of customer adoption.” Translation:…
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Why the best positions are never stated
Explicitly Implicit, Implicitly Explicit. The Burj Khalifa doesn’t say “we own eminence.” You feel it when you stand next to it. You feel it on the skyline. You feel it when someone mentions they went there. The position is implicit. Eminence is experienced, not claimed. And that’s precisely why it works. The positioning paradox Here’s…
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Why Your Tribal Signals Need Something to Signal
You can’t build a tribe around nothing. Black Flag tattoos work because Black Flag owns rebellion. Fair trade coffee signals because Fair Trade owns ethics. Supreme drops create frenzy because Supreme owns authentic streetwear culture. The moment you try to create tribal belonging without semantic content (the real concept or meaning behind something) underneath, the signal fails. Everyone wants…
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When 95% Self-Awareness Meets 53% Stock Decline: The Chip Wilson Identity Crisis (Autopsy)
The Delusion Everyone Shares Tasha Eurich’s research team discovered something unsettling: 95% of people believe they’re self-aware. Only 10-15% actually are. This isn’t about people being stupid. It’s about the gap between what we think we know about ourselves and what’s actually true. Most of us walk around convinced we understand who we are, what…
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How Wynter Owns Clearance (And Why They Don’t Know It)
A Note Before We Begin: I’ve been watching Peep Laja’s work for a while now. The rigour he brings to marketing, the anti-BS stance, and the way Wynter has grown are impressive. His LinkedIn content consistently challenges lazy thinking, and I respect that deeply. This piece isn’t a critique. It’s an attempt to read Wynter’s…
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How Exit Five Accidentally Built the Institution B2B Marketing Never Had
A note before we dive in: I’ve been following Dave Gerhardt’s work for a while now. His LinkedIn content is excellent, and what he’s built with Exit Five is impressive. This analysis stems from genuine curiosity about why certain businesses connect to identity in ways that transcend their stated purpose. I’ve done my best to…
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Why is Tesla worth more than Toyota?
Market sentiment is the story your numbers are forced to play in. It’s not just your revenue, profit margin, or operational efficiency. It’s the collective emotion investors attach to what you represent. That emotion becomes the lens through which every metric gets interpreted. Here’s the proof. The 30:1 Paradox As of October 2025, two companies…
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Hampton: How Owning Kinship Built an $8M Business That Members Would Take Loans to Keep
A note before we begin: I’ve been following Sam Parr’s work for years and genuinely admire what he has built. His podcast conversations are among the most candid in the startup world. This piece stems from fascination, not criticism. I love exploring what drives businesses to connect with identity rather than solve problems. I’ve tried to…