Does Your Company Have a Position or Just Talks Like It Does?
The two-debt diagnostic I run before I take any positioning engagement, and the five-step protocol that retires the debt once you have found it.
For two decades, I have worked on positioning across the full range of company contexts, from Fortune 50 enterprises and Big Four consulting engagements to founder-led software companies, agencies, in-house brand teams, and a single-location yogurt shop. The work has spanned steel, logistics, education, software, sports teams, hotels, and complex B2B sales, with the Big Four consulting and complex B2B sales work alone contributing to roughly $2B in closed deals.
During that time, I have read several hundred deliverables that called themselves “positioning”: brand books, messaging houses, narrative frameworks, repositioning decks, hero-section briefs, and internal one-pagers. The pattern across the sample is uncomfortable. A small minority of the deliverables describe a position the company actually holds. The rest describe a position the company has not yet paid for, written down in language confident enough to obscure the gap. At best, all glorified copywriting.
This piece is the diagnostic I now run before agreeing to take on a positioning engagement. It is short, mechanical, and unforgiving. By the end of it, you will know whether the work you have been calling “positioning” is producing a position or producing receipts for decisions your leadership team has not made.
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