Coaching through positioning resistance. Why great positioning fails without conviction and how to build it internally or for your client.

Why This Article Exists

If you’ve spent any time helping founders, CEOs, or leadership teams work through positioning, you’ve likely heard this line:

“Yes, this makes sense… but it won’t work in our space.”

This article is for those of you (positioning experts, advisors, coaches) who sit in the room after that sentence is said.

I’m writing this because I’ve seen how often positioning work stalls out, not because the framework is wrong, but because the psychology is unaddressed. The team nods at the theory, then drifts back into old language, old behaviours, and old defaults. Nothing changes. Not because they don’t understand. But because they don’t own it.

This is also useful reading for CEOs: if you’ve ever hired someone to help clarify your positioning and felt like the work didn’t quite land or your team didn’t really run with it, this will show you why. And what you can do differently.

What You’ll Get from This

This isn’t a walkthrough of frameworks. You already know those.

This is a coaching playbook for turning strategic resistance into ownership.
It will help you:

• Understand why even smart, experienced clients resist positioning work
• Spot the difference between polite agreement and real conviction
• Use guided discovery instead of expert lectures to build psychological ownership
• Move from theoretical clarity to operational action
• Use the Four Levels of Positioning: Territory, Concept, Category, and Execution as a coaching spine

Throughout, we’ll pull from thinkers like Roger Martin, Rory Sutherland, Al Ramadan, and Christopher Lochhead, as well as behavioural psychology and first principles logic. Just the tools to help you do the work better.

Let’s start where all resistance starts: fear.

The Real Reason Clients Say “It Won’t Work Here”

When a CEO says, “That’s great, but not in our industry,” they’re not rejecting the logic. They’re protecting identity.

They’re not worried that the strategy won’t work.
They’re worried about what it means if it does.

Positioning isn’t about messaging. It’s not about differentiation. At its core, positioning is a decision about identity. It answers the question:

“Who are we willing to become in order to matter?”

And that’s where the resistance shows up.

• Status quo bias says: don’t change what works.
• Loss aversion says: don’t narrow and lose leads.
• Confirmation bias says: don’t trust what contradicts what we already believe.
• Not-Invented-Here syndrome says: don’t listen to outsiders.

As Roger Martin writes in Playing to Win, strategy is about choice. But choice always creates fear. And fear creates delay, confusion, and endless loops of internal debate disguised as “alignment.”

Coaching vs Consulting: You Don’t Need Better Answers

The mistake most positioning experts make is trying to fix this with clearer explanations or more polished slides. But this isn’t an IQ problem. It’s an EQ block.

Consulting gives answers.
Coaching creates discovery.

Clients implement what they believe they discovered for themselves, not what they were told. Research shows that when clients arrive at insights through guided discovery, their implementation success improves by over 40%. Why? Because they’ve built psychological ownership. They’re not complying with your insight. They’re committing to their own.

This is why questioning, appreciative inquiry, and first principles deconstruction matter far more than your sixth slide.

The Four Levels of Positioning: A Coaching Framework

You don’t start positioning with words. You start with gravity.

The Four Levels of Positioning, based on the mental model hierarchy (Territory → Concept → Category → Execution), gives you a structure to coach through resistance in stages.

Let’s walk through each one, with practical coaching moves and real-world patterns.

1. Territory: Own the Ground Before You Build the House

Pushback: “We can’t stand for one thing. The market’s too crowded.”

This is the uniqueness illusion in disguise. Most companies overestimate how different they are, and underinvest in owning something simple, specific, and true.

Rory Sutherland once said, “There is no such thing as a rational decision. What we call rational is just familiar.” That’s what’s happening here. They’re clinging to what’s familiar.

Coaching Move:

Ask: “What human frustration do you resolve that no one else is brave enough to name?” This bypasses the product pitch. It forces emotional clarity.

Exercise: Two-Circle Map

• Circle 1: Market clichés (speed, scale, ease)
• Circle 2: Human tension (fear of irrelevance, insecurity, pressure to perform)

Draw the gap. That’s where the positioning lives.

Progress Signal:

They stop saying, “We’re efficient.”
They start saying, “Our buyers are scared of being left behind. We help them stay ahead.”

2. Concept: Name the Noun You Will Own

Pushback: “We already say we’re innovative and trustworthy.”

This is what Christopher Lochhead calls the “better trap.” When companies can’t commit to a noun, they pile on adjectives. They dilute themselves trying to sound smart, rather than ownable.

Great brands don’t describe. They symbolize.

• Red Bull = Energy
• Salesforce = Cloud
• Tesla = Future

As Al Ramadan wrote in Play Bigger, “Category kings become the category by defining the problem and linking it to a powerful solution. That requires a point of view, not a list of features.”

Coaching Move:

Ask: “If your brand were a noun, what would it be?” Then ask: “Can anyone else claim that?”

Exercise: Noun Scorecard

List five nouns. Score each:

• Relevance
• Credibility
• Differentiation

Pick one.

Progress Signal:

They stop saying, “We’re more agile.”
They say, “We are momentum.”
Or: “We are certainty.”

3. Category: Change the Rules, Don’t Just Compete Inside Them

Pushback: “We can’t change how our customers think.”

This is status quo fear wrapped in logic. But the most successful brands don’t follow the market, they reframe it.

As Lochhead says, “If you don’t name the problem, you don’t get to name the solution.” Category creation is about making your offer inevitable by rewriting the criteria for success.

Coaching Move:

Ask: “What rules used to matter but no longer serve your customer?”

Exercise: Before/After Script

Before	After
Speed = value	Confidence = value
Features = value	Clarity = value
Everyone = customer	Only the best = customer

Write three pairs. Read them aloud. Repeat.

Progress Signal:

The founder or CMO repeats the story (without the deck) in their next team meeting.

4. Execution: Prove It With Action, Not Just Words

Pushback: “We’re not ready to execute this across the business.”

Here comes regret aversion. The team sees the truth of the positioning, but fears operational exposure. They don’t want to say something they can’t yet deliver.

But positioning isn’t what you say. It’s what you prove. As Roger Martin reminds us, “The real test of strategy is not its elegance. It’s what it changes.”

Coaching Move:

Ask: “If this positioning is true, what changes tomorrow?” Then make that one small change visible.

Exercise: Evidence Audit

Pick five touchpoints:

• Homepage
• Onboarding
• Pricing model
• Hiring criteria
• Internal rituals

Score each: Does this reinforce the noun?
Pick one to update in 30 days.

Progress Signal:

Customers notice the change before the marketing team announces it.

Coaching Habits That Make It Stick

1. Stay curious.
   Keep asking until the client says it themselves.
2. Use small bets.
   Conviction follows behaviour, not slides.
3. Audit language.
   Replace adjectives with the chosen noun. Weekly.
4. Celebrate proof.
   Never let the slide deck be the finish line.

Final Word: Positioning Is Not a Slide. It’s a Shift

Positioning doesn’t fail because the framework is wrong.
It fails because no one commits to it.

The job of a positioning expert isn’t to write better lines. It’s to coach people into strategic self-honesty.

This takes time, structure, and trust. But when it clicks, it’s not just a messaging shift. It’s a gravitational one.

“You don’t position what you sell. You position what they believe.”
— Paul Syng

So next time a client says, “Yes, but…,” don’t explain harder. Coach deeper. That’s when “That’s us” finally gets said, and meant.

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