Your Positioning Strategy - How to Own Your Space

You're not trying to be everything to everyone. You're trying to be the obvious choice for a specific person with a specific problem.

That sentence might sound simple, but it's the single most important strategic decision you'll make in your business. Get positioning right, and everything else — marketing, sales, pricing, content — becomes easier. Get it wrong, and you'll spend months (or years) struggling to explain what you do and why anyone should care.

Let's get it right.

What Positioning Actually Means

Positioning is the answer to this question: "When someone has the problem I solve, am I the first person they think of?"

If the answer is no, you have a positioning problem. And most new consultants do, because they make one of two mistakes:

1. They position too broadly. "I'm a business consultant" means nothing. It tells no one anything useful. It makes you invisible.
2. They position based on what they can do rather than what the client needs. "I can do strategic planning, operational improvement, training, and project management" is a capability list, not a position.

Good positioning isn't about limiting what you can do. It's about being crystal clear about who you serve and what problem you solve — so that the right people find you and immediately understand why you're the right choice.

The Positioning Statement Formula

Here's the framework that works:

"I help [specific customer] who are struggling with [specific problem] to [achieve specific outcome] without [what they're afraid of], because [your unique advantage]."

Let's break that down:

• Specific customer: Not "businesses." Not "organizations." A specific type of person or company. The more specific, the better.
• Specific problem: Not "challenges." A real, named, painful problem they're dealing with right now.
• Specific outcome: What their life looks like after you've helped them. Paint the picture.
• What they're afraid of: Every buyer has a fear — spending too much, making a mistake, wasting time, looking bad. Name it.
• Your unique advantage: The reason you can deliver this better than anyone else. This connects back to your five competitive advantages from Chapter 1.

Example Positioning Statements

Example 1 (Government background):
"I help government contractors who are struggling with compliance documentation to pass audits on the first attempt without hiring a full-time compliance team, because I spent 15 years running compliance programs inside federal agencies and I know exactly what auditors look for."

Example 2 (Healthcare background):
"I help mid-size medical practices struggling with patient flow bottlenecks to reduce wait times by 40% without expensive technology upgrades, because I spent 12 years managing operations at a high-volume hospital system and I've seen what actually works."

Example 3 (Tech background):
"I help Series A startups struggling with their first enterprise sales to close their first 10 enterprise deals without building a massive sales team, because I spent 8 years building and running enterprise sales at two SaaS companies that scaled from $2M to $50M."

Example 4 (Finance background):
"I help small business owners who are struggling to understand their financials to make confident growth decisions without an expensive CFO, because I spent 18 years in corporate finance and I can translate complex numbers into plain English."

Example 5 (Manufacturing background):
"I help mid-size manufacturers struggling with quality control consistency to reduce defect rates by 50% without slowing production, because I spent 16 years running quality programs at three different manufacturing facilities."

Notice what all of these have in common: they're specific, they promise a real outcome, they address a real fear, and they leverage a real advantage. None of them say "I'm a consultant who can help with many things."

Why Specificity Wins

Your instinct might be to go broad. "If I narrow my focus, I'll miss opportunities!" That's a natural fear, but it's wrong. Here's why:

Broad positioning means you compete with everyone. If you're "a business consultant," you're competing with every other business consultant — including the big firms with bigger brands and bigger marketing budgets. You can't win that fight.

Narrow positioning means you compete with almost no one. If you're "the person who helps government contractors pass compliance audits," how many competitors do you actually have? Maybe a handful. And most of them are generalists who dabbled in compliance — they don't have your 15 years of deep experience.

Broad positioning means slow sales cycles. When a prospect can't immediately understand what you do, they have to spend time figuring it out. That means more meetings, more explaining, more convincing. Every step is friction.

Narrow positioning means fast sales cycles. When a prospect immediately understands what you do and why you're the right choice, the conversation moves quickly from "tell me about yourself" to "how do we get started?"

Broad positioning means low prices. When you're one of many options, the buyer has leverage. They can compare you to cheaper alternatives. Price becomes the differentiator.

Narrow positioning means premium prices. When you're the only person who does exactly what the client needs, price becomes less important. They're not comparing you to cheaper alternatives because there are no direct alternatives. You're the specialist, and specialists command higher fees.

The Specialist Premium in Action

Think about it from the buyer's perspective. You need heart surgery. Do you want a general surgeon who's done a few heart procedures, or a cardiac surgeon who's done 500? You want the specialist. And you expect to pay more for the specialist. The same principle applies to consulting.

A generalist business consultant might charge $150/hour. A compliance specialist for government contractors might charge $300/hour. The specialist makes more per hour, works with better-fit clients, and gets more referrals — because their positioning makes them the obvious choice.

How to Test Your Positioning

Once you've written your positioning statement, you need to test it. Here are four ways:

Test 1: The Cocktail Party Test

Say your positioning statement at a social gathering. If people's eyes glaze over, it's too vague. If they immediately say, "Oh, my friend/colleague/boss needs that!" you've nailed it. The cocktail party test measures whether your positioning is clear and compelling enough for a non-expert to understand and remember.

Test 2: The Google Test

Search for the problem you solve. Are there people actively searching for help with this problem? If you Google "government contractor compliance help" and see people asking questions, writing blog posts, and looking for solutions, that's a market. If you can't find anyone searching for your problem, either you're describing it wrong or it's not a real pain point.

Test 3: The Referral Test

Tell your positioning to a former colleague and ask: "Do you know anyone who has this problem?" If they can immediately think of someone, your positioning maps to a real problem in the real world. If they have to think hard, you might be solving a problem that's not painful enough to generate demand.

Test 4: The 10-Second Test

Can someone understand your positioning in 10 seconds or less? If it takes a paragraph to explain what you do, you're not positioned — you're just describing yourself. Your positioning should be one sentence that immediately creates clarity.

Positioning for Different Industry Backgrounds

If You Came from Government

Your natural positioning sweet spot is at the intersection of government processes and private sector organizations that interact with government. Government contractors, regulated industries, companies seeking government grants or certifications — these are all organizations that desperately need someone who understands how government actually works.

Strong positions: Compliance consulting, government contracting guidance, regulatory navigation, grant writing and management, public-private partnership facilitation.

If You Came from Big Tech

Your natural positioning sweet spot is helping smaller companies apply the frameworks and processes that made big tech companies successful. Startups, mid-size companies trying to scale, organizations undergoing digital transformation — they all want what you know.

Strong positions: Product strategy, engineering team scaling, data-driven decision making, platform architecture, growth strategy.

If You Came from Healthcare

Your natural positioning sweet spot is at the intersection of clinical operations and business efficiency. Healthcare is so complex that outsiders can barely scratch the surface. Your insider perspective is enormously valuable.

Strong positions: Clinical workflow optimization, healthcare compliance, patient experience improvement, health system integration, medical practice management.

If You Came from Finance

Your natural positioning sweet spot is making financial complexity understandable and actionable for non-financial leaders. Every business has money questions. Most business owners are intimidated by their own numbers.

Strong positions: Fractional CFO services, financial modeling for growth decisions, cash flow optimization, financial literacy for leadership teams, M&A preparation.

Common Positioning Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake 1: Positioning by title instead of by problem. "I'm a management consultant" describes you. "I help companies fix broken sales processes" describes the value you create. Clients don't buy titles — they buy solutions to problems.

Mistake 2: Trying to appeal to everyone. The more people you try to reach, the fewer people you actually connect with. A message designed for everyone resonates with no one. A message designed for one specific person resonates deeply — and word spreads.

Mistake 3: Copying a competitor's positioning. If another consultant in your space says they help mid-market companies with digital transformation, don't say the same thing. Find the angle that's uniquely yours. Maybe they focus on technology. You focus on the people side of transformation. Same market, different position.

Mistake 4: Changing your positioning too quickly. It takes time for positioning to gain traction. People need to hear your message multiple times before it sticks. If you change your positioning every month, you're constantly starting over. Give your positioning at least 90 days before you evaluate and adjust.

The Positioning Evolution

Here's something most people don't tell you: your positioning will evolve. You're not locking yourself into a permanent box. You're choosing a starting point — the clearest, most compelling position you can take today.

Over time, as you work with clients and learn what the market really needs, you'll refine your positioning. Maybe you'll narrow further. Maybe you'll expand. Maybe you'll discover an adjacent problem that's even more valuable to solve.

The key is to start with something specific enough to be useful and then adjust based on real-world feedback. Don't try to get it perfect on day one. Get it clear enough to start conversations, and then let the market teach you.

Exercise: Build and Test Your Positioning

Step 1: Write your positioning statement using the formula: "I help [specific customer] who are struggling with [specific problem] to [achieve specific outcome] without [what they're afraid of], because [your unique advantage]."

Step 2: Read it out loud. Does it feel true? Does it feel powerful? If it feels weak or vague, go more specific. Replace general words with concrete ones.

Step 3: Test it on three people this week:
- A friend (do they immediately understand what you do?)
- A former colleague (do they know someone who needs this?)
- Someone who fits your customer avatar (do they lean in with interest?)

Step 4: Watch their reactions carefully. The best signal isn't "that sounds great" (which is polite but meaningless). The best signal is: "Oh, I know someone who needs that" or "Where were you six months ago when I was dealing with exactly that problem?"

Step 5: Refine based on feedback. If people consistently misunderstand one part of your statement, rewrite that part. If they consistently get excited about one part, emphasize it more.

What Good Positioning Feels Like

When you've nailed your positioning, something shifts. Conversations become easier. You stop feeling like you're selling and start feeling like you're helping. Prospects understand what you do without a 20-minute explanation. Referrals start coming in because people can clearly describe what you do to others.

Good positioning doesn't feel limiting — it feels liberating. It gives you clarity about where to spend your time, who to talk to, what content to create, and which opportunities to pursue (and which to let go). It's the foundation that everything else in your business is built on.