skills/positioning-doc/SKILL.mdView on GitHub
Goal: one document the whole company can write from. The website, the deck, the cold email, the demo and the job post all say the same thing because they all come from here. It is the company strategy in plain words: this customer, this problem, this solution, this difference.
Positioning is the best guess the company can make with what it knows today. Write it, put it on the website, and let real conversations correct it. Do not wait for certainty.
Before you start
This skill works on its own. If the person has their own marketing brain folder, read the ideal customer, company, offers and competitors files, and the positioning file if the one-liner is already in it. If they do not have one, or have not done the ICP work, ask three questions and work from the answers: who is the one customer type this is for (industry, size, role), what do those customers do today instead, and what has made the last three customers buy. That is enough of an ICP to write positioning; icp-and-wedge makes it sharper later if they want. Then ask for whatever they already have that describes the company: the website, the deck, a one-pager, a proposal. Read all of it before writing a word. Most of the raw material already exists; the job is to make it specific and consistent.
Interview the founder before drafting. Fifteen minutes, in their own words, these questions:
- What is broken in your customer’s world today, and why has nobody fixed it?
- What did your best customers do before they found you?
- What do they say about you after three months?
- Who do you lose deals to, and why do you win when you win?
- What do you refuse to do that competitors do?
Tools this skill uses when the person has them. None are required.
| Step | Tool | What for |
|---|---|---|
| Founder interview and customer language | Fathom or Granola | Record the interview; pull customer phrases from past calls (call-mining does this at scale) |
| Competitor read | Their websites, G2 or Capterra reviews, LinkedIn | How competitors describe themselves and what customers complain about |
| Drafting | Google Docs or a markdown file | The document itself, one file |
| Proof | HubSpot or Pipedrive, customer emails | Numbers, quotes and logos that can be used, with permission noted |
Steps
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Answer the four questions in full. One paragraph each, plain words, no adjectives that cannot be checked.
- What do you sell? The category a buyer would put it in, then what it actually does.
- Who is it for? The ICP card, in one paragraph. Name the role, not just the company.
- What does it replace? The thing they do today: a tool, a vendor, a spreadsheet, a person’s Tuesday afternoons. Be concrete. The replacement is where the budget comes from.
- Why is it better? Two or three differences that matter to the buyer and that a competitor cannot say with a straight face. If the honest answer is price, say price.
-
Write the problem statement. Three to five sentences on the customer’s situation before buying, using their words from calls where possible. The reader should recognise themselves. Then one sentence on the cost of leaving it alone.
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Write the solution statement. What changes after buying, in the same concrete terms. Then the three to five capabilities that make it true, each one line.
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Set the messaging pillars. Three pillars, four at most. A pillar is one reason to believe, stated as a benefit to the buyer, with the capabilities and proof that back it. Format each as: pillar name, one-sentence claim, two or three supporting points, the proof. Pillars are what the website sections, the deck sections and the content themes are built from, so they must be different from each other.
-
Build the stakeholder messaging matrix from the buying committee in the ICP card. One row per role. Columns: what they care about, what they are afraid of, the one message for them, the proof that lands with them, the objection they will raise. In a small company where one person is the whole committee, collapse the rows and say so.
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Write the objection list. Eight to twelve objections, the real ones from calls, not invented ones. For each: the objection as the customer says it, what is usually behind it, the answer in two or three sentences, and the proof to point to. Include the three that always come up: we do it ourselves, we have no budget, and we tried something like this before.
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Collect proof points. Numbers from customers, quotes, logos, before-and-after examples, awards, press. For each, note whether it is approved for public use, for sales use only, or needs permission. Do not invent a number. A gap here is a task: draft a testimonial for the customer to approve with a yes or no, which is faster than asking them to write one.
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Write the elevator pitch and the boilerplate. The pitch is the one-liner plus one supporting sentence, for conversations. The boilerplate is three sentences for the bottom of press releases, directory listings and bios. Both come from the four answers, not from a blank page.
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Check the whole document against the ICP card. Every sentence should be for the wedge segment. If a line could apply to any company in any industry, cut it or make it specific.
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Read it back to the founder. Line edits in the session. Mark anything unconfirmed “(check)”. Date the document and give it a version number; it will change.
Rules
- Specific beats clever. “Cuts a four-week process to four hours” beats “transforms your workflow”.
- Use the customer’s words for the problem and the company’s words for the solution.
- No guarantees, no superlatives, no “leading” or “innovative”. Say what it does.
- One positioning for the wedge segment. Other segments get a one-paragraph variant at the end, not a second document.
- Never invent proof, quotes, numbers or competitor claims. Mark unknowns and ask.
- Keep the document under four pages. A new salesperson should read it in fifteen minutes.
Output
Return the positioning document with these sections in order: the four questions, problem, solution, pillars, stakeholder matrix, objections, proof, elevator pitch and boilerplate, segment variants, version and date.
If the person has their own marketing brain folder, save to it:
3-strategy/positioning.md: the four questions, problem, solution and pillars3-strategy/messaging.md: the stakeholder matrix, objections, proof, pitch and boilerplate1-context/competitors.md: anything learned about competitors in the process5-current/decisions-log.md: one line with the date and version
If they do not have one, return it as a single file they can keep and share. Do not set a brain up unless they ask.
Next: homepage-rewrite turns this into the website. discovery-and-demo turns it into the call. outbound-list-and-sequence and creative-brief-library write from the pillars and the objections.