Positioning one-liner

skills/positioning-one-liner/SKILL.mdView on GitHub

Goal: a sentence the person can say out loud, and that a friend of a friend can repeat without getting it wrong. If people cannot repeat it, they cannot refer you.

Before you start

This skill works on its own. If the person has their own marketing brain, read the company, ideal customer and offers files first. If they do not, work from what they say in the session. Tools: none needed.

The four elements

Every one-liner has four parts. Get all four before writing anything.

1. What it is: the product or service, and the category a buyer would put it in.
2. Who it is for: the specific customer. Industry, size, situation, location if it matters.
3. What it replaces: the alternative the customer uses today. Another product, a workaround, doing nothing.
4. Why it is better: for that specific customer. Not better than everyone, more appropriate for them.

Steps

1. Ask the person to describe their business in their own words. Do not interrupt or correct.
2. Ask the four questions one at a time. After each answer, push once for more specificity:

• “Who is it for” is never “small businesses” or “anyone who”. Ask: who was your best customer so far, and what did they have in common? If they have no customers, ask who they would most like to call first.
• “What it replaces” is never blank. If they say “nothing”, ask what the customer does today without them.
• “Why it is better” must be true for the specific customer in step 2, not in general.

3. Run the grandma test on their answers: could someone outside the industry understand and remember this? Strip every buzzword and acronym.
4. Fill the template:

For [who it is for] who need [the problem], [product name] is a [what it is] that [why it is better]. Unlike [what it replaces], we [the difference].

Then write two more versions:

• Spoken: the same idea the way they would say it at a dinner party. Under 25 words.
• Referral: one sentence someone else could say about them. “If you know a [who] who [problem], talk to [name], they do [what].”

5. Ask which one feels most like them. Edit that one together until they would say it without wincing.
6. Draft a short text message they can send to three people outside their industry: the one-liner, then “Can you say back to me what you think I do?” Tell them to send it today.

Rules

• Never invent facts about the business. If something is unknown, ask.
• Narrow is good. If the person worries the one-liner excludes people, say: it is supposed to. The people it excludes were not going to buy anyway, and the people it fits will now remember you.
• No slogans, no puns, no “we are passionate about”. Plain language only.
• Keep the spoken version under 25 words.

Output

Return the filled template, the spoken version, the referral version, and the text message. Suggest saving the result to marketing-brain/3-strategy/positioning.md if they have a marketing brain folder.