What I Mean by “Positioning”

I was talking to someone the other day about “positioning” a planned service offering and asking questions about how his firm is “positioned” against others.  Here’s what I mean.

A lot of firms have what I think are very generic brands and firm positioning statements.  They’ll emphasize their customer service, say (”customer service is our focus!”) or their partners and employees (”our people make the difference”).  The problem is that all the other firms are saying the exact same thing.  So how do you differentiate yourself?

It’s like wearing a light colored tie, and white shirt, and a tan suit.  Everything kinda blends together and you’re just a big tan blob.  But take that same tie and put it with a dark suit, and you’ve got something completely different that works.

Contrast.

So when you think about messaging and brand think about positioning. What are you putting next to the statement that “our people make a difference?”  What if you put it next to:

• “we know the construction industry like no one else.”  
• “our partners have been in the community most of their lives and probably went to college or even high school with the top executives in your company.”
• “we have the lowest staff turnover in town.

See how the “our people make a difference” takes on a different feel when you put it with something else?  Now you’re ready to position your firm against your competition.

• “we know construction”  translation:  we have more expertise than the other guy.
• “we grew up in the same town” translation:  we understand the local businesses, not like those carpetbaggers from the big firms.
• “low staff turnover”  translation: we’re not going to use your job as a training ground like other firms.

Want to see a good example of positioning?  Pay attention to how the administration positions health care reform over the next few months.  My sense is that up until now, the President has still been searching for his voice on the issue, but he’s about to get a lot crisper in his messaging.

There are a number of ways you can position the need to reform health care.

• There are 47 million uninsured.  Universal health care is  a moral issue.
• The rising costs of health care are killing small and big business alike. We have to reform and hold down costs.
• Rising costs will place an ever increasing burden on government (i.e., medicare) and we have to reign in costs.
• The insurance companies are denying coverage to people when they get sick and doing all sorts of bad things.  These practices have to stop.

The list goes on.  And all of these arguments have some merit.  But choose one.  How are they going to position health care reform?

My guess is that they’ll go for some kind of economic argument.

One of the key to the controlling costs is to have a public plan, so they’ll have to make that argument.  But I’m guessing that they will not position the public plan as an economic answer.  Instead, they are already starting to position it as a way to hold insurance companies accountable.

From a communications standpoint it’s going to be fascinating to see how this plays out.  Let’s watch.

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