Everybody talks about positioning.

Especially in SaaS.

But it can sound so ephemeral that nobody ends up doing much with it.

If you’re not familiar with what positioning is, in short it’s what tells your audience what you do, who you do it for, and how you do it in a unique or better way.

I’ve been working on a project where I have to turn my client’s positioning strategy into copy for the past 2 months.

The client came in with a couple of value propositions for different personas, but they weren’t sure they were hitting the mark.

So they needed someone to crystallize them into copy that spoke to their customers.

During the process I got to experience different levels of how that happens.

The first level is consolidating knowledge.

Especially in big companies, it’s easy to lose track of what everyone knows. Problem is, it’s people like sales and account management who know what you need to say to really influence potential customers.

So as a first step I spoke to everyone I could inside the company and gathered their insights.

Pure gold. And it was fascinating to hear all the different opinions – as well as those who they were aligned on.

Second step? Listen to customers.

Now a lot of times in B2B it’s hard to survey or interview customers (particularly when they’re executives or team leaders). So you look at reviews, and eavesdrop on sales call recordings.

In other words you look for information organically.

Now, what do you do with all this data?

This is where step 3 comes in: writing the actual value proposition.

My decision making process to come up with a clear and compelling value proposition is pretty simple.

And it starts way before know what words to use…

You have to know, in order:

• What to say (the talking points to hit)
• Where and when to say it (the hierarchy and prioritization of those points)
• How to say it (the specific words to express those points)

It’s a pretty handy checklist.

As soon as you realize you don’t know any one of these 3, you have to go back to the research. Only when you’ve passed a level, you can move on to the next.

Fun little game ha?

Next time you have a hard time coming up with copy from your positioning strategy remember these 3 steps and how to think about building your value prop.

P.S. Tomorrow we’ll look at a super simple way to use ChatGPT to come up with ideas for the first two levels of the value proposition (What to say and Where to say it). Stay tuned.

Quote and reflection of the day:

“People cling strongly to their identity—their mental and physical being—when actually there are only evolving processes.”

• William Hart, The Art of Living

When you see yourself as a constant evolution, as a process, you’re free to adapt and adjust. And any mental or physical tensions are merely guidelines telling you how to do so.