Positioning Power

This shows how valuable positioning is in the game of chess.  For this reason, one legitimate strategy in chess is a positioning strategy.  Rather than trying to think through every contingency of every possible move, work to get your key pieces in the most powerful positions to influence the game. The principle of positioning is also important in professional sales.  The purpose of positioning is to stake a claim, establish the role of the sales person, and help the sales person to occupy a desired location.

If an explorer never stepped outside the boundaries of his mind, if he never set foot on new territory and if he never drove a stake into unmarked soil - no ownership would be acknowledged and no rights would be granted.  Sales people are the explorers and settlers of the market place.  In the marketplace of products and ideas sales people drive the stakes that claim territories and mark positions.  If a sales person does not verbalize his product claim, potential customers or competitors do not acknowledge it - no consumer list is developed, no territories are established, and no revenue stream is created.  If a sales person doesn't claim a position, he will never own it.

There are two main principles associated with staking a claim.  These principles are: first, if you don't claim a position, you will never own it, and second, if your claim goes uncontested, you win.  In the marketplace of products and ideas sales people drive the stakes that claim territories and mark positions.

This principle can be illustrated by using an example of market position.  Think about dandruff shampoo.  What is the first brand that comes to mind?  In most groups where I ask this question, the leading answer in this exercise is Head and Shoulders. 

No one simply granted this market position to Head and Shoulders.  Rather, Procter and Gamble, the makers of Head and Shoulders, staked their claim as the dandruff shampoo by investing millions of advertising dollars to claim the efficacy of their product in the fight against embarrassing skin flakes.  As a result of the investment, Proctor and Gamble no longer has to dominate the air waves with their message, they only invest enough to maintain the position they claimed. 

The second principle is related to the first; if your claim goes uncontested, you win.  In the case of explorers, settlers and miners, once the stake had been driven and the claim had been made, contests for the claim had to be answered.  If an explorer claimed a territory in the name of his sovereign only to find that a previous claim existed, a contest for ownership ensured.  When settlers and miners faced the problem of a contested claim, each side argued their case in civil court where an impartial judge resolved the dispute.  But if the claims went uncontested, the rights of ownership were acknowledged and granted.

Similar rules govern claims and rights in sales.  When Procter and Gamble planted their stake in the ground with a dandruff shampoo, competing products were not able to effectively combat the claim.  As a result, Proctor and Gamble secured the leading market position in dandruff shampoos with Head and Shoulders.

Once you stake your claim and establish your role, it is important to occupy that location.  In the same way occupied space works physically, the same is true in occupied space in our minds. Head and Shoulders occupies the space in our minds when we think of dandruff shampoo. Just as no two objects can share the same physical space, our minds can only be occupied by one thought. In that same way we need to occupy that space in our prospects minds when they think of our product.