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What's Your Remarkable Point of View... R.POV8?

Guest post by: Roy Osing

Article Overview: Marketing guru Seth Godin is quoted as saying "If you can't describe your position in 8 words or less, you don't have a position." I agree but the competitive element needs to be clear...

What's Your Remarkable Point of View... R.POV8?

Excellence Pursuit #26 in Peters' latest book (which I highly recommend to anyone who wants to seriously re-invent their organization) discusses the need for organizations to declare their position in the market in simple, clear and compelling terms.

Marketing guru Seth Godin is quoted as saying "If you can't describe your position in 8 words or less, you don't have a position."

I agree that a positioning statement is critical, but I think we need to be a little clearer in terms of the competitive element. I would amend Seth's statement to read "If you can't define your UNIQUE position.... ". In fact an 8-word positioning statement that DOESN'T deal with you you are DiFFERENT won't have any impact at all in my view.

Winning and survival demands that organizations create unique value differences between themselves and their competitors. Failure to do so gives customers no compelling reason to do business with them as opposed to others with a predictable end result. If you're not DiFFERENT you're dead (or soon be) reflects the ultimate price paid by the lack of a truly relevant and distinct value proposition.

To both Godin's and Peters' perspective on this matter I would like to offer up a simple (but tough to do), practical and proven method of:

> creating a positioning statement of distinctiveness, with

> a minimum number of words.

In BE DiFFERENT or be dead I discuss The Only Statement as a way to crystallize uniqueness - the 'Elevator Speech of Strategy".

I contend the only Claim to be the ultimate manifestation of differentiation, a rallying cry for the organization and the guiding light for all marketing communications activity.

Complete the sentence: "We are the ONLY ones that..." and you have a positioning statement that works.

Examples of only work? I recently helped MUG Solutionsof Vancouver BC create: "We provide the only permanent solution that prevents biohazard contaminants (such as used syringes) and all other debris from entering manholes. "

Past blog articles have discussed The Only; stay tuned for more.

Cheers, Roy

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Article Tags: competitive position, The Only Statement
Referred by: http://www.starrbizz.com



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