Positioning your small business against the competition means naming the specific problem you solve better than anyone else, and saying it fast enough that a stranger gets it in three seconds. A lot of owners can’t do it, and the reason usually isn’t a missing differentiator. They can’t see their own from the inside.
Jamar Jones from 4 Your Media joined me on the show to dig into this, and he put it better than I’ve heard it put: it’s hard to read the label when you’re in the bottle. That’s the whole problem in one line.
Why is it so hard to separate yourself from the competition?
Because you’re standing inside your own business, and the thing that makes you different has become normal to you. You’ve done it a thousand times. It stopped feeling special somewhere around the third year. Meanwhile the client, who’s seeing it for the first time, thinks it’s remarkable.
That gap is why positioning almost never gets solved alone. You need somebody outside the bottle to read the label back to you. That can be a peer, a coach, a room full of other owners, or a client you actually ask. What it can’t be is you, staring at your own website at eleven at night.
What is the Wiki Famous Audit?
It’s an inventory of what you’ve actually done, counted in lifetime totals instead of recent memory. Not ‘I do headshots.’ Instead, how many sessions, over how many years, for how many industries, in how many cities. People don’t realize what they’ve actually accomplished, and this is the exercise that puts real numbers on it.
The reason it works is that scale is invisible from the inside. You remember last month. You don’t remember that last month was the four hundredth time. When you write the lifetime total down, you’re usually looking at a credential you didn’t know you had, and credentials are what make positioning believable instead of boastful.
Do it on paper. One column for the thing you do, one for how long you’ve done it, one for how many times. Then read it back like a stranger would.
Why does my offer confuse people?
Usually because you built the package you think people should buy instead of the one solving a problem they already know they have. Those are different products. One requires you to educate the buyer before they’ll consider it. The other just requires them to recognize themselves.
The fix is narrowing, and narrowing feels like losing money right up until it starts making money. One focused offer aimed at one real problem outsells a menu every time, because a menu asks the buyer to do the work of figuring out which item is for them.
How fast do I need to explain what I do?
Three seconds. I was at a networking event the other night and got the usual question, ‘Oh, Pat, what do you do?’ That first three seconds better hook them. You gotta have that pitch down or the eyes glaze over, and once the eyes glaze over you’re not getting them back in that conversation.
Three seconds isn’t your whole story. It’s the hook that earns you the next thirty. Lead with the problem you solve, not your job title, because nobody has ever gotten curious about a job title.
Who should be in my circle?
People who’ll tell you the truth about your label. That’s the real function of a peer group, and it’s why owners who have one solve positioning faster than owners who don’t. You can pay a consultant for an outside read, and that works. You can also just be in a room where five other owners will say ‘that’s not what you’re actually good at’ for free.
Either way, the outside read is the non-negotiable part. Everything else about positioning comes after it. Get the read first, then build.
Questions owners ask
What does positioning actually mean for a small business?
It’s the specific problem you solve, for a specific person, better than the alternatives. A tagline and a logo are decoration. Positioning is the reason someone picks you over the next name on the list.
How do I find my differentiator if I think I don’t have one?
Ask three past clients why they hired you and why they stayed. The answer is almost never what you’d have guessed, and it’s usually your positioning sitting in plain sight.
Should I narrow my offer if I need the revenue right now?
Narrowing your marketing message doesn’t mean turning down work. You can keep saying yes to what comes in while you point your outbound message at one clear problem.
Can I figure out my positioning by myself?
Rarely, and that’s not a knock on you. You’re inside the bottle. Get one outside read before you commit to anything.
Watch the full episode of Businessing with Pat Miller.
Here’s the homework. Write your lifetime totals down. How many times, over how many years, for how many kinds of clients. Then hand it to one person outside your business and ask them what stands out. If you don’t have that person yet, the Small Business Owners Community is full of owners who’ll read your label back to you, and it’s $9 a month.