As she got older, my grandmother became deaf. I would need multiple hand gestures and symbols to communicate with her. Quite often, a simple exercise of asking her, “What would you like for dinner?” would become a game of dumb charades. My grandmother’s ridiculous guesses made the game even more fun and made us laugh.
The best part? There was no pressure to avoid making a mistake. It was trial-and-error. I could enact something, to which she would respond with a guess, and based on the feedback, I could change our gestures. It didn’t have to be perfect.
However, in other areas of my life, I have struggled with perfectionism. Especially positioning.
Positioning is crucial
It is perhaps the most crucial piece. Without a strong positioning, we wouldn’t be able to communicate with our audience. They wouldn’t know what problem we solve, the audience we serve, our unique methodology, etc.
In an ideal world, our website headers, LinkedIn banners, and YouTube channels would be perfectly aligned with this positioning. The paradox, however, (wait for it…. Wait for it… ) is that for a strong positioning to emerge, we need to hold it lightly.
Wha????
Yes. We need to let go.
Our discomfort with not having a crisp positioning
Makes us choose a statement that sounds sharp. Something like –
- I help 6-figure Coaches scale their Facebook ads
- I help Early-stage Saas brands become product-market fit
- I help 7-figure E-commerce brands increase customer retention by 30%
While these positioning statements sound smart, zeroing in prematurely on them creates problems.
How does it ‘feel’?
Maybe hard-core capitalists would frown upon this question, but for many of us, it’s an important one. As soloists, experts, consultants, and coaches, a large part of what we do depends on how we feel about it. We are not opportunists. We do not want to jump into businesses that have the maximum potential. We want to build a business that feels right.
Premature positioning can destroy that and make us unhappy.
Premature positioning prevents deeper exploration
Many of us become impatient and commit to a niche with a crisp positioning statement, which creates a mental barrier that prevents us from further exploration. We ignore important questions like –
- What is broken in this world that I want to fix?
- What about my industry frustrates me?
- What is my vision? What change do I want to make?
- What problem am I motivated to solve?
The self-imposed positioning box is too restrictive.
How Jay Acunzo navigated imperfect positioning
Jay was frustrated with the current state of Marketing. That’s all he knew at the point. He was sick of selfish marketers treating people like numbers on the list, spamming them with irrelevant messages, shady copywriting… and everything in between.
He leaned into this frustration and created a ton of content that touched upon this issue. He let his curiosity and frustration take the front seat… and in the process, he wrote a book, started two podcasts, launched a community, and so much more.
Today, Jay has a very crisp positioning – he calls himself a Speaking and Messaging strategist for Soloists. Most importantly, he has a business that aligns with his values and beliefs. Now imagine if Jay had started with a pithy statement like – “I help Business Consultants in Silicon Valley get more clients”… none of this would have happened.
Maybe it’s a lousy business decision
Hard-core entrepreneurs would probably cringe at the advice of ‘forget your positioning’. They would argue that weak positioning creates a ton of problems for your business. And they would be right. It would be a better business decision to pick something. But it would come at the cost of internal misalignment.
If you were to ask me, that’s a steep price to pay. It’s okay to make a slightly sub-standard business decision in the service of internal alignment. While it may not be the best decision for your business, it’s the best decision for your thought process, IP development, and internal alignment.
Because with time, a crisp positioning emerges.
Perfect positioning is important
None of this is to diminish the crucial role that Positioning plays in a business’s success. It’s extremely important. But getting to Positioning without doing all the work before that could be a recipe for unhappiness.
So how do you navigate this tension?
Forget the crisp positioning (for now) and continue serving your clients. As far as the way ahead is concerned, there are 2 questions to wrestle with –
- What problem am I motivated to solve?
- What frustrates me right now?
Note that neither of the 2 questions are related to the demography of the audience you are serving. The problem you solve might also change. All of those questions will be answered with time. For now, these 2 questions are the starting point of a journey.
To summarize
So, what’s the deal with positioning? It’s crucial, but we can’t let perfection paralyze us. As Soloists, we need to give ourselves permission to start with imperfect positioning and trust that clarity will emerge as we stay open, curious and lean into our frustrations. We can focus on the problems we’re motivated to solve and let our positioning evolve organically over time.
My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. I miss her. I remember the dumb charades, the laughter, and, most importantly… the fact that even imperfect gestures eventually lead us to the right answer.