A founder asked me recently: "Jeffrey, how do I set myself apart from my competitor?" I asked him one back: "Why are you looking at your competitor?"
Silence.
He had spent three months analysing competitors. What they had on their websites. What they charged. How their LinkedIn looked. And he had adjusted his own proposition on the strength of it. The result: a copy of his competitor, worded slightly differently.
That is not positioning. That is following.
Positioning starts with your customer, not your competitor
Most founders I speak to make the same mistake. They define themselves relative to a competitor. "We are cheaper." "We are more personal." "We are faster." Those are not positions. Those are reactions.
Real positioning starts with a different question: what keeps your customer up at night? Not in general terms like "more revenue," but specifically. What frustrates them? What have they already tried? Why did it not work?
If you understand that, and you can put it in words your customer recognises, you have a position. Your competitor stops mattering. Because you are no longer talking about yourself, you are talking about your customer's world.
The problem with being better
Plenty of founders try to be better than the competition. Better product, better service, better price. Reasonable enough. But it does not work as a positioning strategy.
Why not? Because better is subjective. You think your product is better. Your competitor thinks theirs is. Your customer cannot see the difference. Because you are both saying the same thing in different words.
The alternative is not being better but being different. A different angle, a different audience, a different approach, a different model. Something that cannot be copied because it comes out of you. Out of your experience, your convictions, your way of working.
I had a client doing executive coaching. His market was full of coaches. Everyone promised "more results" and "personal growth." He set himself apart by saying: "I only work with founders who are already successful but feel stuck. No starters, no corporates, no motivational talk." That ruled out 90% of the market. But the 10% that remained recognised themselves completely.
The customer as a mirror
The best way to find your positioning is not thinking behind your desk. It is talking to your clients. And not asking "what do you think of us" but asking: "What was going on when you called us? What had you already tried? Why did you choose us and not someone else?"
The answers are gold. They tell you exactly what sets you apart. Not what you think sets you apart, but what the client experiences. And that is the only thing that counts.
One client of mine found out this way that his clients did not come for his expertise, which his competitor had too, but for how fast he moved. He picked things up within 24 hours while his competitors needed weeks for a proposal. That became his positioning: "Start tomorrow, not next month."
Positioning is choosing what you do not do
The hardest part of positioning is not deciding what you do. It is deciding what you do not do. Which clients do you turn down? Which projects do you leave? Which methods do you deliberately avoid?
It feels like leaving money on the table. The opposite is true. The clearer your edges, the stronger your position. People trust someone who knows what they do and do not do more than someone who takes on everything.
Positioning is not a marketing trick. It is a business decision. It shapes who you attract, how you communicate, what you deliver and how you grow. It is not something you do on the side. It is the foundation under everything.
Start here
Ask your clients three questions: why did you call us, what had you already tried, and why did you choose us? Do that with your last five clients. Look for the pattern. That pattern is your position.
And stop looking at your competitor. They are busy looking at you. Meanwhile nobody is looking at the customer.