Positioning that travels inside buying groups
Positioning is not a slogan; it’s a shared understanding. When your book states pain, places proof, and promises one change, a champion can forward a chapter and win agreement without you on the call. The words you pick must survive Slack quotes and skim reads. That means short, specific, and testable. The promise is not “better operations,” it’s “a calmer incident model your team can adopt in a week.”
Find the pain by listening, not guessing
- Pull the last ten discovery notes and highlight phrases that repeat.
- Ask your customer success team for the three most common “stuck points.”
- Write three one‑sentence pain statements. Keep the one a stranger would nod at.
Place proof next to claims
Proof in a separate section is easy to ignore. Put numbers and cases beside the line they support. If you claim that chapters reduce first‑call objections, show the before/after count under that sentence. Use one case with situation → action → result. The more proximal the proof, the more believable the claim.
Promise one change you can keep
Promises constrain scope. Constrained scope builds trust. Choose a promise that can be experienced within days: a diagnostic, a small pilot, a measurable improvement. Then structure chapters so the reader can get that outcome without friction. When a promise is kept quickly, intent compounds. Deals move.
Case: reframing to earn executive attention
An ops platform led with “observability at scale.” It sounded grand but didn’t map to budget owners. The reframed positioning—“mean time to resolution down 27% in 60 days”—put pain, proof, and promise into one line. Executives replied because the promise was measurable and near‑term. The book’s first chapter carried the argument inside the org without another meeting.
A checklist you can use on any chapter
- Pain: Does the first paragraph name a situation readers recognize?
- Proof: Are numbers or cases placed next to the claim they support?
- Promise: Is there one action the reader can take today that moves them forward?
Examples that make the frame obvious
Pain: “On‑call teams burn out chasing noisy alerts.”
Proof: “A 30% reduction in false pages in 30 days at AcmeCo.”
Promise: “Adopt a calmer incident model in a week.”
Where the frame breaks
If pain is vague, proof is distant, or the promise is untestable in days, the positioning will wobble. Tighten each until a stranger can repeat it after one read.