Summary

Many organisations mistake broader reach or added segments for progress. The real signal blurs under mixed stories and diffuse targets. Clarity returns when positioning compels a choice. Then momentum and pricing confidence follow, along with shorter cycles and more reliable forecasts.

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Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

The Real Risk

Positioning isn’t a slogan; it’s a resource allocation system. When it’s treated as a static statement, the costs show up quietly: decisions spread across too many segments, pricing confidence softens, and sales cycles lengthen as buyers hesitate. Inside the organisation, different teams tell slightly different versions of the story and the gaps multiply. None of these signals look existential on their own, but together they become a drag on growth and judgement.

The drag is avoidable. The discipline is to tie positioning to evidence about where you reliably create distinctive value—and to retire choices that no longer hold. LinkedIn notes that when sales and marketing are tightly aligned, marketing‑generated revenue can rise by up to 208% and customer retention by 36%.

A Living Choice

Treat positioning as a living choice: a set of explicit bets about which buyers, problems, and contexts you will serve—and which you will not. The test is behavioural. If buyers in a segment recognise your proof and act faster, the bet is working. If they hesitate, it isn’t. This mindset moves positioning from a branding exercise to an operating discipline.

Most organisations we work with find the unlock when they make those bets measurable: define the buyer behaviours to track, the thresholds for staying the course, and the triggers for change. That clarity removes internal debate and channels it into evidence.

Where To Focus

When positioning is alive, three signals tell you you’re placing the right bets:

• Win patterns: Win–loss analysis stabilises around a few segments where you consistently outmatch competitors.
• Pricing integrity: Discounting narrows and holds, with fewer exceptions and clearer value trade-offs.
• Cycle reliability: Sales cycles compress and forecasting variance drops as buyer journeys become more predictable.

Use these signals to tune investment levels, refine narratives, and simplify portfolios. When they degrade, don’t push harder—retest the bet.

Leadership Implications

This is leadership work, not a messaging refresh. A few pragmatic moves make it operational:

• Codify choice rules: “If we see X buyer behaviour in segment Y, we prioritise Z,” with thresholds defined in advance.
• Unify proof standards: One story, one target, one proof library that sales, marketing, and product all use.
• Schedule review cadences: Quarterly positioning reviews anchored on behavioural data, not opinions.

The commercial upside is material. Forrester finds that organisations aligning sales, marketing and product grow revenue 19% faster and deliver 15% higher profitability. When leaders make positioning a living choice, alignment compounds, execution steadies, and the market rewards the coherence.

Sources:

• DemandScience 2021 Sales & Marketing Alignment Benchmark Report — LinkedIn
• Forrester: The New Frontiers of B2B Alignment — Forrester

Further Resources

1. Positioning over USP: The Strategic Choice
2. Redefining Success: What ‘Better’ Means in Today’s Market
3. Core and Flex: A Strategic Approach to Brand Clarity at Scale

No two brand journeys are the same — connect with us if you’d like to test where your next step might lead. Let’s talk.

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