Difficulty of Self-Positioning
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I have the privilege of working with a new marketing firm or department once per week typically, and doing it since 1994 has yielded some very clear patterns. One of those patterns is this: why are agencies so good at positioning products and services for their clients but so bad at doing it for themselves?
If you were your own client, you’d give yourself a dope slap, yell a little, and tell yourself to get off your ass and make some decisions. The most telling exercise I’ve ever done—and I’ve done it several dozen times now—is to ask everyone in the audience to write down in a sentence or two exactly what makes them unique in the marketplace. Then I make them exchange papers with a peer firm sitting right next to them, who then stands up and reads the positioning statement as if it were their own, and see if they can embrace this “distinctive” statement or if they must disavow it. You get the idea without me noting here that caring about your clients, assembling a strong team, really listening, and being strategic are not all that unique to you, no matter how good each of those sounds after three hours in the conference room!
