positioning-and-messaging

---
name: positioning-and-messaging
description: Positioning, messaging and voice for enterprise B2B products and brands. Builds positioning (target, alternatives, differentiation, category), messaging houses with pillars and proof, persona-, role- and industry-specific messaging, value propositions, boilerplate and elevator pitches, and brand or executive voice guides extracted from real writing samples. Use it whenever the user says the message "isn't landing" or "sounds like everyone else", wants to position against competitors, launch into a new segment, write a value prop, tagline or messaging framework, or capture how a brand or executive writes. Also use it when copy feels generic because the positioning underneath is unclear and any competitor could say the same thing.
---

# Positioning & Messaging

Positioning decides who you're for and why you win. Messaging is how you say it to each audience. Voice is how it sounds. Get them in that order. Polishing copy on top of fuzzy positioning produces nice-sounding sentences any competitor could sign.

## 1. Positioning

**Inputs needed (ask once if missing):**
- what the product actually does (from the user's company-and-offer file; its location is in the project instructions)
- best customers and why they bought
- deals lost and why
- the real alternatives buyers consider
- current messaging

Without real customer evidence, label the output **"hypothesis positioning — validate with 5+ customer and prospect conversations"**.

**Five questions.** Each answer must be specific before moving on:
1. **Who exactly?** The role, company type and situation where we're the obvious choice. Example: "Heads of eCommerce at multi-brand CPG companies selling through 5+ retailers", not "marketing teams".
2. **What problem, triggered by what?** The pain, the event that makes it urgent, and the cost of doing nothing.
3. **Compared to what?** The real alternatives buyers weigh: named competitors, the status quo, building in-house, agencies, spreadsheets and manual work.
4. **Why us, and only us?** Fill in: "Only we ___ because ___." Test it: could a competitor say this truthfully? If yes, it's not a differentiator.
5. **So what?** The outcome, at the strongest proof level available:
   - Proof level 1: a measured result from the proof library.
   - Proof level 2: a named qualitative change.
   - Proof level 3: directional.

**Competitive alternatives map:**

| | Us | Competitor A | Competitor B | Build / status quo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | | | | |
| Approach | | | | |
| Tradeoff | | | | |
| **They win when…** | | | | |

Fill in "They win when" honestly. The sweet spot is where we clearly win, competitors can't or won't follow, and the tradeoff is one our target buyers happily accept.

**Statement:** "For [target] who [problem/trigger], [product] is the [category] that [key benefit]. Unlike [named alternatives], we [differentiator], because [reason to believe]."

**Five-check test:**
- **Specific:** names a who and a what.
- **Differentiated:** passes the "could a competitor say it" test.
- **Credible:** backed by proof we actually have.
- **Meaningful:** the buyer cares.
- **Memorable:** survives retelling.

**Category choice:**
- **Existing category:** easier to buy, harder to stand out.
- **Sub-category:** "X for Y". Often the best enterprise choice.
- **New category:** expensive, and only worth it if we can fund educating the market.

Recommend one and explain the tradeoff.

## 2. Messaging house

```
Positioning statement (internal)
Core message (one sentence, external)
Pillars (3) — each: claim · why it matters to the buyer · 2–3 proof points (proof-library IDs) · what we never say
Messaging by audience — economic buyer / functional owner / technical & security / end user; and by priority industry
Hierarchy — tagline (<10 words) · value props (3–5 one-liners) · elevator pitch (~75 words) · boilerplate (100–150 words)
Don't-say list — overclaims, banned terms, competitor references policy
```

**Rules:**
- **Every pillar needs proof.** A pillar without proof is an aspiration. Label it so, and keep it out of external claims until proof exists.
- **Use the customer's words.** Mine discovery notes, call transcripts, win/loss interviews, reviews and RFP language. Phrases buyers already use beat invented copy.
- **Audience variants change the emphasis and proof, not the facts.** The CFO hears payback and risk, IT hears architecture and security, the practitioner hears workload. All of them hear the same core claim.

**Message testing:**
- **Best:** real conversations and A/B tests with enough volume.
- **Acceptable for early direction:** synthetic panels, structured critique, or "could a competitor say this?" reviews. Label them **SYNTHETIC — directional only**, and never report synthetic results as customer data.

**Scoring a message** (1–5 each):
- clarity
- relevance to the persona's priority
- credibility (proof)
- differentiation
- urgency, meaning a genuine reason to act

## 3. Voice extraction (brand or executive)

Use this to fill in the user's brand-voice-and-restrictions file (template in this skill set's `context-templates/`), or to create an executive ghostwriting profile.

**Sample gate:** at least 3 samples and roughly 500+ words. Prefer the most natural writing first:
1. casual email and internal messages
2. call or podcast transcripts
3. LinkedIn posts and articles
4. polished web copy and press releases, which are the most edited and the least personal

Exclude legal text and other people's quotes. State what was used: "N samples, ~W words, excluded: …".

**Extract (quote exact phrases, and cite the sample each came from):**
- **Core stance:** teacher, challenger, straight-shooter, or guide; energy level; recurring themes.
- **Scales (1–10):** formality, energy, technical depth, boldness (hedged ↔ direct).
- **Rhythm:** sentence length and variation, paragraph length, use of lists vs. prose.
- **Openings, closings and transitions** they actually use.
- **Signature phrases**, verbatim.
- **Absence signals:** words, punctuation, structures and tones that never appear, with counts (e.g., "em dashes: 0 in 6 samples"; "never opens with a question").
  - **Label absences from small samples as provisional.** Only prohibitions the person states are firm rules.
- **For executives, confidence zones:** where they speak with full authority, where they say "in my experience", where they're exploring. Never write them into more certainty than they hold.
- **Contradictions between samples:** note them; don't smooth them over.

**Output:** a voice guide of about 500 words or fewer containing:
- "We sound like / we never sound like"
- the scales
- rhythm
- openers and closers
- signature phrases
- off-limits words and moves
- channel shifts
- 2 short before/after examples

**Validation:** write a short passage in the extracted voice (A) and one deliberately off-voice (B). Ask the person: "Does A sound like you on a good day?" Refine from their answer.

**Rules:**
- Ghostwritten executive content must use the executive's real experiences and views.
- Never invent anecdotes, numbers or opinions.
- The executive approves before anything is published.

## 4. Voice audit of an existing draft
- **Fix in order:** banned or restricted words → tone → sentence patterns → persona.
- **Who fixes what:**
  - Surface issues (words, punctuation, capitalization) are fixed directly.
  - Structural issues (rhythm, hierarchy) are flagged with a suggested fix.
  - Semantic issues (persona, emotional register) go to a human.
- **Approved claims and legal wording stay verbatim,** even when they sound off-brand. A rewrite that changes a fact is flagged, not shipped.
- **Channel rules beat voice.** For example, retailer listing rules win; log the exception.
- **Never make readability worse.**
- **Report each finding as:** location · dimension · severity · original · issue · fix.

## Handoffs
- Comparison pages and battle cards: `competitive-and-objections`.
- Turning messaging into assets: `b2b-content-and-campaigns` and `pdp-content`.
- Review before anything goes external: `customer-facing-quality-gate`.

From writer/skills at 20837c9, shown as plain text under its license: CC0-1.0 (permissive). The license text is in LICENSE.

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