Positioning and GTM strategy

If your team describes the product six ways, your buyers describe it none.

Positioning is not a tagline exercise. It is deciding who you are for, what you are called, and why anyone should switch, then making every surface say the same thing.

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How we do it

5 steps, in this order.

  1. 1Listen firstWin and loss calls, support threads, and the words customers actually use. Not a workshop with whiteboards.
  2. 2Name the alternativeWhat people do instead of buying you, including nothing. That is your real competitor and it sets the frame.
  3. 3Pick a positionOne segment, one claim, one reason to believe. Written down, with what it costs you to say no to everything else.
  4. 4Rewrite the surfacesHomepage, pricing page, first email, first call deck. Same sentence in all of them or the position does not exist.
  5. 5Test it on strangersPeople who have never seen you read it back. If they cannot repeat it, it is not done.

What you end up with

  • A written positioning statement with the segment, the alternative, and the claim
  • Messaging that maps claim to proof, so nothing is asserted without evidence
  • Rewritten homepage and pricing copy
  • A one-page internal brief so the team says the same thing

Questions this answers

What people ask before they call.

How do I know if my SaaS positioning is the problem?

Listen for drift. If two salespeople pitch the product differently, if you win deals you cannot explain, or if a stranger reads your homepage and cannot say who it is for, the positioning is not doing its job. Copy tweaks will not fix that. A decision about segment and alternative will.

What does a positioning audit for a Series A SaaS cover?

Win and loss conversations, the words customers actually use, what buyers do instead of buying you, and every claim on your homepage and pricing page checked against proof. It ends with a written position: one segment, one claim, one reason to believe, with the small copy fixes made rather than filed.

Should we reposition when AI agents change our category?

Only if buyers now compare you against a different alternative. When agents absorb part of what a category did, the risk is launching as the old thing but for agents, which anchors you to old competitors. Naming the space the product now belongs in is harder, and usually better.

How narrow should an ICP be at seed stage?

Narrow enough that your closed-won deals share a trigger, not just a company size. Start from the last ten customers you won, find the situation they were in the week before they bought, and write the ICP around that situation. A broad ICP mostly produces pipeline that stalls.

Updated

Copy this into your agent

Pressure-test your current positioning

It will play a sceptical buyer, find the places your claim is unsupported, and tell you what it would need to believe you.

I want to pressure-test my product's positioning before I rewrite anything. Work through this with me one step at a time.

1. Ask me for my homepage headline and subhead exactly as they are written today, plus who I think I sell to.

2. Play a sceptical buyer in that segment. Read my headline back and tell me, honestly, what you think the product does and who it is for. Do not be generous.

3. Tell me what I am competing against in the buyer's mind, including the option of doing nothing, and whether my copy addresses that alternative at all.

4. List every claim on my page that is asserted without proof. For each one, tell me what evidence would make it credible.

5. Draft three alternative positions for me. Each needs one segment, one claim, and one reason to believe. For each, tell me what I would have to give up to say it.

6. Ask me which one scares me most, and tell me whether that is a good sign or a bad one.

Where you are guessing about my market, say so instead of guessing.
Works in Claude, or whatever you already use.

The other five

LaunchLaunch day is covered. Week two isn't. SEO & contentContent is a backlog nobody owns. Paid acquisitionYou're buying clicks, not customers. Lead generationThere's no repeatable way new leads arrive. Marketing opsYou can't join spend to pipeline.

Tell us what you’re trying to move.

Fifteen minutes, no deck, no prep. If it isn’t a fit we’ll say so on the call and point you somewhere better.

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