The Pack

---
name: 01-competitive-alternatives
description: Build the real competitive alternative set for
  a positioning exercise and throw out the fantasy
  competitors. Trigger - "run 01" plus won and lost deal
  notes, the current competitor slide, and who the deal
  champion is.
---

# TASK 01 — COMPETITIVE ALTERNATIVES

## INPUT

The company's current competitor slide or battlecard.
Notes from the last five to ten deals, won and lost, in
whatever state they are in. What the buyer said when
asked what they would do if this product did not exist.
Who the deal champion is and what they own. Anything the
board or the investors have said about who the real
competition is.

## PROCESS

1. Separate the list into three columns before doing
   anything else. On the shortlist today. Named by the
   team but never seen in a deal. Named by investors, the
   board, or a LinkedIn post. Column three is not
   competition. It is content.

2. For every won deal, find the sentence where the buyer
   says what they would have done otherwise. That sentence
   is the alternative. Not the vendor logo on the slide.
   If nobody asked the question in the deal, mark it
   [NOT ASKED] and say so out loud rather than guessing.

3. Group the alternatives into approaches, not brands.
   Doing nothing. Building it internally. A spreadsheet
   plus a person. A big suite where this is feature number
   forty. A point tool. Buyers choose an approach first
   and a vendor second, so the approach is the level
   positioning works at.

4. Check whether the status quo is in the set. If it is
   not, the set is wrong. In most B2B deals the thing that
   beats you is the customer deciding to keep doing what
   they are doing.

5. Test each named competitor against the champion. Would
   this specific person, with this specific job, put that
   name on a shortlist this quarter. Not could. Would.

6. Take the fantasy competitors and move them to a
   separate roadmap document. Ignore your future
   competition in your positioning, but never in your
   roadmap. They are not deleted, they are relocated.

7. Write the one line the sales team can use when a
   prospect raises a fantasy competitor anyway, because
   the prospect read the same LinkedIn post the team did.

8. Say which alternative the company actually has to beat
   to win a deal, and say what evidence says so.

## OUTPUT

SHORTLIST TODAY. Grouped by approach, with the deals that
evidence each one.
STATUS QUO. What doing nothing looks like here, and what
it costs the buyer.
RELOCATED TO ROADMAP. Named, with why they are not in the
positioning yet and what would put them in.
THE ONE TO BEAT. One approach, one sentence, evidence
attached.
CHAMPION TEST. Pass or fail for each name.
EVIDENCE GAPS. Marked [NOT ASKED] with the question to add
to the next call.
THE FANTASY COMPETITOR LINE. One sentence for sales.

## RULES

- Never accept a competitor because a founder, a board
  member or an investor named it. The competition that
  matters lives in the heads of prospects, not on the
  pages of LinkedIn, and the board is not on the
  shortlist.
- Never leave the status quo out of the alternative set to
  make the analysis look sharper. Doing nothing wins more
  B2B deals than any vendor in the category.
- Never let a well funded future competitor into the
  positioning on the argument that it will be real in
  eighteen months. Relocate it to the roadmap, name the
  trigger that would move it back, and hold the line.
- Never list alternatives as brands when the buyer is
  choosing between approaches. A brand list produces a
  feature bake-off. An approach list produces a decision.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the team is genuinely losing deals to a competitor
that prospects never name on a call, because the buyer
already ruled the company out during the research phase
and the rep never got in the room. The evidence from won
and lost deals cannot see it.
Do this: say plainly that the deal data cannot answer this
and stop pretending it can. The alternative set describes
deals that reached a conversation. Then go and get the
missing evidence from the only place it exists, which is
the accounts that did not call. Executive account
assignments and a proper win/loss programme, with the wins
read as carefully as the losses. I have found the wins
more relevant to positioning work than the losses, and
almost nobody reads them. Mark the set [INCOMPLETE, PRE
SHORTLIST BLIND] and put the fix on the calendar rather
than inventing a competitor to fill the hole.

Case: the CEO has told the public markets or the last
investor round that the company competes with a large AI
native player, and the sales team has quietly started
positioning against that player because the CEO said it on
a stage.
Do this: keep both, in separate documents, and say why
that is not a contradiction. The vision goes to investors.
The positioning goes to the sales team. It is perfectly
fine to be positioning one way today and building toward a
different positioning in the future. What is not fine is a
rep opening a call by comparing the product to a vendor
the prospect has never considered, because that puts the
name on the shortlist for free. Write the CEO a paragraph
that keeps the public claim intact and keeps it out of the
first sales call.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"SHORTLIST TODAY, grouped by approach.

Approach 1, do nothing and keep running it out of the
spreadsheet. Present in [N] of the last [N] deals. This is
the one you are losing to and nobody has it on a slide.

Approach 2, the module inside the suite they already own.
Never better than yours, always already paid for. The
champion does not have to get budget approved for it,
which is the whole reason it wins.

Approach 3, two point tools stitched together by an
analyst who is good at this and will leave in a year.

RELOCATED TO ROADMAP. The vibe coding tools. Your CEO
raised these in the kickoff and I understand why. Right
now your customers are not vibe coding anything, so you
can get away without positioning against them. Build so
you can win that match-up later. Do not put it in the
pitch this quarter. Trigger that moves it back into
positioning: it shows up unprompted as a named option in
three consecutive deals with best-fit accounts.

THE ONE TO BEAT. The spreadsheet plus the analyst. Not
[VENDOR]. You have beaten [VENDOR] in [N] of [N] head to
head deals this year, which is why your team believing you
have no differentiation is a story about their mood and
not about the market.

CHAMPION TEST. Your champion is a [ROLE]. Would that
person put an AI native platform play on a shortlist this
quarter, given they have to get it through procurement
and security. Not a chance. Would they put the suite
module on it. It is already on it. It was on it before you
called.

EVIDENCE GAPS. Six of the ten deal notes have no answer
to what they would have done otherwise, because nobody
asked. [NOT ASKED]. Add one question to the discovery
script this week: if you do not do this, what happens.
That single question is worth more to your positioning
than the whole competitor slide.

THE FANTASY COMPETITOR LINE, for sales, when a prospect
brings up the AI native player because they read about
them: 'Different animal. They are building for teams who
want to construct this themselves. If that is where you
are headed, tell me and I will be straight with you about
fit. If you need this running against your real data in
[TIMEFRAME], that is the conversation I am useful for.'
Note what that line does not do. It does not compare
features, and it does not tell the prospect the other
option is bad. It asks the prospect which approach they
are choosing, which is the question they are actually
sitting on."

---
name: 02-point-of-view
description: Draft or audit a company's point of view about
  the future of its market, and mark exactly where it stops
  and today's provable value starts. Trigger - "run 02"
  plus the current future-facing narrative, the roadmap,
  and what the product does this quarter.
---

# TASK 02 — THE POINT OF VIEW AND WHERE IT STOPS

## INPUT

Whatever the company currently says about the future.
Keynote script, investor deck, the CEO's LinkedIn posts,
the first three slides of the sales deck. The roadmap with
dates. A plain list of what the product actually does
today, in production, for paying customers. The two or
three competitors' public future claims. Which deals have
been delayed and what the buyer said when they delayed.

## PROCESS

1. Separate point of view from product vision before
   anything else. The vision is what the product will be
   when it grows up, and it is for the team and the
   investors. The point of view is what you believe the
   future of your market will look like, for everyone in
   it, including people who never buy from you. Most
   companies hand me a vision and call it a point of view.

2. Test the point of view against the strength test. It
   should be rooted in what this company can do better
   than any other vendor in the market. If a competitor
   could publish it word for word and it would still be
   true for them, it is not a point of view, it is a
   trend report.

3. Trace it back to the roadmap. The point of view should
   be the set of assumptions the roadmap is already built
   on. If the roadmap does not follow from it, one of the
   two is a lie and I want to know which.

4. Write the today anchor for each future claim. What can
   the buyer purchase this quarter, what value do they get
   from it this quarter, and how does that step sit on the
   path to the future being described. A future claim with
   no anchor is marked [NO ANCHOR].

5. Draw the line. Say exactly where the point of view
   stops and the provable value starts, and say which
   slide, paragraph or minute of the pitch that happens
   on. This is the call the whole task exists to force.

6. Run the delay test. Read the narrative as a buyer who
   is already highly predisposed to delaying. Count the
   number of places it gives them a reason to say come
   back in five years when you have the cool stuff. Every
   one of those is a deal slipping a quarter.

7. Check the team has not been smoking the competitor's
   marketing. For each capability the point of view
   assumes the market will have, mark shipped, in
   development, or announced by someone else and believed
   by us. The third category is where positioning work
   goes to die.

8. Say whether to publish, rewrite or hold, and give the
   single change that most improves it.

## OUTPUT

POINT OF VIEW, one paragraph, in plain language.
STRENGTH TEST. Pass or fail, with the competitor who could
say the same thing if it fails.
ROADMAP TRACE. Assumption, matching roadmap item, or gap.
TODAY ANCHORS. Future claim, what they buy this quarter,
the value this quarter. [NO ANCHOR] where missing.
THE LINE. Where the future talk stops. Named to the slide
or the paragraph.
DELAY COUNT. Every place that invites a five year wait.
REALITY CHECK. Shipped, in development, or believed.
CALL. Publish, rewrite or hold, plus the one change.

## RULES

- Never let a product vision be submitted as a point of
  view. Customers will only ever give you today's dollars
  for today's product, and a vision they like with a
  product they do not is a delayed deal, not a sale.
- Never approve a point of view that is not rooted in
  something this company does better than anyone else.
  Owning the context, owning the workflows, owning the
  governance, those are points of view because those
  vendors own those things. Generic AI futurism is not.
- Never let a future claim through without a today anchor
  attached in the same breath. In an ordinary market I
  would say do not over-hype the future at all. In this
  one you can hype it, carefully, and only if you also
  describe the pathway and the value at each step.
- Never mark a capability as market reality because a
  competitor announced it. Announced by someone else and
  believed by us is its own category and it gets its own
  label.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the point of view is genuinely strong, genuinely
rooted in the company's strengths, and the honest today
anchor for it is embarrassing. The product ships one small
piece of that future and the rest is a year out.
Do this: publish the point of view, publish the small
piece, and do not let anyone dress up the gap. Say the
first step out loud and be specific about the value of
that step on its own terms, so a buyer who never gets
another release still got their money's worth. Then put
the delay count in front of the exec team as a number,
because that number is the price they are paying for the
narrative, and it is a legitimate price to pay in a market
this unsettled. What is not legitimate is paying it by
accident. If the exec team will not look at the number,
mark the call HOLD and say why.

Case: sales is closing deals right now with a future
narrative that is running ahead of the product, the number
is good, and the champion is buying the story rather than
the software. Marketing wants to formalise the narrative
and put it in the deck.
Do this: do not formalise it yet. Novel products can
generate short term revenue on a story that overpromises,
and it does not hold. Go and look at the accounts that
bought on that story six and twelve months ago. Are they
renewing, expanding, or quietly stalled. That is the only
evidence that tells you whether the story is positioning
or whether it is a debt you are booking as revenue. Bring
those renewal numbers back before anything goes in the
deck. If the accounts are stalled, the fix is not a better
narrative, it is a shorter first step.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"POINT OF VIEW, as it currently stands: 'Agents will do
the work.' That is not a point of view. That is the
weather. Everyone at every conference this year has said
it, which is how you know it costs nothing to say.

STRENGTH TEST: fail. [COMPETITOR] could publish your first
three slides unedited and nobody would notice. Point of
view has to be rooted in what you can do better than any
other vendor. What you do better than anyone is [THE
THING], and it is nowhere in the narrative.

Here is the version that passes: agents will do the work,
and the constraint will not be the model, it will be
whether the agent can be trusted with the thing you will
not let it get wrong. That is a point of view because it
is an opinion, it is arguable, [COMPETITOR] would not
sign it, and it is the assumption your roadmap has been
built on for two years whether or not anyone wrote it
down.

ROADMAP TRACE: three of your last four releases are audit,
permissions and rollback. Your roadmap has been making
this argument on its own. Your deck has been arguing
something else.

TODAY ANCHORS.
Claim: agents run the [PROCESS] end to end. What they buy
this quarter: [FEATURE], which runs [SUB PROCESS] with a
human approving each step. Value this quarter: [OUTCOME],
measured, in their own numbers, without one line of the
future being true. Anchored.
Claim: the org runs on a fleet of agents. [NO ANCHOR].
Nothing ships against this before [DATE]. It stays in the
point of view paragraph and it does not appear again.

THE LINE. Slide 3 is the last slide of the future. Slide
4 is what they can buy in [QUARTER] and it opens on their
number, not on ours. Anyone who wants a fourth future
slide can have it in the appendix, where a curious buyer
can find it and a nervous buyer never has to.

DELAY COUNT: four. The demo of the unreleased agent
builder is the worst one. You are showing a highly
predisposed delayer the thing they should wait for and
then asking them to sign for the thing they should not.
Pull it out of the main flow.

REALITY CHECK. Multi agent orchestration across vendors:
announced by [OTHER VENDOR] and believed by your team. It
is not in market. Two of your slides assume it is. Your
team has been smoking your competitor's marketing and I
say that with affection, because everyone does it and the
only cure is to make somebody name the source.

CALL: rewrite, then publish. One change if you only make
one: cut slide 4 of the future and move the customer's
number up to that position. You are not short of vision.
You are short of a reason to sign in [QUARTER]."

---
name: 03-positioning-canvas
description: Run the five components in order and produce a
  finished positioning canvas. Trigger - "run 03" plus the
  alternative set from 01, the capability list, best
  customer data, and who is in the room.
---

# TASK 03 — THE POSITIONING CANVAS

## INPUT

The competitive alternative set, ideally the output of
run 01. A flat list of what the product does, features
and capabilities, no adjectives. The customer list with
something usable attached: renewal, expansion, time to
value, or which accounts the CS team likes. Who is in the
room for the exercise and what they own. The four
pre-decisions, which are whether now is the right time,
whether this is customer positioning and not investor or
employee positioning, whether we are positioning a
product, the company or a suite, and who the deal champion
is.

## PROCESS

1. Confirm the four pre-decisions before touching the
   canvas. If any one of them is open, stop and say so.
   Half of the failed exercises I see failed here, in the
   part everybody wants to skip.

2. Lock the competitive alternatives. Everything after
   this is measured against them, so a soft alternative
   set produces five soft components.

3. List unique attributes as capabilities the alternatives
   do not have. Not better. Do not have. If the
   alternative has a worse version of it, it is a feature
   comparison, not an attribute, and it belongs in the
   bake-off appendix.

4. Turn each attribute into value by asking what it lets
   this customer do that they could not do before. Then
   ask the second question, the one people skip: so what.
   Keep asking until the answer is something a [ROLE]
   would put in front of their own boss.

5. Cluster the value into themes. Two or three, not seven.
   A theme with one supporting attribute is a feature
   wearing a hat.

6. Define best-fit customers as characteristics, not
   demographics. Not mid market SaaS in North America. The
   characteristic that makes an account care a lot about
   this value, which is usually something about how they
   are structured or what they are on the hook for.

7. Choose the market category last. Its only job is to
   make the value obvious to that customer fast. Test it
   by asking whether the champion could explain the
   category to their CFO in one sentence without using the
   word platform.

8. Read the whole canvas back in one paragraph and ask the
   room whether they would bet the quarter on it. Then
   name the two things that would prove it wrong.

## OUTPUT

PRE-DECISIONS. Four, each answered or marked open.
COMPETITIVE ALTERNATIVES. Grouped by approach.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES. Capability, and the alternative that
does not have it.
VALUE. Attribute to value to so what, per line.
VALUE THEMES. Two or three, each with its attributes.
BEST-FIT CUSTOMERS. Characteristics, and how to spot one
in the first ten minutes of a call.
MARKET CATEGORY. One, plus the CFO sentence.
THE PARAGRAPH. Whole canvas read back as prose.
WHAT WOULD PROVE THIS WRONG. Two things, testable.

## RULES

- Never let the exercise start at market category. Picking
  the category first and reverse engineering the value is
  the single most common way a positioning exercise
  produces a document nobody uses.
- Never accept a value statement that stops at what the
  feature does. What it lets them do that they could not
  do before, and then so what, and then so what again
  until a [ROLE] would defend it to their boss.
- Never write best-fit customers as a firmographic
  segment. Company size and region are how you find them.
  They are not why those accounts care a lot.
- Never let one function complete this alone. Marketing,
  sales, product, customer success and the founder in the
  same room is not ceremony. The point is that everyone
  understands not just what the value statement is but why
  it is true, and a document delivered to a team that was
  not in the room dies in a shared drive.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the room cannot agree on competitive alternatives
and the argument has gone on for ninety minutes. Sales
names three vendors, product names the status quo, and the
founder names a company that raised a large round last
month.
Do this: stop asking the room who the competition is and
change the question. Have every person write down what a
specific named prospect from a specific recent deal would
have done if this company did not exist. Same deal,
everyone, independently, then read them out. The argument
about competitors is really an argument about which
prospect they each have in their head. Once the prospect
is fixed, the alternative set usually resolves in ten
minutes. If it still does not resolve, the real problem is
pre-decision four, the champion, and you have to go back.

Case: the product genuinely does have a capability the
alternatives lack, and best-fit customers do not care.
The team is attached to it because it was hard to build
and it took two years.
Do this: say it out loud and say it kindly, and then keep
it on the canvas in a separate row marked as unique and
not currently valued. Do not delete it. Two things can
change its status: a shift in what the market prioritises,
which happens with regulation more often than people
expect, or a different best-fit segment that does care.
Note which segment that would be and what it would take
to serve them. Then hold the line on the current canvas.
A hard thing to build is a sunk cost, not a value theme.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"PRE-DECISIONS. Three answered. One open, and it is the
one that matters. You have not agreed whether we are
positioning the platform or the [PRODUCT]. The exec team
says platform. Every deal you closed this year was
[PRODUCT] into a [ROLE] who had never heard the word
platform. We are doing [PRODUCT]. If anyone wants to argue
that, argue it now and not in month four.

UNIQUE ATTRIBUTES.
[CAPABILITY A]. The spreadsheet does not have it. The
suite module does not have it. [VENDOR] has a version of
it that only works if you [CONSTRAINT], which is why you
win those deals.
[CAPABILITY B]. Nobody else has it. Nobody asks for it.
Row stays on the canvas, marked unique and not currently
valued. It took your team two years and I know that. It is
still not a value theme this quarter.

VALUE.
[CAPABILITY A] means the [ROLE] can [ACTION] without
waiting on [OTHER TEAM]. So what: [OUTCOME]. So what:
[BUSINESS OUTCOME], which is the number that [ROLE] is
personally on the hook for at the quarterly review. That
is where the chain stops, because that is where a human
being's job is.

VALUE THEMES. Two.
Theme 1, [THEME]. Supported by [CAPABILITY A] and
[CAPABILITY C].
Theme 2, [THEME]. Supported by [CAPABILITY D].
You came in with six. Four of them were the same theme
wearing different hats.

BEST-FIT CUSTOMERS. Not mid market. The characteristic is
that [FUNCTION] and [FUNCTION] report to different people
and have to agree before anything ships. That structure is
what makes your value acute. You can spot it in the first
ten minutes by asking who signs off, and if the answer
takes them more than one breath, that is your account.

MARKET CATEGORY. [CATEGORY]. Not a new one. You do not
have the budget to teach the market a new word and you do
not need to, because the value is obvious the moment they
place you. CFO sentence: 'It is [CATEGORY], it replaces
the spreadsheet and the analyst we lost in [MONTH].'

WHAT WOULD PROVE THIS WRONG. One, if best-fit accounts
turn out to buy this on price against the suite module,
the differentiated value is not landing and theme 1 is
wrong. Two, if reps cannot get the CFO sentence out
without saying platform, the category is wrong. Both are
testable in live sales conversations inside six weeks and
neither is testable on your homepage."

---
name: 04-sales-pitch
description: Translate finished positioning into a sales
  pitch that teaches the buyer how to choose. Trigger -
  "run 04" plus the positioning canvas, the current deck,
  and a recording or notes from a real pitch.
---

# TASK 04 — THE SALES PITCH

## INPUT

The positioning canvas from run 03. The deck reps are
using today. Notes or a recording of one real pitch to a
best-fit prospect, ideally one that did not close. The
objections reps hear in the second call. Proof that
exists: case studies, numbers customers have agreed to,
references. What the ask is at the end of a first meeting.

## PROCESS

1. Build the setup before touching the follow through.
   The setup gives the buyer a way to think about the
   whole market so they can understand the trade-offs. It
   is three pieces: the insight, the alternatives, and the
   perfect world.

2. Write the insight. This is the hardest step and it is
   the one everyone rushes. What do best-fit prospects
   need to understand about this market before your value
   can possibly matter to them. The insight carries the
   point of view. It is not a statistic about the
   industry and it is not a slide about how the world is
   changing.

3. Lay out the alternatives as approaches, honestly,
   including the ones you lose to and why someone would
   reasonably choose them. A buyer who feels the
   trade-offs have been described fairly will believe the
   next part. A buyer who feels the alternatives were set
   up to be knocked down will not.

4. Write the perfect world. What would a buyer look for if
   they were choosing well, stated as criteria, not as a
   description of your product with the name filed off. If
   a competitor meets three of five criteria, say so.

5. Introduce the product using the market category from
   positioning, in one line, then stop. The introduction
   is a placement, not a paragraph.

6. Walk the differentiated value themes. Never talk about
   a feature outside the context of the value that feature
   delivers. Demo inside the theme, not after it.

7. Attach proof to every theme. Customer case studies and
   statistics the customer has validated. A theme with no
   proof is marked [NO PROOF] and it goes last or it goes.

8. Handle the objection nobody says out loud, then make
   the ask. The ask is what happens next and who needs to
   be in the room for it.

## OUTPUT

INSIGHT. One paragraph, plus the one line version.
ALTERNATIVES. Approaches, with the honest case for each.
PERFECT WORLD. Criteria, numbered.
INTRODUCTION. One line, using the market category.
VALUE THEMES. Each with its capabilities and where the
demo sits inside it.
PROOF. Per theme. [NO PROOF] where absent.
UNSPOKEN OBJECTION. Named, and the paragraph that meets
it.
THE ASK. What happens next, who is in the room.
WHAT I CUT. Every slide removed, and why.

## RULES

- Never open with the change in the world. A slide about
  how everything is different now is the most common
  opening in B2B and it teaches the buyer nothing about
  how to choose. The insight has to be about their
  decision, not about the era.
- Never present alternatives as strawmen. If the buyer
  cannot recognise their own current thinking in your
  alternatives slide, the whole setup fails and nothing
  after it lands.
- Never let a feature appear outside the value it
  delivers. That includes the demo. A demo that runs as a
  tour of the product undoes the entire pitch structure
  in eleven minutes.
- Never write a perfect world that is a description of
  this product. If every criterion is one you uniquely
  meet, you have not built purchase criteria, you have
  built a rigged scorecard and buyers can smell it.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the positioning is good, the pitch is written, and
reps will not use it. They revert to the old deck by week
three and the VP of Sales says the new one does not work
in the field.
Do this: assume the failure is in the translation and not
in the reps. The gap between positioning and pitch is the
single most common place this work dies, and it usually
dies because the pitch was handed over as a document
rather than built with sales in the room. Go and sit on
three live calls. Find the exact moment reps abandon it,
which is almost always the point where the buyer asks a
question the script does not have an answer for. Fix that
moment, in their words, and let the rep who solved it in
the field get the credit for it in front of the team.

Case: the differentiated value is real but it only shows
up after twelve months, and the pitch has to be made to a
buyer who is being measured on this quarter.
Do this: do not stretch the twelve month value into a
first meeting claim, and do not drop it. Split the theme.
State the thing they get in [TIMEFRAME] with proof
attached, and state the compounding thing separately and
honestly as the reason to choose you rather than as the
reason to sign. Then look hard at whether the first
ninety days can be made to deliver something real, because
if it cannot, this is a product problem being sent to the
pitch to be solved and it will come back.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"INSIGHT, one line: 'Most teams think this is a tooling
problem. It is a sign-off problem, and that is why buying
better tooling has not fixed it.'

That is the whole pitch. If the prospect nods at that
sentence, everything after it is easy. If they do not, you
are in the wrong account and you can find that out in
minute four instead of month four.

Your current opening slide is called The AI Revolution.
Cut. Every vendor they have seen this quarter opened with
that slide, they have stopped reading it, and it tells
them nothing about how to choose.

ALTERNATIVES, honestly.
Do nothing. Real answer: it works, it is free, and the
person doing it is good at their job. It stops working
when [TRIGGER].
The suite module. Real answer: already paid for, one less
vendor, and their security team has already approved it.
If sign-off is not their problem, they should buy it.
Say that out loud. Reps hate this slide for about two
weeks and then they discover it is the reason buyers
believe the rest.

PERFECT WORLD, criteria.
1. Sign-off is captured where the work happens, not in a
   separate system somebody has to remember.
2. It can be reversed without a ticket.
3. The audit trail satisfies [FUNCTION] without a person
   assembling it by hand.
4. It works with the [SYSTEM] they already run.
5. Someone is accountable when it goes wrong.
The suite module meets 4 and half of 3. Say so. You meet
1, 2, 3 and 5. That is the decision, laid out so the
buyer makes it themselves.

INTRODUCTION, one line: '[PRODUCT] is [CATEGORY] for
teams where [FUNCTION] and [FUNCTION] have to agree.'
Then stop. Your current version is four sentences and
three of them are adjectives.

THEME 1 with the demo inside it: [THEME]. Capabilities
[A] and [C]. Demo runs here, ninety seconds, showing
[SPECIFIC ACTION] and nothing else. Proof: [CLIENT] in
[SECTOR], [OUTCOME], validated by them. Do not open the
settings screen. Nobody has ever bought anything because
of a settings screen.

THEME 2: [THEME]. [NO PROOF]. It goes second and it goes
as a hypothesis, in those words, with an offer to
introduce them to [CLIENT] who is [TIMEFRAME] in. A named
hypothesis beats a confident claim they cannot check.

UNSPOKEN OBJECTION: they think they will have to
reorganise two teams to use this and they will not say so
because it makes them sound like they cannot manage their
own org. Meet it before they raise it, in one paragraph,
using a customer who did not reorganise.

THE ASK: a working session with [FUNCTION] in the room,
because [FUNCTION] is who kills this in week six, and
every deal you lost late this year lost there."

---
name: 05-value-themes
description: Turn capabilities into differentiated value
  themes with proof attached, and kill the value that is
  not differentiated. Trigger - "run 05" plus the
  capability list, the alternative set, and whatever proof
  exists.
---

# TASK 05 — VALUE THEMES WITH PROOF

## INPUT

The capability list, flat, no adjectives. The competitive
alternative set. Every value claim currently in market:
website, deck, one pagers, the boilerplate at the bottom
of the press release. Whatever proof exists, and what
state it is in. Which claims sales actually uses in a live
call, which is usually a much shorter list.

## PROCESS

1. Sort every existing value claim into three buckets.
   True and differentiated. True and undifferentiated.
   Not established. Most companies are carrying more of
   bucket two than they think, and bucket two is what
   makes a market feel like everyone sounds the same.

2. For bucket two, run the alternative test on each claim.
   Could the status quo, the suite module, or the point
   tool say this sentence honestly. If yes, it is table
   stakes. Table stakes claims are not deleted, they are
   demoted to the section where you reassure people, and
   they never lead.

3. For each differentiated claim, walk the chain.
   Capability, what it lets them do that they could not do
   before, so what, so what again, until you land on
   something a named role is measured on.

4. Cluster into two or three themes. Every theme must be
   defensible by more than one capability, or it is a
   feature with ambitions.

5. Attach proof per theme. Grade it. Customer validated
   number is best. Named case study next. Reference call
   next. Internal benchmark is not proof, it is a claim
   with a chart.

6. Mark every theme with no proof as [NO PROOF] and write
   the smallest piece of proof that would fix it, plus who
   has to be asked and by when.

7. Check the AI claims specifically. We have AI is not a
   differentiator and has not been one for some time.
   Every AI claim gets rewritten as the specific thing the
   technology unlocks that the alternatives cannot
   deliver, or it comes out.

8. Say which single claim to remove from the website this
   week, and which claim to add.

## OUTPUT

DIFFERENTIATED. Claim, capability, chain, proof, grade.
TABLE STAKES. Demoted claims, and where they now live.
NOT ESTABLISHED. Claims with nothing behind them.
THEMES. Two or three, capabilities and proof per theme.
PROOF GAPS. [NO PROOF], smallest fix, who to ask, by when.
AI CLAIMS. Before and after, or cut.
ONE OFF, ONE ON. The website change to make this week.

## RULES

- Never let we have AI stand as a value claim. The word
  buys nothing now. Name what the technology unlocks that
  the alternative cannot deliver, or take it off the page.
- Never count an internal benchmark as proof. Proof is a
  case study or a statistic the customer has validated and
  will stand behind on a reference call. Everything else
  is a claim with a chart attached.
- Never let a value theme rest on a single capability. One
  capability is a feature. If it cannot be defended two
  ways, it does not survive the first competitive release.
- Never delete table stakes claims outright. Buyers still
  need reassurance on them. They just never lead, and any
  claim a competitor could honestly make is not allowed
  near the top of the page.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the team insists the product has no differentiated
value, and the evidence says they are winning deals.
Do this: treat this as product pessimism, not as a finding
about the market, and say that plainly. Teams talk
themselves into believing they are an undifferentiated
loser while the win rate says otherwise, usually because
they spend their days looking at the roadmap and the bug
list rather than at deals. Go to the won deals. Ask the
customers why they picked this over what they were doing
before. The differentiated value is sitting in those
answers, in the customer's words, and the team has never
read them. Bring three of those sentences into the room
before anyone is allowed to say no differentiation again.

Case: the strongest differentiated value belongs to a
capability the roadmap is about to deprecate, because the
architecture is being rebuilt for the future the point of
view describes.
Do this: do not quietly stop saying it, and do not keep
saying it into a wall. Name the window. Say how long this
value holds, what replaces it, and whether the replacement
delivers the same value to the same best-fit customers or
to different ones. If it serves different customers, this
is not a messaging update, it is a repositioning, and the
whole canvas has to be reopened. Say that early, because
the cheapest time to say it is now and the most expensive
time is after the migration.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"TRUE AND UNDIFFERENTIATED, demoted, six claims. The whole
top half of your homepage. 'Enterprise grade security.'
'Powered by AI.' 'Built for scale.' Every one of your
alternatives can say all three honestly, including the
spreadsheet if you squint. These are not lies. They are
reassurance, and reassurance goes below the fold.

AI CLAIMS, before and after.
Before: 'AI powered [CATEGORY].' After: 'It reads the
[ARTEFACT] your team already writes and produces the
[OUTPUT] that [FUNCTION] currently builds by hand in
[TIMEFRAME].' Same technology, entirely different
sentence. The first one puts you on a list of four hundred
vendors. The second one describes a job that a specific
person currently does and hates.

THEME 1, [THEME]. Defended by [CAPABILITY A] and
[CAPABILITY C]. Chain: [A] means [ROLE] can [ACTION]
without [OTHER TEAM]. So what: [OUTCOME]. So what:
[BUSINESS OUTCOME]. That is what [ROLE] is measured on at
the quarterly review, so that is where the chain stops.
PROOF, grade A: [CLIENT] in [SECTOR], [METRIC], validated
by them, on the record, and they will take a reference
call. That is worth more than the rest of the page.

THEME 2, [THEME]. Defended by [CAPABILITY D] only. That
makes it a feature with ambitions. Either find the second
capability that defends it or fold it into theme 1.
PROOF: [NO PROOF]. Smallest fix that works: one number
from [CLIENT], who has been live [TIMEFRAME] and told your
CS lead in [MONTH] that [OUTCOME]. Nobody has asked them
to say it on the record. Ask them this week. One email.
That is the highest return piece of marketing work
available to you right now and it costs nothing.

ONE OFF, ONE ON. Off: 'Powered by AI' in the hero. It is
doing no work and it puts you in a crowd. On: the [CLIENT]
number from theme 1, in the customer's own words, above
the fold. If your team argues about this for more than
ten minutes, that argument is the real finding and we
should talk about pre-decision three."

---
name: 06-engagement-screen
description: Decide whether an inbound request is actually
  a positioning problem and whether to take it. Usually a
  no. Trigger - "run 06" plus the inbound note, the
  company, and what they say is wrong.
---

# TASK 06 — THE ENGAGEMENT SCREEN

## INPUT

The inbound note in whatever words they used. Who sent it
and what they own. Company stage, rough headcount, whether
they are selling to businesses. What they say the problem
is. What they have already tried. Any deadline attached,
including a board meeting, a launch, or a funding round.
Whether the CEO or founder is involved.

## PROCESS

1. Read what they asked for and write down what they
   actually have. Those are different in most notes. A
   request for a new tagline with a launch in five weeks
   is not a tagline problem and is not a five week
   problem.

2. Run the not-a-positioning-problem filter. Sales
   execution, pricing, a broken product, a founder who
   will not choose a segment, and a market that does not
   exist yet all present as positioning problems and none
   of them are fixed by a positioning exercise.

3. Check the four pre-decisions against the note. Is now
   the right time. Is this customer positioning rather
   than investor or employee positioning. Is it a product,
   a company or a suite. Do they know who the deal
   champion is. Any two open is a warning. All four open
   and it is a conversation, not a booking.

4. Check who would be in the room. Marketing, sales,
   product, customer success and the founder or CEO for
   three days. If sales cannot be spared, decline or move
   it, because a positioning document handed to a team
   that was not in the room dies in a shared drive.

5. Check the timing risk in the other direction. A
   pre-launch company should launch with its positioning a
   little loose so it can feel where the market pulls it.
   Tightening too early is a real failure mode and it is
   worth saying no over.

6. Check whether they want the exercise or want the
   answer. There is a workbook, it is free to newsletter
   subscribers, and some of these people should be sent to
   it with a straight face and no hard feelings.

7. If it is a real fit, name what would make it fail
   anyway, in advance, in writing, and say what has to be
   true before the first day.

8. Give the call. Take, decline, defer with a trigger, or
   send to the workbook or the half day course.

## OUTPUT

WHAT THEY ASKED FOR. Their words.
WHAT THEY HAVE. Mine.
FILTER RESULT. Positioning problem, or which other problem
it actually is.
PRE-DECISIONS. Four, answered or open.
THE ROOM. Who is needed, who is available, gap.
TIMING. Too early, right, or overdue.
CALL. Take, decline, defer with trigger, or redirect.
IF TAKING. What has to be true before day one, and what
would make it fail anyway.
THE REPLY. Draft, plain, short, no hedging.

## RULES

- Never take an engagement where sales cannot be in the
  room for the three days. The exercise is not the
  document. It is the room understanding why the value
  statement is true, and sales is the function that has to
  say it out loud to a stranger the following week.
- Never take a pre-launch company that wants its
  positioning locked down tight before it has any
  customers. Launch a little loose and feel where the
  market pulls you. Say this even though it costs the
  booking.
- Never accept a request whose real content is a founder
  refusing to choose a segment. Three days will not
  produce agreement that the founder is unwilling to
  reach, and taking it means selling a workshop as a
  substitute for a decision only they can make.
- Never let a board meeting or a funding deadline set the
  shape of the work. Investor positioning and customer
  positioning are fundamentally different exercises, and
  a customer positioning exercise run to hit a board date
  produces a deck for the board and nothing for sales.

## EDGE CASES

Case: a large, credible company with real money asks for
a one hour session for the exec team, framed as a
template walkthrough, because the CEO read the book on a
plane and wants everyone aligned by Friday.
Do this: do not take it as described and do not refuse
outright. The honest version is that an hour buys shared
vocabulary and nothing else, which is genuinely useful
and is not positioning. Offer the half day course, say in
one sentence what it delivers and what it does not, and
send the workbook regardless of whether they book. Then
say the thing that actually helps: the reason nobody has
agreed by Friday is not that the team lacks a framework,
it is that somebody has to decide what pre-decision three
is, and no template makes that decision for them.

Case: the request is genuinely a positioning problem, the
company is a strong fit, and the segment or the product is
one where you would have to say publicly something you
do not believe. The market they claim to be creating does
not exist yet and their whole plan rests on it.
Do this: name it in the first call rather than three days
in. Positioning cannot manufacture a market that has not
formed. If prospects are not yet building shortlists in
this space, there is nothing for the alternatives to be
measured against, and the exercise will produce a
beautiful canvas with no ground under it. Offer the
smaller piece of work that is real, which is usually
figuring out whether best-fit customers exist at all and
what they currently do instead. Decline the rest.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"WHAT THEY ASKED FOR: 'We need to sharpen our messaging
before the launch on [DATE]. Can you do a session with the
exec team.'

WHAT THEY HAVE: a segment argument the founder has not
settled, being sent to marketing as a wording problem
five weeks before a launch.

FILTER RESULT: not a messaging problem. Two of the three
things in the note are pre-decision three, which is
whether we are positioning the company, the platform or
[PRODUCT]. Nobody can write a sentence until that is
decided and no session I run will decide it for them.

PRE-DECISIONS: one, timing, open and probably wrong. Two,
customer positioning, contaminated, because there is a
raise in the background and the exec team is thinking
about investors. Three, scope, open and this is the whole
problem. Four, champion, they named three roles in one
paragraph.

THE ROOM: exec team only. No sales. That alone is a
decline on the shape as written.

TIMING: too early on the launch and too late on the
argument. They should launch a little loose and let the
market pull them, and instead they are trying to lock
something down that nobody has agreed on.

CALL: decline as written. Offer the half day course after
the launch, plus one conversation now with the founder
alone, unpaid, thirty minutes, on pre-decision three.

THE REPLY, as I would send it:

'Thanks for this. Straight answer: I do not think a
session with the exec team gets you what you want, and I
would rather say that now than take your money in [MONTH].

Reading your note, the disagreement is about whether you
are selling the platform or [PRODUCT]. That is not a
wording problem and no framework decides it for you. It
is a call somebody has to make, and it is probably yours.

Two suggestions. First, launch a little loose. Five weeks
out is not the moment to tighten positioning. Launch, see
where the market pulls you, and come back when you have
real deals to look at. Second, the workbook is free to
newsletter subscribers and it will get your team speaking
the same language in an afternoon. Send it round. It is
genuinely useful and it is not the exercise.

If you want thirty minutes on the scope question before
your launch, no charge, I am around [WEEK].'"

---
name: 07-talk-or-newsletter
description: Turn a pattern seen across engagements into a
  newsletter piece, a podcast episode or a conference talk
  without exposing a client. Trigger - "run 07" plus the
  pattern, the venue, and the rough client detail.
---

# TASK 07 — THE TALK OR THE NEWSLETTER PIECE

## INPUT

The pattern noticed, in one messy sentence. How many
engagements it has shown up in and roughly what kinds of
companies. The venue: newsletter, podcast episode,
keynote, roundtable. Time or length. The audience, which
is usually founders, marketers and product folks. Whether
anything on this has already been published and when.

## PROCESS

1. State the pattern as a claim that could be wrong. If it
   cannot be argued with, it is an observation and it does
   not carry a piece.

2. Count the evidence. How many companies, over what
   period, in what kinds of markets. Say the number if it
   is sayable and bracket it if it is not. Never let three
   engagements sound like a trend.

3. Strip the client detail to the pattern. Sector,
   approximate stage, the shape of the problem. No logos,
   no numbers that identify anyone, nothing a competitor
   could reverse into a name. Bracket rather than blur,
   because a blurred detail is still a detail.

4. Check it against what has already been published. If it
   updates an earlier position, say so and say what
   changed. My thinking has changed on some things and
   pretending otherwise is worse than being wrong once.

5. Give the reader something to do. A question to ask
   their own team, a test to run, a thing to look at in
   their own deal data. A piece that only diagnoses is
   half a piece.

6. Say where the thinking is unfinished. Say what has not
   been resolved and say it as an open question rather
   than dressing a hedge up as a conclusion.

7. Cut to the shape of the venue. A newsletter piece
   carries three or four numbered points. A keynote
   carries one argument and three examples. A roundtable
   is a question, not a talk, so write the question and
   the three ways the room will try to dodge it.

8. Write the close and the ask. Subscribe, come and say
   hi, the workbook, the books. Small, at the end, once.

## OUTPUT

CLAIM. One sentence, arguable.
EVIDENCE. How many, what kind, what period. Bracketed
where it is not mine to say.
BODY. Numbered points, or one argument with three
examples, depending on venue.
CLIENT SAFETY PASS. Every detail checked, and what was
bracketed.
UPDATES. What this changes about something published
earlier, with the date.
WHAT THE READER DOES. One thing, specific.
STILL OPEN. The unfinished part, stated as a question.
CLOSE. Where I am next, and one ask.

## RULES

- Never name a client, a deal size or a sector specific
  enough to identify a company. The pattern is the
  publishable thing and it has always been the pattern,
  never the logo.
- Never let the number of engagements go vague to make a
  pattern sound bigger. If it is three companies, it is
  three companies and it is still worth writing about.
  Bracket what cannot be counted.
- Never present an unresolved question as a resolved one.
  Where the thinking is not finished, publish the
  question. A piece that admits the thin line has not been
  located is more useful than one that pretends to have
  drawn it.
- Never publish a piece with no action in it. Founders,
  marketers and product folks read this to do something on
  Monday, and a diagnosis without a next step is a piece
  that gets shared and never used.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the sharpest example of the pattern is a client
engagement that is still running, and the story is only
sharp because of the specific details that would identify
them.
Do this: do not publish it yet, and do not publish a
sanded down version that is technically anonymous and
still recognisable to anyone in that market. Take the
mechanism out of the story and rebuild it as a composite
or as a hypothetical, and say which one it is. If the
mechanism will not survive being separated from the
details, that is the answer: the piece is not ready. Note
it, wait until the engagement is closed, and ask them
directly whether they will let it be told with their name
on it. Some will. That is how a real case study gets made
instead of a leaked one.

Case: a piece is due and the honest position is that the
question is unresolved, and the audience at a paid keynote
is expecting an answer.
Do this: give them the framing and the disagreement rather
than a fake resolution. Say what the two sides are, say
which one is currently winning in the deals I am actually
in, and say what evidence would change my mind. A room of
founders can tell the difference between a person working
on a hard problem in front of them and a person reading a
conclusion they do not hold. Then be useful in the way
that is still available: give them the test they can run
on their own pipeline, so they can find their own answer
before I have mine.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"CLAIM: 'A point of view about the future is now the price
of entry, and almost everyone is buying it with the wrong
currency. They are handing buyers a product vision and
calling it a point of view.'

EVIDENCE: in the past two years every product I have
worked on has been AI native, re-architected with and for
AI, or facing an existential threat from one of the first
two. [N] engagements. March 2020 was the last time I saw
this many companies abruptly struggling with their
positioning, and I think this one is more potent.

BODY, three points for the newsletter.
1. Your point of view is what you believe the future of
   your market looks like. Your vision is what your
   product looks like when it grows up. Customers will
   only ever give you today's dollars for today's product.
2. A point of view has to be rooted in what you can do
   better than any other vendor. Microsoft's is context,
   because Microsoft owns the context of a business.
   ServiceNow's is workflows and governance, because that
   is what ServiceNow has. Yours has to come from what
   you have, not from what is being said on stages.
3. Every future claim needs a today anchor. What can they
   buy this quarter and what value do they get from it
   this quarter. Without that you are handing a delay to
   a buyer who was already looking for one.

CLIENT SAFETY PASS: the SaaS example loses its sector.
The number of deals delayed becomes [N]. The vibe coding
example stays because I published it on 21 May and it was
already general.

UPDATES: on 21 May I wrote 'ignore your future competition
in your positioning, but never in your roadmap.' On 11
June I wrote a whole piece arguing you need a point of
view about the future. Those sit awkwardly together and
readers have noticed. This piece is where I say the
reconciliation out loud: the point of view is about the
market, the competitive alternatives are about the
shortlist, and they are different rows on the canvas. That
is the answer to the shape of the objection. It is not yet
an answer to where the line sits inside a pitch.

STILL OPEN, and I am saying so at Turing Fest in September
rather than pretending otherwise: I have said you have to
walk a very thin line between hyping the future and
selling today's value. I have not published where that
line is. I do not think it sits in the same place for a
company selling to a hospital as for one selling to a
software team, and I think the answer is in the deal data
rather than in the framework.

WHAT THE READER DOES: take your last five delayed deals.
Find the sentence where the buyer said they would wait.
Count how many of those sentences point at something you
told them was coming. That number is what your future
narrative is costing you, and almost nobody has counted
it.

CLOSE: I am in Edinburgh on 22 and 23 September for Turing
Fest, doing a talk and a roundtable. Come and say hi. The
workbook is free to subscribers as always."

---
name: 08-revisit-or-hold
description: Decide whether positioning genuinely needs to
  change or whether the team is bored. Trigger - "run 08"
  plus what changed, the win rate, and who is asking for
  the change.
---

# TASK 08 — REVISIT OR HOLD

## INPUT

What is being proposed and by whom. What they say has
changed. Win rate and deal cycle over the last two or
three quarters, if there is any. Recent product releases.
Recent competitor releases. Anything that has shifted in
the market: regulation, budgets, a technology wave. How
long the current positioning has been in market. Whether
sales is still using it, which is a different question
from whether it is still true.

## PROCESS

1. Ask what has actually changed, and sort the answer into
   the three categories that justify a shift. The product
   changed and unlocked new value. Competitors changed and
   closed or leapfrogged the gap. The market changed:
   regulation, economics, a world event, a technology
   shift big enough to change buyer priorities.

2. If the answer does not land in one of those three, ask
   how long the current positioning has been running and
   who is bored of it. Marketing gets tired of a message
   roughly a year before the market has heard it. Boredom
   is the enemy here far more often than competition is.

3. Check the win rate before anything else. If best-fit
   deals are still being won at the same rate, the
   positioning is working and the problem is somewhere
   else, usually lead quality or sales execution.

4. Separate positioning failure from execution failure. If
   sales stopped using the positioning six months ago,
   what you have is a translation problem, and rewriting
   the positioning will produce a second document sales
   does not use.

5. If a change is warranted, decide the scope. Is one
   component moving or is the whole canvas reopening. A
   competitor closing a gap usually moves attributes and
   value. A technology shift can move the category. Only
   the last one is a full reopening.

6. Check whether the pressure is coming from customers or
   from the feed. Fear of a well funded future competitor
   is not evidence that anything has changed on a
   shortlist. Go and look at the shortlists.

7. If holding, say what would trigger a revisit and put a
   number on it, so the next person asking has something
   to point at instead of a feeling.

8. Give the call and the smallest intervention that
   addresses the real problem.

## OUTPUT

WHAT CHANGED. Sorted into product, competitors, market, or
none of the three.
WIN RATE. Direction, on best-fit deals specifically.
WHO IS ASKING. And what they are actually asking for.
DIAGNOSIS. Positioning, execution, translation, lead
quality, or boredom.
SCOPE. One component, several, or the whole canvas.
CALL. Revisit or hold.
TRIGGER. If holding, what would change the answer, with a
number.
SMALLEST INTERVENTION. The one thing to do instead.

## RULES

- Never authorise a repositioning because the team is
  tired of the words. Consistency is most of what makes
  positioning work, and a team that is bored is usually a
  team that has been saying it for long enough to start
  being heard.
- Never diagnose from the feed. A competitor's funding
  round, a loud launch, and a wave of posts about a new
  category are not evidence that shortlists have moved.
  The shortlist is the evidence and it lives in deals.
- Never rewrite positioning to fix a problem that sits
  between positioning and sales. If reps abandoned the
  pitch, that is where the work is, and a fresh canvas
  will be abandoned in the same place for the same reason.
- Never treat an AI capability announcement from a
  competitor as a closed gap. Announced is not shipped and
  shipped is not adopted. Check what best-fit prospects
  can actually buy from them today before conceding a
  differentiator.

## EDGE CASES

Case: the win rate is holding but deal cycles have
stretched by [N] weeks and nobody can say why. Nothing has
changed in the product, the competitors or the market that
anyone can point at.
Do this: do not reposition. Go and read the delay
sentences. A stretched cycle with a stable win rate in a
market like this one is usually buyers being highly
predisposed to delay, and the question is whether the
company's own future narrative is feeding that. Count how
many of the delays point at something the company itself
promised was coming. If they do, this is a run 02, not a
run 03. The positioning is fine. The line between the
point of view and today's value is in the wrong place and
it is buying delays.

Case: a genuine technology shift has changed what buyers
prioritise, the whole canvas needs reopening, and the
company is eight weeks from a launch that has already been
announced.
Do this: split it. Do not reopen the canvas eight weeks
out and do not launch into a market that has moved as
though it has not. Make the minimum change that stops the
launch being wrong, which is usually one value theme and
the insight in the pitch, and book the full exercise for
after. Say clearly, in writing, that the launch positioning
is deliberately loose and that the intent is to feel where
the market pulls before tightening. A loose launch on
purpose is a strategy. A loose launch by accident is what
this becomes if nobody names it.

## GOOD LOOKS LIKE

"WHAT CHANGED: nothing in the three categories. Your
product shipped [N] releases, all of which extended what
you already claim. Your competitors announced things. Your
market has not changed what it prioritises. This does not
qualify.

WIN RATE: flat on best-fit deals, up slightly on [SEGMENT].
Deal cycle out by [N] weeks across the board.

WHO IS ASKING: marketing, and what they are actually
asking for is something new to say. That is a real
feeling and it is not evidence. You have been running this
positioning for [TIMEFRAME], which sounds long from inside
the building and is about the point at which the market
starts recognising you. The enemy here is not your
competitor. It is boredom, and it is yours.

DIAGNOSIS: not positioning. Two things are happening.
Cycles are stretching, and reps are hedging on the future
question because nobody has given them an answer to it.

WHERE THE PRESSURE IS COMING FROM: [COMPETITOR] raised
[ROUND] and posted a launch video, and your team has read
it forty times. Go and check the shortlists. In the last
[N] deals they were named [N] times, and in both cases the
prospect had seen the video and had not evaluated them.
That is not a shortlist. That is a feed.

CALL: hold the positioning.

TRIGGER, so the next person has something to point at:
revisit when [COMPETITOR] appears unprompted on best-fit
shortlists in three consecutive deals, or when win rate on
best-fit deals drops [N] points over two quarters, or when
a shipped competitor capability actually closes
[CAPABILITY A]. Announced does not count. Write those
three down and put a date on the review.

SMALLEST INTERVENTION: run 02. Give the reps one paragraph
on where this market is going, rooted in what you do
better than anyone, with a today anchor attached. They are
being asked the future question in every second call and
they are improvising. That is your stretched cycle, and it
is a hundred times cheaper to fix than a repositioning
nobody needed."