positioning
Concept of the skill
What it is: Positioning is April Dunford's method for choosing the market context that makes a product's differentiated value obvious to the customers most likely to care.
Mental model: Start with what customers would use if the product disappeared. From those alternatives, isolate what the product uniquely has, translate those attributes into customer value, identify who cares intensely, choose the category frame that makes the value understandable, add a trend only if it clarifies urgency, then capture the position for go-to-market teams.
Why it exists: Agents often produce positioning as a catchy statement, broad persona, feature list, or generic category claim. This skill forces the harder sequence: customer-relative alternatives first, value mapping second, target/customer and category choices after evidence exists.
What it is NOT: It is not company strategy, blue-ocean market creation, industry attractiveness analysis, moat classification, segmentation-only marketing, brand identity, final copywriting, or an OKR system.
Adjacent concepts: competitive alternatives, differentiated attributes, value themes, best-fit customers, market category, trend context, sales narrative, product marketing, segmentation, go-to-market alignment.
One-line analogy: Positioning puts the product on the shelf where the right buyers understand what it is, what to compare it with, and why it matters.
Common misconception: Positioning is not how the company wants to describe itself; it is the context that helps customers understand why this product is uniquely valuable for their situation.