Bob London argues that companies must identify their singular strength to build effective positioning and strategy. He warns against the "all-things-to-all-people" trap that dilutes messaging, then shares how a listening tour revealed his own consulting practice's specialization and transformed his go-to-market approach.
Chapters
Let me, let me ask you, is there something that we're great at, you know, better than any, anyone else? So why is this important? Like, why go there? Why, why could be a Pandora's box? So a lot of companies, uh, and even SaaS companies that were originally founded by solving one problem really well, they start to become more of an all things to all people solution, not just features and benefits, but the positioning, The marketing messaging, the sales messaging, you don't want to lose a sale, so you'll say, yeah, we're great at solving this problem. You add features and capabilities and you claim to have multiple benefits, but what's the core value you offer? What's the thing that's really irreplaceable or that's really the connection between you and that particular customer? What's the thing they can't get anywhere else because you do it so well? That's important across the company. That's not just a CS thing. If I were the Chief Marketing Officer, if I were the Chief Revenue Officer, if I were the CFO, if I were an investor, if I were the CEO, certainly I'd want to know the answer to this. So I'm actually a great example of someone who used this question. This is where I kind of invented it almost accidentally during a listening tour that I did on my own behalf when I was thinking about, you know, I had been a marketing strategy, more of a generalist. For a fairly extensive period of time, and I wanted to transform my consulting practice and be more specialized. I wanted to be distinctive and specialized. And here I am in an area where I have my deepest passion, which is leveraging curiosity, innovative thinking, etc., by engaging with my clients, customers, and prospects, bringing back insights that fuel in my case, mostly positioning, messaging, brand strategy, and go-to-market strategy. So, and it was because when I asked people this question, that's what they told me. This is what you're great at. And believe me, I held my breath. And when I asked the question, I thought, what if nobody says I'm great at anything? And that would suck. But it wouldn't put me below anybody else kind of in my field. It just would mean that I'd have to fight harder to think about what my advantage was.
