06 · Choose
DECISIONS SUPPORTED
ORIGINAL ASSET
Compares several competitive spaces and measures the gap between the intended position and the evidence available.
A position is not defined only against named competitors. It must also be compared with in-house solutions, familiar tools, manual work, adjacent providers and doing nothing. The frame of reference makes these alternatives explicit before a claim of differentiation is made.
A useful difference describes a relevant criterion, the audience for which it matters and the evidence supporting it. A broad promise such as better, simpler or more innovative is not a position until it can be compared with a credible alternative on a stated axis.
Evidence gaps should lead to a test, a narrower claim or a different position, rather than an unsupported assertion.
POSITIONING REVIEW
Name the priority audience, buying situation, use case and alternatives that genuinely compete for the decision, including the status quo and indirect solutions. Select comparison axes from observable customer criteria rather than from internal vocabulary. Record the source, sample, date, scale and uncertainty behind every position. A perceptual map describes measured or declared perceptions; distance on the map does not by itself prove preference, causality, willingness to pay or future market share.
Make the intended position comparable, credible and reviewable.
Translate the desired difference into a precise value proposition: customer outcome, relevant context, alternative displaced and evidence that the outcome matters. Distinguish stated preference, observed behaviour and causal proof. Then test whether the organisation can deliver the promise repeatedly at an acceptable cost, with the required capabilities and access. A white space is only an opportunity hypothesis until demand, credibility, economics and competitive response have been examined on the same perimeter.
Make the intended position comparable, credible and reviewable.
Compare keeping the current position, narrowing the target, changing the promise, strengthening the proof and withdrawing the claim. For the selected option, name the first reversible experiment, population, measure, success threshold and adverse signal. Preserve rejected alternatives and contradictory evidence in the decision record. Review the position when perceptions, alternatives, acquisition cost, conversion, retention or delivery quality cross the stated threshold rather than allowing a slogan to become permanent strategy.
GO FURTHER
