Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Where Is Your Business At Right Now

Positioning a business is harder than most people think. Often entrepreneurs have a hard time defining their businesses correctly. To help entrepreneurs in the Summer Venture Program, Mary Gale delivered insightful information about how to position your business.

Entrepreneurs should have their own positioning statements for their business. A positioning statement  is not an ad, tagline, logo, nor a copy strategy. It is an internal document that guides entrepreneurs how they talk to their customers.

Positioning

Mary Gale at Summer Venture Program

 

A positioning statement should encompass these components.

  • Target market: is a group of potential users of the product, described usually by need.
  • Frame of reference: refers to the category within business’s product competes/substitutes.
  • Point of difference: the most meaningful competitive difference (benefit), to the target market within frame of reference. In other words, point of difference is the unique benefits that competitors do not serve.
  • Reason(s) to believe: proof that you can deliver promise, such as company’s credibility history.

Having a positioning statement ready, entrepreneurs can acknowledge what they want a potential or existing customer to think. Comparing one’s own statement and a competitor’s statement suggests how to react in order to compete.

Although having a positioning statement possesses many other benefits, preparing it takes lots of effort. Customers sometimes perceive products or services differently than what entrepreneurs initially expected. Thus it is important for entrepreneurs to constantly get qualitative and qualitative data for positioning by talking to prospective customers, trying out beta or soft launch, conducting surveys and through market intelligence. Put together a positioning statement for your entrepreneurial venture, it can be a reference when deciding next steps.