How to write a positioning statement in 30 minutes

Fill in one sentence, test it on three people, and keep only what survives. No workshop needed.

What you need

• A document and a timer.
• Notes from your last few customer calls, or the people who can tell you what customers said.

Steps

1. Write who it is for. Name the role and the company type, narrowly enough that some readers can tell they are not it.
2. Write what they do today instead, including "nothing" or "a spreadsheet".
3. Write what is wrong with that, in the customer's words, not yours.
4. Write the one thing you do better, and the proof you could show: a result, a customer quote or a demo.
5. Write the category a buyer would search for or ask an AI assistant for.
6. Join the five lines into one sentence: "For [who] who [today's problem], [product] is a [category] that [better thing]. Unlike [what they do today], we [proof]."

Test it

Read the sentence to three people who know the market but not your company. Ask each to say it back in their own words. Change only the parts they got wrong.

Check before you publish

• Could a competitor say the same sentence? If yes, step 4 is too vague.
• Is there a word in it your customers never use? Replace it.

Once it holds, use it as the brief for the homepage headline, the sales deck opening and the first line of your outbound emails.