Validation
Crafting positioning is not a one-and-done exercise in a vacuum. The best companies validate and refine their positioning by testing it with the real world. After all, positioning is about how you want to be perceived, and you need to check if that’s act.
Test with Customers and Prospects
Your current customers and target prospects are the ultimate judges of whether your positioning makes sense. A practical technique is to simply ask a few of them what they think your product does and what problem it solves.
For example, do a round of calls or surveys with 5-7 customers/prospects and pose: “How would you describe our product to a colleague? What do you see as its main value, and how is it different from other solutions?”. If their answers are all over the place, or they focus on things that aren’t your intended differentiators (e.g. they only mention features, or worse, they can’t articulate any clear difference), that’s a red flag that your positioning isn’t clear or isn’t what you think it is. Use this feedback to adjust. For instance, if a prospect says, “I’m not sure if you’re more of a reporting tool or a data entry tool,” then your positioning might be muddled – an indication to clarify your category and value. If a customer describes your benefit in a much punchier way than your own statement, consider adopting their language.
Another method is to float your positioning hypothesis in low-stakes outreach. Angela Catalina of AltMonday suggests using simple LinkedIn messages or cold emails to test different positioning angles and see which gets more interest or positive responses. For instance, you might A/B test two versions of a cold email: one that pitches your product as “the fastest X for [industry]” and another that pitches it as “the all-in-one Y that does Z.” If one gets a significantly better hit rate (opens, replies), that’s data on what phrasing or concept resonates. This is a scrappy way to validate positioning before spending big on marketing. You can similarly run small-scale ads (even just text ads) that each embody a different positioning phrasing, and see which gets more clicks (more on testing in Chapter 8, but even at the positioning phase you can do message micro-testing).
Don’t shy away from getting on calls with friendly customers to workshop your narrative. You might say, “We’re thinking of describing our solution this way – does this address what you care about, or are we missing the mark?” Customers appreciate when you involve them, and you might learn that a particular pain point phrasing doesn’t quite hit their reality, or that certain buzzwords either excite or confuse them. For example, maybe you love the term “AI-driven analytics,” but customers say, “Honestly I just care that I get insights faster – I don’t care if it’s AI or magic under the hood.” That tells you to focus messaging on outcome (faster insights) rather than the shiny tech.
Solicit Analyst Feedback:
Industry analysts (from firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc., or boutique analysts in your domain) are professional observers of market positioning. Engaging with them can be extremely valuable to validate (or invalidate) your positioning direction. When you brief analysts (even informally), pay attention to their reactions: Are they immediately slotting you into an existing category (e.g. “So you’re basically a next-gen XYZ tool?”)? Do they push back on your claimed differentiators (“Many companies say they do that”)? Analysts have a wide view and often know the common market narratives; if your story is not clear or compelling to them, it likely won’t be to customers either. Conversely, if an analyst says, “Interesting, I haven’t heard other vendors talk about this approach,” that could validate a unique positioning (or signal you truly are carving something new).
A best practice is to do an analyst briefing dry-run internally (or with a consultant) – prepare a short presentation of your positioning, category, and differentiation, and get feedback from someone experienced. Ensure you eliminate jargon and clearly address the “what is it/why does it matter” upfront – analysts appreciate clarity and will often give you the benefit of frank feedback. They might tell you things like, “You’re positioning yourself in a crowded space; have you thought about focusing on X use-case where it’s less crowded?” or “You describe yourself as Category A, but your features sound like Category B – which is it?” Use this to refine. You can also explicitly ask analysts where they’d categorize you in their research. If they put you in a bucket you didn’t intend, you may need to adjust your messaging or educate them more on why you’re different. (Note: early on, you might not get a lot of analyst attention, but you can still consume their reports and compare your positioning to how others are positioned. Analysts’ language often shapes buyers’ perceptions, so aligning or deliberately counter-positioning against those narratives is important.)
Additionally, analysts can serve as a proxy for customers in some ways – they often relay what end-users are asking for. So if an analyst says, “All my client inquiries in this space are really about X, not Y, so your message around Y might not land,” take that seriously and investigate if you need to reposition around X (assuming you can address X). For example, maybe you positioned around “increasing revenue” but analysts say customers in your category care more about “reducing risk” – you might emphasize your risk-reduction capabilities more in your messaging if that’s the case.
Align Internal Stakeholders
Your positioning must ring true internally as well – your sales team, customer success, engineers, everyone needs to believe it and be able to articulate it. Often, doing a formal or informal internal positioning workshop can surface misalignments. For instance, ask your sales reps how they currently pitch the product. If each rep has a totally different story, that’s a problem (and likely a symptom that clear positioning is missing). As one expert noted, startups often suffer when team members have “diverse interpretations” of the product’s value; consistent positioning fixes that. So get the team together and present the proposed positioning. Gauge reactions: enthusiasm, confusion, disagreement? If a founder and a head of product are not on the same page about who the ideal customer is or what problem you truly solve, resolve those issues now. It might be a tough debate, but far better to have it internally than to have customers receive mixed messages later.
A good exercise is the “elevator pitch around the room.” Have each leader or even random employees try to give the 30-second pitch for your product. If those pitches differ wildly, you know you haven’t nailed positioning internally. Use that as motivation to iron out a single narrative and then enable everyone with it. Often, companies will create a positioning document or FAQ that spells out the target customer, pain points, our solution, key benefits, and competitor comparisons. This internal guide ensures everyone is speaking the same language. In fact, a positioning statement is sometimes explicitly kept as an internal document for guidance, which then informs a public-facing “about us” blurb or sales pitch.
When getting internal buy-in, consider involving folks beyond marketing. Product managers can provide input (“Is this claim something we actually do uniquely?”). Sales engineers can tell you what resonates or falls flat in demos. The CEO/founder should be intimately involved – often founder vision is a big part of strategic differentiation, but it needs to be translated to market language. Encourage honest feedback: sometimes sales might say “this phrasing doesn’t hit, prospects keep asking me to clarify.” That’s gold – iterate on that. On the flip side, once you have a strong positioning that leadership agrees on, enforce it. Train new sales hires on it, include it in onboarding. Make it part of the company lore (“We are the company for [ICP] solving [problem] by [how].”).
One creative internal validation idea: ask your team to do a competitive role-play. Someone pretends to be a competitor’s sales rep and tries to sell against your positioning. This “Devil’s advocate” approach can reveal if your differentiators hold water. If the pretend competitor can easily counter your claim (“They say they’re the only AI-powered one, but actually lots of tools have AI now…”), then your uniqueness might not be strong enough or needs better evidence. It’s like a stress test for your positioning narrative.
Closing the Loop
Validation is not a one-time pre-launch task. It should be ongoing. Set up systems for continuous feedback on your messaging; e.g., have sales report which parts of the pitch are resonating or where prospects seem confused. Do win/loss analyses: when you win deals, ask the customer what stood out; when you lose, find out why – was it something in your positioning or did they not understand your value? Also, monitor the market’s reaction as you roll out messaging (are you getting the desired nods in meetings? Are website visitors engaging more?).
Incorporating feedback doesn’t mean pivoting your positioning every week; it means being open to refinements. Perhaps you discover that one of your message pillars consistently gets lukewarm response, while another benefit you thought was minor really excites people. That might lead you to adjust emphasis. For example, maybe you thought speed was your top differentiator, but customers seem more drawn to your analytics capabilities. In such a situation, you might consider emphasizing analytics in your messaging moving forward.
Lastly, keep stakeholders in the loop. If you modify positioning after validation, communicate the updates internally and even to friendly analysts or customers who helped. It’s an ongoing conversation with the market. By validating with customers, analysts, and your team, you ensure your positioning isn’t built on internal assumptions alone but is grounded in reality.