# What the heck is positioning?

By [Doug Lane](https://paragraph.com/@axalane) · 2022-03-30

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Quick quiz: can you define what the word “positioning” means?

If you find it difficult, you’re not alone. Many people, including some very accomplished sales and marketing leaders, use the term interchangeably with messaging.

But positioning is something different. And I would argue that it's orders of magnitude more important for startups entering the very crowded – and very noisy – cybersecurity market.

The best definition of positioning I’ve seen is from April Dunford, who literally [wrote the book on it](https://www.aprildunford.com/obviously-awesome).

Here’s how she describes it:

> Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot about.

If you’ve ever gone into a sales call to pitch something you knew to be completely unique and more valuable than anything in the market – only to spend the whole call struggling to explain how you’re different from EDR, firewalls, SIEMs, or whatever the closest existing comparison point is – you probably skipped positioning. (Confession: been there.)

If you invest time and effort in positioning your startup, you will:

1.  Anchor every conversation on a problem that the buyer truly cares about
    
2.  Save them the energy of trying to put your company in context
    
3.  Put yourself on offense instead of defense when it comes to differentiating your product from the available alternatives
    

\-Doug

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*Originally published on [Doug Lane](https://paragraph.com/@axalane/what-the-heck-is-positioning)*