Crafting rock-solid positioning statements is essential to qualifying and closing a sale. The statements should also incorporate your product’s value propositions; they must relate to the problem or opportunity you’re trying to solve for the company. Creating positioning statements can be very difficult if you don’t have correct knowledge about the account you’re trying to close. Utilizing sale intelligence resources and asking the right questions are the best ways you can collect information about a company. In 2010, companies are increasing their technology spending. Therefore you must understand what they need to deliver to their CEO, so you can align your positioning statement with their current problems or initiatives.

A positioning statement cannot be just a statement about your product or company, its benefits and why it is better than your competitors’ offerings. A great positioning statement will convey a story to the audience and trigger a connection with them, so that they have to immediately act on it. Understanding what is currently driving their business is critical to creating a powerful positioning statement. Sales intelligence data and sales enablement resources help you paint a picture of accounts that includes past, present and future information. They will enable you to uncover your prospect’s relevant problems or initiatives and help you align your product or service so that you can create a compelling story with factual information.

The positioning statement should include who you’re targeting, what their problems are, your differentiator and value proposition. The alignment with their problems and how your solution solves them must be at the heart of the positioning statement. They need to align, or there isn’t a chance high probability for making a sale. It should be crystal clear to the buyer why they should choose your solution over someone else’s. If this is proving to be difficult, try going after another prospect. You don’t want to be kicking the tires with a prospect that isn’t a fit, and the positioning will help you determine what tires to attack by identifying the company’s business drivers and aligning your solutions with them.

- Mark Kilens
mark . kilens@salesquest.com
978-749-9999 ext. 118

Iqbal Rashid, a lead generation specialist, discusses how to develop a powerful positioning statement.

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