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If you own a business or have ever attended business class, you are probably familiar with the 3 Ps.

People. Product. Process.

Following the guiding principle of the 3 Ps, managing these three most important factors in any business will help you achieve undisputed success. They are the building blocks for building a successful company. You see, without the right people, a good product, and a proven sales process, your business is going to fail.

But there are thousands of companies that have all of these things and are still struggling to get through. So what's missing? Why don't the 3 Ps get your company as far as necessary on their own?

It turns out there is a fourth P that nobody mentioned. Until now.

As important as your people, your product and your process are, yours positioning is just as important. And most importantly, for all of the marketers out there, you know this better than anyone.

When it comes to your product and process, positioning is an integral part of the equation. Think of positioning the same as marketing. You need to figure out how to design and promote your product in a way that makes it more attractive to your audience.

Donald Miller, CEO of StoryBrand, spoke about the positioning in our last workshop. It is an often overlooked factor in your business that Donald says will make or break you.

Deprioritizing positioning is a mistake many new business owners make. By not focusing on how you position, advertise and promote your product / service, you limit your potential for growth. So we're taking a few tips from Donald Miller and breaking down this forgotten fourth part of the business so that you no longer wonder why you're struggling when you're doing everything else right.

This is how positioning works

First of all, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1. How is your product actually positioned in the market?
2. How does this positioning help you to differentiate yourself and to include you in your industry?
3. Can people easily find out what you are selling and what problem you are solving?

All of these answers will help you create your central positioning message that your customers should be very familiar with.

You want your customer to be able to get your core messages back to you. They want them to be able to give you a summary of the purpose of your business. You want them to remember the problem you are solving.

When you create this type of brand awareness, it shows that you have effectively promoted your brand and thereby increased your company's chances of success.

Why positioning is important

Do you remember how we said positioning is just as important as the other 3 Ps? Well we lied.

Positioning is probably that most important aspect of building your business, even more important than your product itself. This may sound like a stretch, but it is true.

See, selling well and becoming an authority in your market isn't just about having the best product or offering the best price. These things certainly play a role, and a good product and low prices are sure to help you sell more. But your messaging and positioning are ultimately the things that help you position and market your product effectively. This is more important than anything else.

If you are wondering why this is the case, it is due to psychology.

People don't inherently buy the best or the most eye-catching product. They are buying the product that they can understand the fastest. This is because the less mental energy it takes to understand the product and what it does, the more likely they are to want to buy it.

That's because our brains are designed to ignore or forget about things that don't matter (we'll talk about that more in this blog post on how to market your brain's survival instinct). We naturally make blind people blind to things we don't care about, and on a very basic level they won't help us survive. Even in connection with the purchase of a product, we subconsciously think about our ability to survive. Therefore, people almost always buy a product with the right positioning. her brain indeed want to be careful.

If you can properly position what you want to sell, you will outbid your competitors every time. It doesn't matter if the competitor's product is better than yours. When your news is better, you are always the winner.

The rules of positioning

Properly positioning your product isn't rocket science – you already understand that good messaging and marketing are the factors that are critical to proper product positioning.

But execution is really key.

And while previous marketing experience – which most of our readers have – is certainly helpful, it can also hurt you to some extent if you're not careful. This is due to the (very basic) first positioning rule …

1. Be clear

If you're in marketing, you've probably spent hours thinking about a neat, Smart, and cool This is how you can win customers for your products and convey your company's message. Sometimes this method can be really effective in a niche, insider-oriented audience.

But when it comes to basic product positioning, it is Not the best practice.

Here, too, people are drawn to products that they can most easily understand. Additionally, you only have around 8-10 seconds to get someone's attention and let them decide whether or not to listen to you.

For these two reasons, clarity is key.

Marketers want to feel like smart, shrewd wordmakers. And as fun as it can be creating a fun, product-based word game that you and your marketing team think is hilarious, there's a pretty good chance your customers will check it out before they ever get the punch line.

And in the worst case scenario, they will be totally confused. That is the absolute latest what you want

That doesn't mean your copy and sales lead have to be completely boring and dry. That's not a good approach either. But when opposing cute and smart, the emphasis on clarity is always the approach that will win.

The faster you can get your audience to understand what you are doing, the more likely you will convert them into paying customers. Don't let them guess … just tell them. If you do this, you, your customer, and your company will be much happier in the long run.

2. Use the power of narration

Storytelling is an art form that people have always perfected. It is truthfully one of the most effective and powerful tools people have, which is why marketers and business owners need to learn how to use it properly.

People connect with stories: we react to them emotionally, react to them and above all to ourselves notice You.

And if you remember from the past, it is best to make your product memorable for your customers to get them to buy.

Using a story for positioning is very effective because it does two things:

1. It's more engaging than a sales pitch
2. It gets your customers to get involved

Your information becomes a lot more memorable because your customer is paying a lot more attention. Traditional direct answer sales pitches are essentially 5-minute college seminars that are often turned off. And if people are paying thousands of dollars to go to college and still not listening to seminars, why do you think they will be listening to your mini-seminar?

Stories are exciting and especially exciting when you describe your customer as the hero of the story.

When positioning your product in the market, it is important to remember that customers only care about what your product does for them. They usually don't care about the product itself, so it makes sense to make them the main character of your story. They can create the narrative arc that will help them achieve their goals with your product. You can be the winner and you can be the one who made it happen.

So when setting up your positioning try to tell as much of a story as you can and make sure that your customer is the hero, not your product (and if you want to learn more about this strategy, this is something you can check out) Donald Miller's workshop on the StoryBrand method).

The most important thing to remember as you are building your positioning: there must be a problem. Additionally, you need to make sure that your customer is aware of this problem and that what you are offering will fix it.

The best-positioned products sell best, and that's something your competitors may be undervaluing. So make sure you summarize your product in a clear, concise story and get more sales than you can count.

And it doesn't even take the absolute best product on the market.

That's because you're a good storyteller.