Unique Positioning

April 19, 2017, 6:01 p.m.

I couldn't fucking believe he showed up.

There I was, crammed into the meeting room of my coworking space. A cheap Ikea table sat on top of the room's regular table, barely big enough for my stuff: my laptop, a $30 microphone, and the Skype window glowing on my screen.

On the other side, a legend: Seth Godin. The Purple Cow guy. The marketer who made me love marketing. I read all his books and followed his blog posts every day. And now here he was, about to be on my little podcast, Everyone Hates Marketers.

He wore his usual purple glasses, and behind him was a bookshelf stacked high. I was about to hit "Record." No turning back now. Just go with the flow, I told myself. He's just a regular guy.

12 minutes later

Time flew by. Fuck.

He's good. I tried really hard to challenge him and get super practical, and he delivered. Nothing seemed to throw him off.

9 minutes later

Seth was talking about his usual message—companies need to stop racing to the bottom, trying to be the cheapest, and making average stuff for average people—when a thought popped into my head. I decided to just go for it.

"Seth," I said, "internet providers seem to always race to the bottom. They all compete on price. They have the same features. Let's say we have a brilliant idea of starting our own internet company. We provide internet just like the others. How would you make it remarkable?"

A small grin appeared on his face as I finished the question. "You asked the question exactly the wrong way," he replied. "I don't know if you did that on purpose."

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt, Seth, but no.

Me, laughing nervously: "Haha. Nope."

Maybe I shouldn't have gone off-script. Stick to the plan, Louis; stick to the fucking plan.

Seth continued, "You can't begin by asking, 'How do we make it just like the others and make it remarkable?' You have to ask, 'How do we make it different from the others so it is remarkable?'"

Present day, seven years later

Looking back, this moment impacted me more than any other interviews I had ever run. And judging by the 300,000+ views on YouTube and the flood of comments, it wasn't just me who felt the impact.

I'm so glad I ended up asking this clumsy question, because it sent me on a seven-year quest—one that slowly took over my life, even if Seth never intended it to.

"How do we make it different from the others so that it is remarkable?" Or, to use today's lingo, "How do you stand the f*ck out, like, for real?" I became obsessed with finding the answer.

Everyone explains being remarkably different is critical . . . and yet . . . I couldn't find any practical guidance. Not in business books, not in podcast interviews, and not in marketing courses. Rien du tout! It pissed me off . . . Like being told to draw an owl without ever having seen one. Consider the next three stages to be your step-by-step guide to draw that owl.

It all starts with a unique positioning. This means understanding how you address customer challenges that others might overlook. You'll also craft a straightforward statement that describes how you're uniquely positioned to attract the right people, using job, alternatives, struggles, segment, and category as your foundation. Having this statement is really useful for getting everyone on the same page both inside and outside your company.