Leading a GTM team

Do we need to create a new category, or should we position inside one that already exists?

The short answer

Default to an existing category. Categories are expensive: you are paying to teach a market a new word, and you only earn that back if buyers genuinely have no box for you and a budget line does not exist. Positioning inside a known category means buyers arrive already knowing what you are and searching for it, and you compete on being the best for a specific segment rather than on education. If the category is established, your job is to win a slice of it clearly. If nothing exists, then you have to educate, and you should budget years and a lot of content for it rather than a launch.

Go deeper, your way

4 hand-picked resources, 1 India-specific, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

📄 Article
✓ Link checked Free Advanced

Why we picked it The argument for treating positioning as iterative and cross-functional rather than a one-time launch decision, which is what separates companies that keep it sharp from ones whose story rots. Also the case for reframing a market instead of accepting its boundaries.

Everything You Know About Positioning Is Wrong

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford ~8 min read

Open aprildunford.com
📖 Book
✓ Link checked Paid Advanced

Why we picked it The most systematic treatment of recurring revenue as an engineered system rather than a set of departments, with 250+ blueprints you can lift. For leaders building the engine, not for someone still finding the first ten customers.

Revenue Architecture

From Winning by Design by Jacco van der Kooij 556 pages

Open winningbydesign.com

The same ground, at another level

How positioning and messaging reads from a different seat.

People also ask

What is positioning in plain English, and why does everyone insist we have got it wrong? Positioning is the context you give a buyer so that your strengths look obvious. It is the answer to 'what kind of thing is this and who is it for'... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → How do I write a one-line description of what we do that a normal person actually understands? Stop trying to be clever and name the category first. A stranger needs to file you somewhere in their head before they can care, so 'a CRM for fiel... Breaking into GTM 4 resources → Our positioning reads fine on the website but every rep says something different on calls. How do I fix that? That gap is almost always a sign the positioning was written for the website and never translated into a conversation. Fix it by building the pitch... Doing the work 4 resources → How do I build a sales deck that is not just a tour of our features? Open with a change in the buyer's world, not with your company. Name the shift, show that it creates winners and losers, describe the better state ... Doing the work 4 resources → We are changing our positioning. How do I roll it out without breaking the pipeline mid-quarter? Sequence it: sales first, marketing second, brand last. Reps carry the new story to live deals before the website changes, because they can adapt i... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → How do the best B2B companies get positioning agreed when product, sales and the founders all disagree? They stop arguing about opinions and go find the buyer's view, because the only competitive alternative that matters is the one the prospect would ... How the best do it 4 resources →

Also in Starting Up

The same ground, over in Understand your customers, our Starting Up track.

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