Brand Positioning in Sales

The 3-Step Positioning Process I Used for Taylor Lane (Got Them Into Costco) Most positioning advice is theory. This is exactly what I do. After 20 years and dozens of coffee brands, I've boiled it down to three steps that actually work. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟭: 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗨𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵 Not what you want to be true. What IS true. With Taylor Lane, everyone was claiming "organic." But they were Sonoma's FIRST organic roaster. 25 years of credibility nobody else could claim. Your truth is already there. Stop inventing. Start excavating. Questions that uncover truth: → What were you before coffee made you successful? → What would you do even if nobody paid you? → What makes competitors secretly jealous? 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟮: 𝗠𝗮𝗽 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 List what everyone in your category claims. Find what nobody owns. I mapped 15 organic coffee brands: - All talked about farming practices - All showed processing photos - All preached sustainability Nobody owned heritage. Nobody owned "first." Nobody owned the Sonoma County story. That's where Taylor Lane lived. 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽 𝟯: 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 Formula that never fails: We're the only [CATEGORY] That [UNIQUE CLAIM] For [SPECIFIC AUDIENCE] Who want [EMOTIONAL OUTCOME] Taylor Lane: "We're Sonoma County's organic coffee that's been pioneering quality since before organic was a movement, for conscious consumers who want to support authentic originals, not trendy imitators." 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁: Costco couldn't resist. Not because of the coffee. Because of the story only Taylor Lane could tell. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀: ❌ Starting with what you want to be ✅ Starting with what you are ❌ Copying successful positioning ✅ Finding your white space ❌ Writing for everyone ✅ Writing for someone 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁: If a competitor could copy your positioning tomorrow, it's not positioning. It's wishful thinking. Your positioning should be like your fingerprint. Completely unique to you. This process has worked for: - Gorilla (revenue tripled) - Taylor Lane (premium placements) - FoamAroma (Onyx switched) - 20+ other brands Because it's not about being better. It's about being the only. Ready to find your uncopyable truth? Start with Step 1. The answer's already there. ____ ♻️ Repost if you found this useful ☕ Follow Darleen Scherer for more positioning insights

Brand is your best sales startegy. Here's why. Most B2B companies fall into the same trap. They pour money into lead gen, paid ads, and short-term promotions. Why? Because it’s easy to track. Feels like progress. Makes the board happy. But this is not growth. This is buying attention...and it's addictive. And the second you stop spending, the attention stops too. So what happens next? - They spend more. - And more. - And more... Until they’re stuck in an expensive loop they can’t escape. What’s the way out? Brand. Not colours. Not logos. But real brand-building. The kind that makes customers come to you. Care about you. Talk about you. The type of brand that lowers acquisition costs, makes hiring easier, and builds trust before the first call. The type of brand that stays top-of-mind when your customer is finally ready to buy (remember the 95-5% rule?). But here’s the catch… - Brand takes time. - It’s harder to track. - And that’s where most CEOs and CFO lose patience. They cut too soon. Before the brand flywheel kicks in. Because when that brand flywheel kicks in, magic happens: - You stop chasing leads. They find you. - Marketing costs drop. Trust kicks in. - Sales convert faster. Buyers already believe. It’s not a this or that game. Brand VS Sales... Brand and sales must run in parallel. Sales = attention now. Brand = attention forever. According to Binet & Field, the ideal ratio is 60% brand, 40% sales. But let's be clear: that 60/40 is a starting point, not a strict rule. It varies across industries, business models, and growth stages. What matters is knowing where you are and adjusting accordingly. Start building brand today to make the sales of tomorrow easier. Because if you wait until you need it… it’s already too late.

This is one of the smartest positioning case studies I’ve seen in a long time. And it’s happening in bottled water. A brand called Loonen founded by @clarasieg is going viral right now, but I don’t think it’s working because of branding alone. I think it’s working because they questioned the core assumption the category was built on. For decades, premium water brands sold the same story: the source. Alps. Iceland. Himalayas. Volcanic springs. The cleaner the place sounded, the more consumers trusted the water. Loonen reframed the problem completely. Instead of asking where the water comes from, they asked: What does the water touch before it reaches the consumer? The pipes. The plastic. The caps. The transport system. The processing. And they rebuilt the entire operational system around that insight. No plastic contact, Stainless steel transport, Unpainted caps, Third-party testing, QR-code lab reports for every batch. That distinction matters. Most brands use branding to create perception. Loonen used operations to create proof. The product architecture itself became the positioning. And the timing is important too. Consumers are already anxious about microplastics, PFAS and contamination. Loonen simply organised that anxiety into a clear, auditable system consumers can understand. That’s why I don’t think they’re just selling water. They’re selling reassurance. And reassurance is becoming one of the strongest positioning opportunities in modern consumer brands. Part 2 — I’ll break down why this exact shift is likely to reshape the Indian water market too.

When you work closely with food delivery platforms, here’s something many foodpreneurs fall for. If someone from the platform says, “Hey, Brand X is doing this campaign and it’s working really well. You should try it too.” And honestly, it’s very tempting to jump in. You start thinking, “They’re selling X number of samosas a day. Why am I missing out? I should be doing this too.” But here’s the thing: have you really paused to think about whether your brand should be doing that? That kind of urgency creates a spiral. You jump into something, often without checking: ▪️Are we even equipped to do this? ▪️Does our brand stand for this product? ▪️Have we built any trust or recall in this category? This is why I keep going back to brand positioning. When your brand is clearly positioned, customers know what you stand for and can trust you. So, how can foodpreneurs build a strong positioning for their product? Here’s a starting point: 1️⃣ Know your audience At HOB, we always put our customers at the centre of everything. That means really knowing who they are, their preferences, behaviours, even where they’re ordering from. This kind of clarity helps you create products for them, not just for the sake of trends. 2️⃣ Define your UVP (Unique Value Proposition) What’s that one thing your brand offers that others don’t? After doing your market analysis, get really clear on what makes you different—and why someone should choose you. For example, at HOB, our “meri wali biryani” became that for us. It’s comforting and reminds people of the biryani they enjoy with friends and family. That emotional connection is our edge. 3️⃣ Make it visually appealing and consistent People eat with their eyes first. Before they even taste your food, they’re noticing your packaging, your colours, your overall vibe. Make sure all of it feels like you, something they can spot and remember even from a distance. 4️⃣ Use storytelling Think about the brands you keep going back to. Chances are, it’s not just about the product. You like how they make you feel. That’s the magic of storytelling. It brings your brand to life in a way plain marketing can’t. It helps people connect with who you are, not just what you sell. ------------------------------ 📌What do you think is something most foodpreneurs miss when it comes to branding?

ERIS Lifesciences positioned itself in chronic therapy when most pharma companies were chasing acute, and built a ₹2,879 crore revenue brand. I was reading about the company recently and thought that their journey is worth sharing. When Amit Bakshi started Eris in 2007, every new pharma company was doing the same thing - build a large field force, target general physicians, push acute therapy brands. Fast prescriptions, fast revenue, zero differentiation. Eris went the opposite direction entirely. 📌Picked chronic therapy over acute from day one Cardiology, diabetes, nephrology - slower to build, but once a cardiologist trusts your brand, they prescribe it for years. 📌Created a category instead of joining one Cardio and diabetes were separate verticals in pharma marketing. Eris bundled them into "cardio-metabolic" and owned that space before anyone else named it. 📌Went specialist-first, not GP-first While competitors were flooding general physicians with medical reps, Eris built relationships directly with super-specialists. 📌Used research as a sales tool They did the India Heart Study and the India Diabetes Study so that medical reps could walk into specialist cabins with evidence nobody else had. The result: 44% revenue growth in FY25, 35% EBITDA margins, and a diabetes franchise on track to be the 5th largest in India. Positioning in pharma is not a tagline. It is knowing which doctor to target, what clinical proof to carry, and how to make your brand the only logical choice in that room. What do you think most pharma brands get wrong about specialist marketing?

Brand positioning is not:  ❌Investor pitch ❌Vision statement ❌Grandiose message ❌Nice-to-have It’s how you frame the universal value of your product(s) shared across all segments and associate your brand with distinct emotions and buying triggers so future buyers remember and consider you when they move in-market. The truth: B2B has turned positioning into an exercise in framing the rational and functional attributes of our products. It’s less positioning and more clear articulation of the value you deliver and how it varies from one segment to the next. MASSIVELY important. But there’s a problem… Nobody cares about the hyper-specific rational and functional nuance of your product until they’re in-market and ready to buy it. Humans are not willing to exert massive loads of energy exploring the depths of every use case, feature, benefit, capability, problem or outcome. Not until real risk enters the equation if they don’t. Our brains don’t work like that. Therefore, a large part of positioning work is about creating perceptions in the minds of FUTURE buyers. That means you have to frame your value in a way they’ll listen and remember. How? By zooming out on your brand’s core and universal value shared across all segments, not the hyper-specific details of every persona. By looking beyond rational and functional attributes (which everyone in your category will replicate in 6 months) and associating yourself with emotional attributes not easily copied. By connecting your brand to relevant buying situations that trigger a move in-market (AKA “category entry points”) so you can future buyers think of you when it matters most. Brand positioning and product positioning need to work in harmony from the start. There is no right time to do one over the other. Because guess what… The market is going to create a perception of you with or without your influence. And the longer you live in the rational, functional realm of product positioning and ignore the fundamental tenets of brand positioning, the longer it will take to build a defensible position in the minds of the 95%. 

Stop scrolling. This is the reason your growth stalled and your team can’t explain why. If you’re a CMO of a mid-sized company, this will sting a little. If your positioning only works when you or your team is there to explain it, you don’t have positioning. You have a script. And scripts collapse the second the buyer meets a competitor who speaks with more clarity than you. I see this constantly when I’m working with mid-sized companies trying to reclaim market share. The team knows the product. They know the features. They know the pitch. But none of it moves without someone manually pushing it forward. That’s a red flag. Real positioning is self-sustaining. It works in rooms you never entered. It shapes buying criteria before a sales conversation even begins. It makes the comparison game irrelevant because the buyer already believes your lens is the only one that makes sense. When your positioning is weak, your team feels it first. More calls. More explanation. More defending. More chasing. When your positioning is strong, the market feels it first. Fewer objections. Faster closes. Higher pricing power. Easier marketing. Clearer messaging. Better internal alignment. I’ve spent more than a decade fixing brands that were stuck in this exact trap. Every time we rebuilt the positioning around clarity, contrast, and competitive truth, the business stopped pushing and started pulling. If your sales process feels heavier than it should, your positioning is doing none of the lifting. Agree?

Market never stops evaluating your positioning and it happens through bias, emotion and pattern recognition.   That’s where behavioral science meets brand strategy. 1. The brain craves clarity. Cognitive load theory tells us the brain avoids effort. When your message is complex, the mind tunes out. That’s why clarity is better than cleverness because the brain rewards simplicity. If your positioning isn’t instantly understood, it’s mentally discarded. The human mind needs to categorize you before it can remember you. That’s why great positioning is obvious. It gives the audience an effortless answer to one question: “Who are you, and why should I care?” 2. Emotion drives recall. We remember what makes us feel, not what makes us think. Behavioral psychology calls this the “affect heuristic”, when emotion becomes the shortcut for judgment. If your positioning doesn’t evoke a feeling, it doesn’t create memory. Neutral brands are forgotten not because they lack value, but because they lack emotional charge. The brands we trust most are the ones that make us feel something, security, excitement, confidence, curiosity. 3. Familiarity builds credibility. The “mere exposure effect” proves that repeated exposure breeds preference. The more we see something, the safer it feels. The safer it feels, the more we trust it. Consistency in positioning isn’t about repetition for visibility,  it’s repetition for psychological safety. Every time you show up with the same message, tone, and clarity, you lower cognitive friction. You train the market to believe you. That’s why scattered messaging is confusing and costly: you’re asking the market to re-learn who you are, every time. 4. Differentiation reduces risk perception. Behavioral economics shows us that humans are loss-averse,  we fear being wrong more than we enjoy being right. A strong position gives people a reason to choose confidently. When your brand owns a distinct space, you de-risk the decision. You make it easier for your audience to justify why you’re the safe choice, not the risky experiment. Positioning makes you feel certain. 5. Stories anchor identity. Neuroscience proves that the human brain stores information best through narrative structure. We remember stories, not statements. That’s why your positioning must be embedded in story It’s how the audience recalls you, references you, and repeats you. Your positioning lives in how people retell your story. When you understand the behavioral science behind positioning, you start treating it as decision design. People choose the clearest story, the safest emotion, and the simplest truth they can trust. Something to think about: Is your positioning clear enough that your audience feels safe choosing you, or are you still making them work to understand why you matter?

Here's how to quickly gain a powerful competitive advantage... If you were to find yourself in a Formula 1 race, you would hope for a fast car. Good tires. Amazing handling. But what you'd really want is “pole position.” That's where you start at the very front of the pack. The air hitting your car is cleaner and more aerodynamic. Best of all, no one can block you in—you set the pace. Positioning is just as important in marketing and advertising. Position your product or service impactfully in the minds of your prospects and the race is half won. Ries and Trout originally envisioned positioning as ladders in the brain. You want to own a rung. Preferably the top one. And the best way to do that is to be first (because nobody remembers the runner-ups). When you’re at the top, everyone positions themselves against you. (Which Avis car rental did brilliantly against market leader Hertz when they said, “We’re only #2. We have to try harder.”) In a competitive market when it’s tough to get a foothold or climb up, there’s a simple answer: create a new ladder. Classic examples: Volkswagen saying, “Think Small” (repositioning small as smart), or 7-Up branding itself the Uncola. More recently, as if to prove that anything can be repositioned, Liquid Death ignored the "water as purity and health" ladder and created their own: water as a lifestyle object that confirms your edgy identity. Two people worth studying today on positioning… Bill Matassoni goes beyond market ladders to advocate completely redefining or reinventing market "spaces." How? By introducing new definitions of value that make old comparisons (and competitors) irrelevant. In other words, you change what “better” means so you become the obvious choice. Cirque du Soleil did just that when it left the circus category entirely. Victoria’s Secret did it when they created the affordable sexy-luxury space. And the beer industry is constantly birthing new spaces, from taste, to diet (less filling), to quality (craft beers), and perhaps, Matassoni suggests, one day "nutrition" (a beer that's good for you!). Always think: What new dimensions can my product or service compete on where we'll own the playing field? Rory Sutherland suggests an interesting way to do this that he calls “reverse benchmarking.” Instead of trying to beat competitors at the most common value measures (price, quality), pick overlooked or unexpected dimensions. The examples he gives are an expensive restaurant that put extraordinary effort into “sommelier-level” experiences around coffee and beer, which none of their competitors did particularly well. And Apple, which caught the burgeoning computer flatfooted when it set out to compete on, of all things, design. In short, as Don Draper often said on Mad Men: “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.” What's your favorite example of a great positioning that you've executed or admire?