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Become great at Positioning

It’s easy to dominate your market when you’re the only one in it. Discover the framework to become a Market of One.

Online course

By Brendan Dell, President @ Spark

Course length: 1h 17min

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Some of the companies that train their teams at CXL Institute:

Your positioning will determine if you sink or swim

In a crowded market, only companies that get their positioning right will remain afloat.

Without excellent positioning, you face…

  • competitors who force your prices down,
  • being perceived as a commodity, a me-too or also-ran,
  • long sales cycles and price-resistant customers who struggle to grasp your full value,
  • the risk of becoming irrelevant as the market leader pushes you out of the arena.

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Once you master your positioning, you can carve out your own unique space in the sea of sameness.

This course brings you the framework to become a Market of One: A company that customers seek and choose for what makes it unique.

When you’re a Market of One — when you stand out in the sea of sameness — sales and marketing get a whole lot easier.

After taking this course, you’ll…

  • Have a complete Market of One messaging framework for your company.
  • Know how to make any product stand out.
  • Understand what positioning is and how to use it in the modern marketing landscape.
  • Transform your positioning strategy into marketing strategy with a tactical plan that you can execute.
  • Avoid commoditization and “me too” marketing with a unique message that gets noticed and drives business.
  • Avoid other common pitfalls by clarifying your value (rather than confusing your market).

Alex B.

Paid Search Analyst @ ConversionWhale

US

CXL Institute has helped me tremendously in my journey to become the best digital marketer I can be.

It has opened my eyes to the capabilities of tools like GTM and Google Sheets. You guys have humbled me by teaching me that there’s so much more to learn!

Ap S.

Account Manager @ ePPC Digital

Estonia

CXL is just the best place to grow for a marketer. I learned more in a few months via CXL than what I learned in 8, 9 months on my own.

Learn effective positioning in the modern landscape

In this course, you’ll learn how top marketers at companies like Drift, Salesforce and Zuora rely on a positioning story to separate their companies from the rest. (No outdated examples from the ’70s or ’80s).

You get practice advice that makes it clear what you should do next. These course is packed with frameworks and actionable steps that will put you on the path to becoming a Market of One.

Become great at positioning in 8 sessions:

  1. Learn to differentiate your company in a sea of sameness. Avoid commoditization, price erosion, and the trap of “me too” messaging.
  2. Discover how to translate your positioning into clear, compelling messaging that makes you the obvious choice for your ideal customer.
  3. Understand how positioning has changed, so you can succeed in the splintered modern media landscape.
  4. Get inspired with eye-opening case studies and examples from top brands.
  5. Create your own positioning strategy. Get a proven template to guide positioning conversations and architect your unique strategy.

Positioning can make the difference between wild success and total failure

Uber and Lyft are both ride-sharing apps, functionally nearly identical. So why do customers choose one over the other? Why have all other ride sharing apps faded into oblivion?

Positioning has a lot to do with it.

These two companies have carved out a unique position in their customers’ minds. You too can carve out a unique position in your customers’ minds.

This course will put you on the fast-track to becoming a positioning expert who can…

  • create powerful differentiation to make sales and marketing easier and more effective,
  • lead a unified and memorable go-to-market strategy,
  • take a company from market irrelevance to a Market of One.

Never again will customers confuse you for “another one of those.” Instead, you’ll be the only one like you.

And you’ll do it all with a powerful positioning framework that gets your ideal customers to tune in, lean in and choose you.

This course is essential for you if …

  • Work in software or technology and want to know how leaders differentiate products in the modern world.
  • Want to develop a more cohesive team culture that rallies around a mission and story.
  • Want to differentiate a product in a red ocean, driving bigger deals, less price resistance, more inbound leads, and higher conversion rates on every promotion you launch.

This course is NOT for you if…

  • Aren’t willing to take a position in your market and lead.
  • Favor the perfect answer versus testing, experimenting, and learning to find the position that will move your market.
  • Believe in product-led positioning and aren’t willing to test new approaches to go-to-market strategy.

Skills you should have before taking this course

This course is ideal for those who have a baseline understanding of their market dynamics.

About
Brendan Dell

Brendan is an author and award-winning messaging expert and the founder of the creative consultancy Spark.

He is the creator of a simple, story-driven communications framework that allows organizations to clearly differentiate themselves in the marketplace, transforming them into a Market of One—an organization that is sought after for what makes it unique.

Course overview

Your full course curriculum

Positioning

1 The 8 Elements of Your Positioning Story

David Cancel, the CEO of one of the fastest-growing start-ups in the world, is famous for saying, "Product-based differentiation is going away. Act accordingly."

So what is effective today?

Story-driven positioning.

A differentiation strategy that relies on changing the conversation, rather than comparisons — and will help you stand out and thrive. No matter the category in which you compete.

Discover the 8 elements of a modern positioning story and get introduced to a framework you can use to carve out your company as a Market of One.

Topics Covered:

  • Why the traditional positioning statement is no longer effective and how Silicon Valley leaders & top Fortune 500 companies position products today
  • The 8 elements of a modern positioning story
  • 5 questions to determine if you have a positioning problem

2 How to Identify Your Best Customers

Great positioning is effective not because you are great, but because you promise transformation for someone else.

To make a strong promise, you must have a specific target in mind.

In this lesson, we'll learn three techniques to identify your best customers: those who buy quickly and often, spend the most, and have the most to gain and lose.

Topics Covered:

  • How to mine your sales team to discover your best customers
  • A data-driven approach to identifying your best customer
  • What to document in order to develop irresistible customer-led positioning

3 How to Mine Your Best Customers for Effective Positioning

The most effective companies don't position products in a vacuum. They rely on the voice of their customer to frame the language they use.

In this lesson, you'll learn a 12-question framework to mine your customers for insights, so you can create an irresistible strategy.

Topics Covered:

  • How to mine your best customers and let them craft your positioning for you
  • Effective versus ineffective surveys
  • How to identify themes that translate into elements of your positioning story

4 How to Identify Your Demand Type

Great positioning is about creating change — making it imperative that your best customers do something now.

But you can't create change without understanding your customer's status quo and frame of reference.

How you position that change depends on your demand type.

Topics Covered:

  • The 3 demand types
  • 9 questions to determine yours
  • How your demand type affects your positioning story and strategy

5 How to Identify a Compelling Change, Stakes & Villain

In the modern world, it's not your competitors who pose the biggest threat to your business. It’s the status quo.

Yet top companies like Drift, Salesforce, Zuora, Nike and others have learned a framework that allows them to position effectively in an ever-more crowded market.

This relies on creating change.

In this lesson we'll learn three of the key elements required to create change. And how to put them to work in your positioning story.

Topics Covered:

  • The 3 essential elements of compelling change and stakes
  • How to identify a compelling change and stakes to get your customers to act now
  • How to create a compelling villain to rally customers against

6 How to Craft an Effective Promised Land & ID Your Superpowers, and Harvest Compelling Proof

"People like us do things like this." Seth Godin explains that this is the essence of great marketing.

Your best customers will act when they believe that your product will help them become a better version of themselves.

When they believe that people like them solve their problems the way you solve them.

In this lesson we'll learn how to craft an irresistible promised land, show your key features as superpowers to help reach the promised land, and how to harvest compelling proof that leaves your prospects thinking, "people like us do things like this."

Topics Covered:

  • The 5 elements of an effective promised land
  • How to choose which features to highlight & harvest compelling proof
  • Examples from Zuora, Salesforce, RadarFirst, Drift and Alo

7 How to Create a Memorable Simple Promise

If you ask your team or your market about what your company does, what will they say?

If they can't tell you in a sentence the change you're creating, you have a positioning problem.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to craft a memorable simple promise.

One that is known by your market. Embraced by your team.

One that differentiates you in our noisy, crowded world.

Topics Covered:

  • The 12 laws of high-impact messaging
  • How to craft a simple promise that makes you "the only one like you" instead of "another one of those"
  • Teardowns of effective and ineffective messaging

8 How to Test Your Positioning Story and Roll It Out to Dominate Your Market

Will the story resonate?

And if so, what is the most effective way to bring your story to the market?

This is what we'll explore in this lesson.

Topics Covered:

  • How to craft a memorable roll-out strategy that breaks through the noise
  • How to build effective tests to vet positioning
  • How the individual elements of your positioning story create a unified go-to-market strategy

Show off your hard-earned skills and strengthen your profile

LinkedIn is easily the largest professional network in the world with more than 600 million users. 

But it’s not enough to just have a LinkedIn page, you need a great one—especially if you’re looking for new opportunities.

A 2018 CareerBuilder survey found that 70 percent of employers use social media to screen candidates. Over half of those employers are searching for your profile to see if you have the skills needed for the job.

What’s more? LinkedIn found that people who add credentials to their profile receive 6x more profile views than those who don’t.

This means that you can add your certificates to your profile, share your accomplishments in your feed, and join our alumni network!

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