How to Write a Positioning Statement That Isn't Vague

A positioning statement stops being vague when it commits to three specifics: the buyer, the alternative that buyer uses today, and a reason to switch that a competitor could not honestly claim. Most statements fail the last part. "We help businesses grow faster with AI-powered tools" could sit on half the websites on the internet. A statement that isn't vague sounds almost uncomfortably narrow, and that discomfort is the sign it is working. The fill-in-the-blank format exists for this reason: it makes you name the parts you would rather leave fuzzy.

The template behind most positioning statements

Most positioning statements descend from a template Geoffrey Moore set out in Crossing the Chasm, first published in 1991. His version moves through six slots in order: the target customer, what they are dissatisfied with in the current alternative, the product category, the key problem-solving capability, the alternative the product is "unlike," and what sets the product apart from it. The version most teams use today is a shorter adaptation:

The power is in the blanks. You will rewrite the wording anyway, but you cannot complete the sentence honestly without naming a buyer, a category, an alternative and a difference. If you catch yourself writing "for businesses" or "unlike other solutions," the template just caught you being vague.

Fill each blank with something specific

1. Target buyer. A person you can picture. "Freelance video editors" beats "creative professionals."
2. The problem. Said the way the buyer would say it. "I spend hours chasing late invoices" beats "suboptimal receivables workflow."
3. The category. The shelf they would look for you on. It sets expectations, so choose it on purpose; our post on product category positioning covers how.
4. The alternative. What they use today: a named competitor, a spreadsheet, or nothing. This is the reference point that makes your difference legible.
5. The difference. The one thing you do that the alternative does not, stated so a competitor could not honestly claim it too.

The words that quietly ruin a statement

Some words feel like strength and drain it. "Innovative," "cutting-edge," "seamless," "powerful," "best-in-class," "next-generation." Everyone uses them, so they read as noise, and they let you feel specific when you were not. Strike every one and see if the sentence still stands. If removing "innovative" leaves a hole, the statement was leaning on the adjective instead of a real difference. The fix is to go find the difference, not a better adjective.

A filled-in template can still say nothing

The template has a well-known critic. The page for April Dunford's book Obviously Awesome on her own site says that connecting a product with consumers "isn't a matter of filling in the blanks on an old-school positioning statement." Her method works through competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, target customers and market category first, and captures the result only at the end.

She has a point. A team can fill every blank in one meeting, argue about adjectives for an hour, and leave with a grammatical sentence and no decisions. The template checks that each slot is filled. It cannot check that the filling is true. Still, one sentence is a handy way to write the result down where a skeptic can attack it. Whether you start from the blanks or end with them is a real disagreement, and teams that do good work land on both sides.

Use AI as the critic, not the author

Once the decisions are made, AI is good at the wording pass. Give it your filled-in blanks and ask for ten tighter phrasings, then react to them. It is better still as a critic. Paste your statement next to the first screen of a competitor's homepage and ask, "Which parts of my statement could this company also claim?" It will flag the filler. What it cannot do is choose your buyer or confirm your difference is real. Hand it an empty template and it fills the blanks with confident guesses about a market it has never sold into.

When it's done

A finished statement is short, specific and a little uncomfortable. Someone in the room will worry it leaves buyers out, and it does, on purpose. It is ready when it passes the swap test and a couple of real prospects in your target market say some version of "that's me." From there it becomes the source for your messaging framework, your homepage and your sales conversations.

Pairs well with

The Brand Voice Engine ($59) keeps every page that restates your position in one voice, using a Voice Spec and an On-Brand Writer. The AI Offer & Landing-Page Conversion Kit ($79) turns the statement into landing copy and logs every claim against its proof. The Sales Enablement Battlecard Builder ($79) builds competitor battlecards from your own intel, so the "unlike" line holds up when a rep is asked about it on a call.