But how can we make time for that?

Let’s face it: A positioning workshop with me (or with anyone else) takes a little bit of time. For stress-out founders who needed to close their first deal last month or whose product launch is already two weeks behind schedule, spending two hours a day, four days in a row can seem like a big ask.

But… positioning is a very strategic exercise. It’s all about figuring out where you are going and helping you focus your energy in the weeks and months ahead. Most startups can close some deals even with crappy positioning, but they’ll end up with scattershot marketing and sales efforts that don’t build on each other. Marketing and sales should get easier as you build traction in your market and people start to talk about you. This happens much faster when your positioning is good.

If you’re running late for an appointment but you’re not sure how to get there, is it better to just jump in your car and do figure things out as you go? Or take an extra five minutes to look at a map and make sure you know where you’re going?

As technologists, it’s easy to get very caught up in the technical details of your product and your business. What features should be on the product? Which VCs should I be talking to this week? How important is it to support Azure? How many integrations is too many integrations?

But just like stopping to look up directions, good positioning can ultimately save your startup tons of time. Positioning helps you control the story being told about your product and focuses your team on what is really important to your customers.

If you need to 2x your revenue next quarter but you’re not sure who you should be reaching out to and your market segment is “SREs, developers, platform engineers and operators in Fortune 500 companies,” you’d probably benefit from taking eight hours to figure out your positioning. Here’s what it’s like if you’d like me to help.