Strategic Positioning: Become the Obvious Choice for Your Ideal Clients

I regularly attend a few networking groups, and recently one of the conversation topics was driven by a realtor in the group. He wanted to talk about value propositions and branding, motivated in part because people weren’t understanding the value he provided his clients.

In spite of his decades of experience, the skills he’s developed, the relationships, the intuition, despite all of what sets him apart, people often asked him to “charge less”. They were looking for a deal.

This is a red flag. As he aptly pointed out, it is a clear indicator that people see him and his profession as a commodity. The only thing that sets commodities apart is price.

But here's what's really happening. He's competing in what Blue Ocean Strategy calls a 'red ocean'— a market so crowded with similar offerings that price becomes the only differentiator. Like choosing between identical grocery bags at checkout versus a Louis Vuitton bag people line up to buy.

Your market isn't much different.

Tying this back to you, your market is crowded. Everyone offers similar services. Differentiation comes down to price, location, or personal chemistry (hence the fact that our businesses are relationship-based). Growth then necessarily requires constant hustle for referrals. Networking groups, coffee chats, sponsored events for the chamber, etc.

This is exhausting and unsustainable. When you're seen as a commodity, you're stuck in constant hustle … networking, coffee chats, sponsored events, just to keep the pipeline full. Growth in this environment requires effort that never compounds.

Strategic differentiation changes the game entirely. Instead of competing in a crowded market, you create a position where you're not competing at all, you're the clear, obvious choice for a specific type of client or problem.

That last part is key.

Three Strategic Questions

Question 1: What problem do you solve better than anyone else?

I don’t want you to say, “financial planning”, or “estate planning”. Cool, good for you. You and everyone else in that service category. If that’s where you stop, you’re basically the seagulls from Finding Nemo. That’s not strategic position. That’s table stakes.

Here are some examples of strategic problem statements:

• I help tech executives navigate complex stock compensation without leaving money on the table.
• I help family business owners transition to the next generation without destroying relationships or wealth
• I help physicians in their final 5 years before retirement maximize their exit strategy

The narrower and more specific the problem, the easier it will be to stand out and be the obvious choice. When you have cancer, you’re not looking up “healthcare” or “doctors”, you’re looking for an oncologist (someone who specializes in cancer), most likely someone who specializes in your specific type of cancer. You don’t ask for a discount or compare them to your uncle who is a chiropractor. This is who you’re going to work with.

Action Step: Define ONE problem you solve better than any competitor in your market.

Question 2: How do you solve it differently?

The book Blue Ocean Strategy offers a framework to critically think about this.

Four ways to differentiate:

• Eliminate: What does the industry assume is necessary that you can remove? (Example: Eliminate Assets Under Management or hourly billing)
• Reduce: What can you do less of than competitors? (Example: Fewer face-to-face meetings, less paperwork)
• Raise: What can you do significantly better than the standard? (Example: Deeper financial planning, more strategic tax coordination)
• Create: What can you offer that no one else does? (Example: Quarterly CFO-level strategy sessions, proprietary planning methodology)

Another way to think about this is to consider the needs that exist peripherally or tangentially to the problem you solve. If you walk through your client’s entire journey that encompasses you and your work … what else do they go through?

A couple interesting examples I remember from Blue Ocean Shift:

There’s no argument that Toilet Paper is a saturated market.

But when a toilet paper company looked at what their customers experienced throughout the entire process, they noticed that people in less advanced towns and cities had to carry huge bundles of toilet paper back to their homes by hand, or while they rode a bike. Nobody would have thought portability was a problem of the toilet paper brand, but they took that challenge on, significantly compressed the size of the packaging, and immediately gained clear dominance in those markets.

What about pharmaceuticals? The process you have to go through, often when you’re not feeling well, to get a prescription for what you need and then go about filling that prescription isn’t normally in the conversation at drug companies. But one company followed the whole journey and made drastic improvements to elements normally outside their control, like access to a nurse or doctor.

What else are your clients dealing with?

Action Step: Apply the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create framework to your service delivery.

Question 3: What makes your advantage defensible?

Differentiation only matters if it's hard to copy. It is a figurative moat between you and your competitors. If your 'unique' approach is offering virtual meetings or same-day responses, you created an advantage that lasts until next Tuesday when your competitor does the same thing.

Strategic advantage comes from:

Specialized expertise that takes years to develop (certifications, deep domain knowledge, proprietary methodologies, etc.).

Strategic partnerships that competitors can’t easily replicate (exclusive referral relationships, co-marketing with complementary services).

Process or intellectual property that’s uniquely yours (named frameworks, documented methodologies, proprietary tools).

Market positioning that’s deeply embedded (you’re known as “the X expert” in your region/industry).

Other examples:

• A financial advisor with exclusive relationships with every divorce attorney in town
• An estate attorney who created a proprietary family governance process
• A financial planner with a trademarked retirement planning methodology

Action Step: Identify 1-2 defensible advantages you already have or can build in the next 12 months.

Implementation

Strategy only matters if it is implemented and it’s visible. Your market positioning only works if clients can see it and experience it. If it exists only in your head, it’s like spilling coffee on your pants in a dark suit. It’ll give you a warm feeling, but nobody will notice.

There are three places your differentiation must show up:

1. How you talk about what you do. Not: “I’m a financial advisor helping families plan for the future” (table stakes) But: “I work exclusively with physicians in their final 5 years before retirement, helping them maximize their exit strategy and transition to the next chapter.”
2. How clients experience the difference. Every touchpoint reinforces your positioning – intake process, service delivery, communication style, even your office environment (if applicable)
3. How the market perceives you. Your content, referral partners, and reputation all consistently point to “This is THE person for [specific problem]”

This may seem obvious. If I don’t talk about it, if it’s not reflected in my messaging on websites, business cards, and brochures, how will anyone find out about it? Taking a stand like this takes courage.

Despite building a business whose success hinged on some form of focus and targeting, it feels counterintuitive to exclude large swaths of the market. Common sense tells us that we need to appeal to everyone to grow. The opposite is true.

You need strategic positioning, which means:

• Choosing the problem you solve
• Choosing how you solve it differently
• Choosing what makes you defensible
• Choosing to say no to everything that dilutes that position

This is Stage 4 work. You've built a stable business. Now you're designing what it will become.

This kind of strategic positioning work is exactly what we do in my Focus engagement. We'll identify the problem you solve better than anyone, design your differentiation strategy, and build a roadmap to make it real in your market.

If you’re ready to stop competing and start creating your own strategic position, book a 30 minute call or reply to this email.