I've done a number of positioning workshops lately where the team has come with a detailed analysis of a very long list of competitors. So long in fact, that I think it's almost a problem... 1/

Positioning is about figuring out how you're going to stand out from the competitive alternatives, so it makes sense that you'd want to understand what those competitors are. But your positioning should only consider the real alternatives in the minds of prospects 2/

Alternatives fall into 2 camps. The 1st is status quo - what they did before you showed up. The 2nd is the short list of new products they evaluated before they chose you. Products that never make the short list are not real competitors imo. 3/

I see startups tracking many "theoretical" competitors but sales has never seen them in a deal. You may want to track them so you can shift if they emerge as a threat, but until they do, they're an distraction for sales and shouldn't be considered in your positioning work 4/

If half your deals are vs. status quo and 25% are vs. competitor X - you can just focus on nailing your positioning against those 2. Narrowing it down helps you build a brand around a clear concise set of value props. Go beyond that and your positioning gets needlessly mushy 5/

We need to make sure our positioning clearly defines our compelling differentiated value vs. the main alternatives we see in deals. We should never water that down to try to tick boxes against a set of "competitors" our customers have never even heard of. /6

Positioning isn't a 'set it and forget it' exercise. You'll shift it over time as your product, buyers, and competitors evolve. Your longer-term product strategy may take emerging threats into account. Positioning that helps you attract and close customers today should not. /end