Humans can be so irrational. Have you ever met someone and decided – before you even knew anything about them – that you didn't like them? Or a food… you've never tasted it, but you KNOW that you don't like it. Maybe a certain place. You've never been there, but you're completely positive that it's not worth going to.



Exactly why we make decisions like that is hard to explain. But we all do it.

Maybe part of the reason why we do it is because we like simplicity. No matter how complex we get as human beings, at a fundamental level, we all still love simplicity. We like having things clearly laid out for us. We don't like having to think too much. As a result, we often make wrong assumptions – normally when the information given to us is too complicated or unclear. So rather than dredging through the information to find the truth, we just make assumptions. Unfortunately, the assumptions are often false. Or at least, not entirely true.

This is a very clear pattern in consumers – which, of course, we all are. You can probably think of several times when you decided that you didn't like a product… a brand… a store… without even giving it a chance. Maybe you heard a third-hand rumor about poor customer service. Or maybe that the company buys from vendors that possibly have questionable business ethics. Or maybe you had a slightly unfavorable experience at one store once, and now you avoid the whole chain. But again, a full investigation to find the truth is just too much work. So instead, you just decide you don't like the company.

This is what marketers call positioning.

You've undoubtedly heard that term before. It's a pretty common one. But actually, most people don't have a complete understanding of what positioning really is. Positioning, they think, is limited to what the marketer says. The marketer says that Avis tries harder because they're Number Two – and that's where positioning ends. Truth is, that's just a marketer trying to position his product. TRYING to get his prospects to think a certain way about his product. You see, positioning doesn't happen in the marketing department or at the advertising agency. It happens in prospects' minds.

This is crucial. Marketers can keep pounding away, “positioning” their products forever. But it's all for naught if the prospects don't accept that mental position as true.

Succeeding when it comes to positioning starts by realizing that you are not in control of positioning. You do not create positioning. You can only try to INFLUENCE positioning. The next important step is to figure out your current position. No, not how YOU think of your company - mission statements have nothing to do with it. You need to figure out how your customers, clients, and prospects think of your company. How THEY mentally position you.

Influencing that position is simply moving it from Point A (the current position) to Point B (the desired position). But the only way to do that is to find out exactly where Point A is. And that's one of marketing's biggest challenges.