Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

But the best positioning ideas are so simple and obvious that most people overlook them.

The essence of a good positioning strategy is that it transcends every aspect of a company. You know you have a winner when you run it up the corporate flagpole and everybody salutes.

To repeat, the first rule of positioning is: To win the battle for the mind, you can’t compete head-on against a company that has a strong, established position. You can go around, under or over, but never head to head.

With rare exceptions, a company should almost never change its basic positioning strategy. Only its tactics, those short-term maneuvers that are intended to implement a longterm strategy.

Always try to work for the smartest, brightest, most competent person you can find.

Alfred Korzybski, who developed the concept of general semantics, explains that insane people try to make the world of reality fit what is in their heads. The insane person who thinks he is Napoleon makes the outside world fit that notion. The sane person constantly analyzes the world of reality and then changes what’s inside his or her head to fit

This calls for great restraint and subtlety. The big winners in business and in life are those people who have found open positions near the center of the spectrum. Not at the edge.

Can you stick it out?

What position do you own? Positioning is thinking in reverse.