Sublime

The fact is, the biggest decisions about you are going to be made when you’re not in the room. You won’t be there when customers make the final call on which product goes in their cart or who the new hire is or whether your email gets read or which name is circled in the voting booth. Which is why you must have a powerful master narrative, the thin

Remember, customers do not move into confusion.

This framework is competencies-based (inward out) rather than needs-based (outward in), and much more naturally centers on the customer—the absolute key to any profit-expansion effort.

It may be a misnomer to call it a multibrand strategy. Rather it’s a single-position strategy.

strategy development effort is clearly less about marketing tactics than about internal, operational matters: how to change the firm’s methods of delivering services so that clients derive additional benefits from its approach compared to that of the best competitors.

The French have a marketing expression that sums up this strategy rather neatly. Cherchez le creneau. “Look for the hole.” Cherchez le creneau and then fill it. That advice goes against the “bigger and better” philosophy ingrained into the American spirit.

hires to fill seats.

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

Whether it’s articulated or not, every business is driven by one of two philosophies. A company is either competition-driven or story-driven.