Personal Positioning Course
Welcome to the personal positioning mini course! This is the workbook you’ll use throughout the course to complete your personal positioning framework.
Each module corresponds to a section of the course so it’s easy to follow along. I’ve included exercises and activities to help you gather the inputs you need to complete your positioning framework and bring it to life.
Please watch the module before you complete the activities in the workbook. I’ll provide the necessary context you need to do the work.
Before you can use this workbook, you’ll need to make your own copy of it. To do that, go to File → Make a Copy and select the folder you want to download it to.
Module 1: Introduction
Goal Setting
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What does success look like for you after completing the course | i.e. land a new role, build a LinkedIn content strategy |
| When do you want to have your positioning framework done? | Choose a date and commit to it |
| Who can help you validate, refine and polish your positioning? | Find an accountability partner |
| What is generic positioning holding you back from? What will be unlocked for you when you’ve positioned yourself uniquely? | Picture your future outcomes |
Template being created:
| I Am | |
| I Help | |
| By | |
| For | |
| Who | |
| Reasons to Believe |
Module 2: Define Your Value
Value Brainstorm
It’s time to define your unique value. What sets you apart from other product marketers? This is a combination of your strengths, interests and experiences.
Here are a few journaling prompts to get you started:
| What types of projects do you have an outsized impact on? | Product launches/GTM Sales enablement Metrics + proof points validation |
| What projects and tasks give you energy? Which ones drain you? | Energy: GTM strategy + product launches Draining: Copywriting/sales enablement |
| What are the core strengths and values you lean on to complete any task? | Design thinking, strategic alignment, problem-solution, narrative |
| What do others regularly come to you for? | Product knowledge |
| What do you have an abundance of that others around you lack? | Curiosity, continuous improvement |
💡Still stuck?
Send a survey to stakeholders to gather feedback from colleagues you work closely with. Create a simple Google Survey and send it to 5 to 10 folks. You’ll be surprised by the answers that come in! Sometimes we need to see ourselves through someone else’s eyes to gain clarity.
Here are the questions I’ve used in the past:
- What do you rely on me for?
- How do I show up when I’m at my best?
- When you feel connected to me, what’s going well?
- What do you find challenging about working with me?
- Anything else you want me to hear or know?
Self-Reflection Exercises
Document the results of your self-reflection exercises here.
| What are your top 5 StrengthFinders strengths? What is your theme? | 1. Intellection 1. You are characterized by your intellectual activity. You are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions. 3. Learner 1. You have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. The process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites you. 5. Analytical 1. You search for reasons and causes. You have the ability to think about all of the factors that might affect a situation. 7. Input 1. You have a need to collect and archive. You may accumulate information, ideas, artifacts or even relationships. 9. Deliberative 1. You are best described by the serious care you take in making decisions or choices. You anticipate obstacles. |
| What are your PMM IQ strengths? | Positioning and messaging Go-to-market Analytics and data |
| What were the results of your Good Time Journal? | N/A |
When you look at the results of your self-reflection exercises and the brainstorm above, what themes emerge? Start to bucket PMM skills, soft skills, strengths, and interests into clusters that provide unique value. (You can think of this as the features/benefits component of a product positioning exercise).
| Theme 1 | Strategic |
| Theme 2 | Product-minded |
| Theme 3 | Technical |
Finally, let’s think about the “category” of product marketer you want to identify with. A category isn’t always necessary, but it can help folks anchor on a well understood concept.
| Category | For example: product marketing leader, founding PMM, positioning expert, etc Product launch expert / GTM expert / Strategic product marketer |
The Framework, Part 1
Once you’ve identified your category, your unique value proposition and the skills/solutions that lead to that value, it’s time to fill out the first half of the personal positioning framework.
| I Am | A strategic product marketer |
| I Help | Position and launch products with objective-based GTM strategies that drive growth |
| By | Mapping customer problems to product solutions, identifying key value propositions and differentiators, determining attractive customer segments, and delivering uniquely positioned value in a compelling way. |
We’ll copy this over to your final framework at the end of the course.
Module 3: Identify Who Cares
As a product marketer, you already know that targeting is everything. You wouldn’t position your product for everyone, and so we won’t position you to everyone either.
There are two ways to go about this section:
- Start by identifying your target audience, and then identify their core problems; or,
- Start by identifying the core problems you’re great at solving, and then identify the types of businesses who experience these problems
This workbook will walk you through the first approach, but if you prefer, you can adjust to take the second approach instead.
Audience Identification
What types of companies would highly value what you offer? Keep this as narrow as possible to support the goals you set out earlier. You can always broaden the target later, or even create two separate positioning frameworks for completely different audiences (more on this later).
| Vertical or Industry | Fintech, Healthtech, technical products (dev-related, cloud, IT/security) - software |
| Customer Type | B2B, B2B2C |
| Go-to-Market Motion | Sales-led / product-led / hybrid |
| Growth Stage | Growth stage companies, - Private equity backed - public |
| Any other factors? |
Problem Identification
Now that you’ve narrowed in on your target company profile, we need to dig deeper to really understand the problems they’re typically facing, and how this maps back to the value you can personally deliver as a PMM. We’ll map a few key problems back to the solutions we offer individually (the By section of the framework).
For example, I find that product-led, growth-stage companies (my target) almost always are taking too broad of an approach to go-to-market. They lack clarity of who to focus on, and why. This maps perfectly to my ability to identify a company’s best customers.
Brainstorm your list of problems below.
| Problems a company is facing: - Lack of framework approach to launching products - Company is not aligned on releases - Sales miscommunicated products and making false promises - Product needing to shift priorities to build sales-promised features that they don’t currently have - Lack of clear launch objectives - Products taking forever to launch - Lack of clarity into launch prioritization - Products not launching on time |
Whenever we make a claim (professionally or personally), we need to back it up with proof. That’s where the Reason to Believe section comes in. It’s your own personal marketable metrics.
To complete this section, think back on the times when you’ve delivered this value to employers, clients, etc. What proof points or metrics verify your success? List them below.
| Currently don’t have much experience/reporting on this. Will need to revisit. Increase product launch success Improve cross-functional clarity and objective alignment on product launches Decrease last-minute no-goes |
The Framework, Part 2
Once you’ve identified your target audience and your marketable metrics, it’s time to fill out the second half of the personal positioning framework.
| For | Hybrid sales/product-led, growth-stage, technical software companies |
| Who | Struggle with taking products to market strategically, successfully, and on time. |
| Reasons to Believe | Increase product launch success Improve cross-functional clarity and objective alignment on product launches Decrease last-minute no-goes |
Module 4: Launch
We’re almost done! You should now have all the inputs you need to bring your personal positioning framework together.
Take the inputs from Part 1 and Part 2 of the frameworks and paste them below.
| I Am | A strategic product marketing manager |
| I Help | Position and launch products with objective-based GTM strategies that drive growth |
| By | Mapping customer problems to product solutions, identifying key value propositions and differentiators, determining attractive customer segments, and delivering uniquely positioned value in a compelling way. |
| For | Hybrid sales/product-led, growth-stage, technical software companies |
| Who | Struggle with taking products to market strategically, successfully, and on time. |
| Reasons to Believe | Increase product launch success Improve cross-functional clarity and objective alignment on product launches Decrease last-minute no-goes |
Do you have multiple use cases for this? Maybe you’re a full time product marketer but also a consultant on the side. Or you’re applying for jobs at several different types of companies or roles. You can complete a second version of the framework if it makes sense.
Now, it’s time to launch your personal positioning! Just like a product positioning framework, you aren’t just going to copy and paste this word for word. But, you’ll take the heart of the positioning and apply it in different ways across a variety of channels, conversations and activities.
Thinking back on your initial goal at the beginning of the course, how can you rollout your positioning?
| Top of funnel: LinkedIn Headline, LinkedIn bio, summary/positioning statement at top of resume, align resume experiences to my positioning. Mid/bottom funnel: In interviews, leverage new positioning in my elevator pitch |