---
name: "positioning-and-messaging"
description: "Use when the user names positioning, messaging, narrative, or value props, or hands over a draft to sharpen: the positioning doc and the message house per audience."
triggers: ["positioning", "messaging", "value prop", "narrative", "message house", "sharpen this pitch", "why us"]
version: "1"
---
# Positioning and messaging
Use this when the user names positioning, messaging, narrative, or value
props, or hands over a draft to sharpen. Start from the product truth, the
audience, the alternatives (including doing nothing), and the proof on
hand. Where win-loss quotes or call excerpts exist — pasted, in a doc, or
in Gong — read them first; they are the evidence every claim rests on.
## The spine first
Set the five components in this order, one line each: the competitive
alternatives, the unique attributes only you have, the value that lands,
the target customer characteristics, and the market category you compete
in. Derive it from best-fit customers only — filter bad-fit voices out
first, because they distort the alternatives and pull in more bad-fit
pipeline.
## The narrative in three whys
Why change, why now, why us. Each why gets its proof or its gap flag — a
why without proof is a draft, said plainly.
## The message house
The one-line positioning roof, three messaging pillars, and the proof
points under each. Then the claims you will never make, with the reason
on each.
## Per-persona variants
Where more than one buyer is served: same positioning, own language,
proof points, and call to action, each cut by buying stage — awareness,
consideration, decision — with the core message, proof point, and
objection pre-handle per cell. Quote a customer line or a call excerpt
under each variant where one exists.
## Stress-test against substitutes
The competitor line they will hear, the objection it raises, and the
counter in rep register. Two counters max per objection, each under 30
seconds spoken.
## What you hand back
The positioning doc plus the message house per audience, shown in chat.
Take one round of edits, then save it under positioning, one folder per
audience with the doc and its variants. Messaging built on it later
traces back here; rewrite it, do not append to it, when the strategy
shifts.
## Fallbacks
No proof means the claim stays out or ships flagged UNKNOWN. No named
alternative means you draft against doing nothing and ask for the real
one. Never claim a number, a customer, or a comparison you were not
given. Nothing customer-facing ships without the owner's yes on the
draft.