Most positioning discussions eventually focus on messaging.
How do we describe our value? How do we differentiate? What’s our narrative?
But positioning starts much earlier than that.
Before a company can communicate a position, it has to make choices. Which customers will it serve? Which problems will it solve? Which opportunities will it pursue, and which will it leave behind?
As someone who has spent years working in product marketing, I found myself nodding along to many of the ideas in OutPosition. Because they reflected realities that product marketers encounter every day. One in particular stood out to me: positioning is a choice.
Positioning Is a Choice
One of the themes woven throughout the book is that positioning requires trade-offs.
That may sound obvious, but it’s surprisingly difficult in practice. Most organizations are under constant pressure to expand. More markets. More customer segments. More use cases. More features.
Yet clear positioning rarely comes from trying to be everything to everyone.
Strategy cannot exist without choice.
OutPosition: A Practitioner’s Guide to Competitive Strategy, Differentiation, and Market Leadership
What I appreciated about OutPosition is how it connects positioning to strategic focus. A position is not simply a statement a company writes. It reflects a series of decisions about where to compete, how to create value, and what the organization is willing to prioritize. Those decisions inevitably mean saying no to some opportunities in order to strengthen others
This is something product marketers encounter regularly. When positioning becomes fuzzy, the root cause is often not the messaging itself. It’s a lack of clarity about the choices the business has made.
Gerardo Dada captures this idea well:
When a company decides where to play and how to win, it is also deciding which markets not to serve, which customers not to pursue, and which capabilities not to build.
OutPosition: A Practitioner's Guide to Competitive Strategy, Differentiation, and Market Leadership
That's what makes positioning hard. Every meaningful position implies a trade-off. Every strategic choice closes off other possibilities. But without those choices, differentiation quickly becomes diluted.
As product marketers, we're often asked to communicate differentiation. But the strongest positioning usually emerges from strategic choices that have already been made across the business. Marketing can articulate a position, but it cannot create one in isolation.
The book reinforces the connection between strategy, differentiation, and positioning, showing how the three work together rather than as separate disciplines.
Who should read this book
Although product marketers will find plenty to relate to in OutPosition, the book is equally relevant for founders, executives, and GTM leaders. Its central message is one that applies across the business: positioning is not just a marketing exercise. It is the result of strategic choices made throughout the organization.
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- Hot Markets Dos and Don’ts from Dave Kellogg
- Cold Market Marketing Strategy: Differentiation vs. Value
