Premise Differentiation: Where Does "Positioning" (On Your Site & Elsewhere) Fit with Premise?

It’s easy to confuse premise and positioning. Two ways to think about it:

1. Your premise is your belief. Your positioning is the language and other signals (like design) to convey that belief succinctly. Therefore, positioning is how your audience interacts with and accesses your premise. Maybe your audience needs to hear EXACTLY what your premise would sound like to you, word for word. Or maybe you need to position yourself slightly differently so they “get” what you’re doing.

Me saying “I help experts become storytellers” is a form of positioning. It’s me helping others “get” what I do and why it matters, so that they opt into my world and explore my premise with me. But I could also say, “My premise is that we should care more about resonance than reach.” But is that good positioning? Will others “get it” the same way? Maybe! Or maybe not. I have to validate and gut-check that publicly.

2. Your premise is your belief about something. It’s what you assert IS or SHOULD be true about a given topic or domain. Your premise is an assertion. But your positioning is the language you use to help others see where you fit in their world as a result of that assertion. As the word implies (positioning, as in, to put something in its place) helps your customers see where you and your offerings fit into their journeys and in the marketplace of competitors.