Hey {{first_name | there}},
I got an email last week from someone who said, “I have landed on my positioning!”
When I opened it, all I could think about was Michael Scott shouting, “I declare…BANKRUPTCY!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell them that “landing” on their positioning was a nice sentiment, but they better be prepared to change their address pretty quickly. Because landing somewhere is very different than living somewhere.
Positioning isn’t a decision you make, but one you have to live day in and day out.
So how do you truly live your positioning, rather than just declare it? That’s this week’s issue of Brand Burnout.
But first, have we met yet?
I’m Jamie R. Cox, a brand advisor who works with established solo founders to design brand-led operating systems that equip them to articulate their value, command premium pricing, and confidently pivot upmarket.
When I talk to service providers, I usually hear one of three versions of positioning they’re after (whether that’s intentional or not is a different email). The three I hear most commonly are positioning around their category, their quality, or their point of view. But the problem they’ve bumped up against is that they aren’t seen the way they want to be seen. That’s because they’ve decided on their positioning without understanding what it actually means for their business and their daily work—what gets their attention, time, and resources.
Living your positioning looks like making five sets of decisions for your business—on repeat, every damn day, even when they’re hard: how you market, what you charge, how clients experience you, how you generate business, and what boundaries you uphold. Here’s what each of those looks like based on your positioning.
#1 Positioning Around Category
This positioning means you own a category, but you may not have invented it or be the only one there. Take, for example, copywriters. There are plenty of copywriters, but there is a much shorter list of website copywriters who work with CPG beauty brands. The categories here are specific—not just a copywriter, but a website copywriter. Not just working with CPG brands, but working with CPG beauty brands.
The goal of this positioning is that when someone in that space needs this work done, your name is the one that comes up.
While it sounds pretty simple to do this, it’s also pretty easy to mess this one up. I’ve seen folks pick a category so narrow that it stops being a real market. I could position myself as the brand strategist for other green-haired women, but that’s not a category—it’s just a fun LinkedIn headline.
Here’s what living in this lane looks like:
Marketing + Content: Speak the category's language, not about the category of your service. If you're in beauty CPG, that means talking about private label margins and retail buyer dynamics, not "how to build a strong brand." Content that only makes sense to insiders reads as credibility to insiders. Everyone else can keep scrolling (that’s on purpose).
Pricing + Offers: Buyers in your category pay for the ramp-up time they don't have to give you. You already know their vocabulary, their competitors, and their problems, so there's less risk and less onboarding. That's worth a premium price over a generalist, and your offers can be built around the specific moments that show up again and again in that category (a private-label-to-DTC pivot, a retail relaunch), instead of a one-size-fits-all package.
Client Experience: From the first call, you're already fluent in their competitors, their retail relationships, and their regulatory headaches. The moment your client has to explain something basic to their world, the category positioning stops working.
Business Development: You show up where the category already gathers—think trade shows, niche newsletters, industry Slack groups, and associations. These worlds are small and talk to each other constantly, so one good relationship turns into three referrals fast. This is slower to build than broad networking, but it compounds once it’s working.
Boundaries: The test here is turning down the easy money outside of your category. A great client in the wrong vertical is still a distraction from owning the lane you picked. Every project outside the category chips away at the thing that makes you memorable.
Need Some Space to Think?
Need a little space to figure out all this positioning stuff? My friend Jasz Rae is hosting Founders in Tulum—a five-day retreat for founders who are craving space to think, breathe, and reconnect with what's next.
Set in a private villa in Tulum, Mexico, it's designed for entrepreneurs who are ready to step away from the day-to-day, have honest conversations with other thoughtful founders, and return home with greater clarity, renewed energy, and meaningful momentum.
#2 Positioning Around Quality
Positioning yourself as high-quality is difficult because quality is so subjective. If you’re in this lane, you’ve likely been doing this work for a long time, and your work is incredibly thorough. You’re probably in high demand, and maybe you’ve even got a waitlist.
If I’m being real with you—and I always am—I know many people who have tried and failed at this positioning. Because quality isn’t so much a title you declare, but one you earn.
Here’s how you can earn it:
Marketing + Content: Since quality can’t really be claimed as much as it can be shown, the content here isn’t, “I’m the best.” Instead, it’s the receipts you’ve kept—the testimonials, the ROI, the glow-ups. Marketing quality work should feel tedious, and I would expect you to side-eye any tactics that are fast fixes or band-aids. And, if you’re talking about quality and have a bunch of typos in your email, you better believe I’m side-eyeing you.
Pricing + Offers: Quality and discounts don’t live in the sentence. You don’t build a cheap on-ramp to let people test the water—there’s no $300 version of a $10k process. Every job should be priced accordingly, but be aware of what the market can tolerate—especially if things slow down.
Client Experience: This one is the real test of quality! Quality doesn’t just live in the final deliverable, but in every shred of communication—from the calendar invite descriptions to the thank you note. Everything from reply times to how mistakes get handled needs to be thoughtfully considered and defined. You’ll prove quality by sweating the small stuff before the client ever sees the final product.
Business Development: A slower, more deliberate intake process—think real-time conversations—is essential here. You’ve probably got a long sales cycle (which isn’t the worst thing if you’ve got a waitlist), so the conversations you’re having today are what will pay off 18 months from now. You’ve got a tight network of referral partners and collaborators, and you’ve aligned yourself with other top-tier businesses.
Boundaries: Quality work can quickly turn into burnout. That’s because you’re probably prone to over-delivering (and undercharging!). With this positioning, your boundaries start by defining what quality means to you, so you’re not chasing a moving target with every new client engagement.
Not Sure Which Is Yours?
If you're two positioning descriptions into this email and quietly panicking that you're doing everything all wrong, a Calibration Session is 90 minutes built to sort all this out.
We'll map out how your business is currently positioned and how to elevate it. You'll leave with a 30-Day Navigation Plan in your inbox within 48 hours.
#3 Positioning Around Your Point of View (POV)
This positioning is the one I typically use because it’s one of the few you can own, and it’s usually the most natural for folks to really live.
Positioning around your point of view means the brand has a stance, whether or not you're the one saying it out loud. Early on, that stance usually comes from you directly. It looks like showing up in communities, building real relationships, and creating POV-driven content that attracts values-aligned buyers. This is also where your personal brand and business brand converge, and you'll have to find some comfort with that, or find ways to scale away from it (see also: Boundaries).
But this positioning doesn't always require a face. A business can hold a POV just as strongly; it just has to work harder to build it.
Either way, it takes consistency and discipline. The positioning only exists if the same point of view keeps showing up in the way you live it out.
Marketing + Content: You're the differentiator here, not a system or a category, so you’re probably producing a lot of thought leadership-style content. Your content has to take some sort of stance. Early on, that's easiest to do as you, in your own voice (no AI, please!). It’s also a great exercise in refining that point of view and building messaging that supports it.
Pricing + Offers: People are buying your judgment, not a replicable process, so the offer doesn't need to be as productized as the other positioning (but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a system, process, or container in place!). Price around access to your thinking, advisory time, your take on their specific mess, rather than a fixed deliverable. This is the positioning most forgiving of "it depends" as an answer, because your read on their situation is a big part of the product.
Client Experience: Clients who connect with you likely already agree with you. Now it’s important to stay consistent with the point of view they bought into. If you soften your take mid-engagement to keep a client comfortable, you're going to give them whiplash.
Business Development: Business development here looks like staying visible with the same message on one or two channels. You’ve likely got some methodologies for getting your message out consistently to new people (think workshops, a newsletter, or speaking engagements). You’ll also align with other POV-driven businesses who attract similar clients to you—but remember! You’re known by the company you keep!
Boundaries: The real boundary here is how much "you" the brand actually needs, and holding that sacred. If you’re not careful, you’ll never take a week off.
Have you landed or are you living?
None of these three options are right or wrong. But living any of these positioning directions means making intentional choices every day (not just when it’s convenient).
If you’ve landed on your positioning but don’t know how to live it, that’s the kind of untangling my Calibration Sessions are built for. These 90-minute sessions are for service business founders at an inflection point—when growth's stalled or become unpredictable, something about your offers or positioning needs to change, and you know the direction but not how to get there. You'll leave with a 30-Day Navigation Plan including three strategic priorities built for your business.
Thanks for reading,
Jamie R Cox
I help service-based founders build and operationalize their brand for predictable growth.
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Calibration Sessions are designed to help service-based founders navigate inflection points while identifying their best opportunities. You’ll walk away with a 30-day Navigate Plan to help you chart your path to predictable growth.
Brand-Led Strategic Advisory
My books are currently open for brand-led strategic advisory engagements. These engagements help ambitious practice owners develop the positioning and business structures that help them command premium pricing and pivot upmarket.
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