Positioning brief

When this is useful

You are about to run this process and need one reusable working document.

What the workbook covers

Buying situation

Alternatives map

Workflow comparison

Claim ledger

Internal positioning brief

Fictional brief

Use with real evidence

Download the full Markdown resource, replace placeholders with your situation and retain sources beside claims. Keep unanswered questions visible rather than filling them with plausible guesses.

Put it to work

1. Read the full worksheet and define the decision it supports.
2. Fill the relevant tables using dated observations and explicit assumptions.
3. Review the output with its owner and record the next decision.

Limits and tradeoffs

The worksheet structures work; it does not supply missing customer evidence or guarantee a business result. Adapt examples and assign a responsible owner.

Worksheet preview

# SaaS alternatives map and positioning brief

Use one brief per materially different buying situation. Keep unverified claims explicit. The example is fictional and requires product verification before real use.

## Buying situation

- Owner, version, and date:
- Audience:
- Job and working context:
- Trigger for considering change:
- Product requirements:
- Buying participants:
- Current uncertainty:

## Alternatives map

Include vendors, internal tools, manual work, services, and doing nothing when relevant.

| Alternative | Evidence customer considers it | Why it persists | Relevant strengths | Constraints | Source and date | Unknown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in |

Do not assume a search competitor belongs in the customer's actual decision. Recheck time-sensitive factual comparisons before publication.

## Workflow comparison

- Task used for comparison:
- Environment and inputs:
- Criteria important to this audience:
- Evidence collection method:
- Conditions that differ between alternatives:
- Unverified items:

| Criterion | Our product evidence | Alternative evidence | Consequence for the workflow | Limit or condition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in |

## Claim ledger

| Proposed difference | Customer value hypothesis | Supporting evidence | Scope and qualifier | What would weaken it | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in | Fill in |

A distinctive capability is not automatically valued. A demonstration of a capability does not establish a quantified business outcome.

## Internal positioning brief

- Audience and buying situation:
- Relevant alternatives:
- Category or frame of reference:
- Meaningful difference:
- Customer result it may enable:
- Proof:
- Required conditions:
- What the current offer includes:
- Situations where another choice is better:

## Fictional brief

For engineering teams investigating recurring API test failures in supported environments, this product brings relevant test context into one investigation view. It is an alternative to manually gathering context across tools. The current offer includes assisted setup; it does not replace the team's release decision. This is an illustrative hypothesis, not verified positioning for an actual product.

## Comprehension test

Ask a suitable reader what the product does, whom it serves, when they would choose it, what they would compare, and what remains unclear.

- Reader context:
- What they understood:
- Misunderstanding or unsupported expectation:
- Relevance of the difference:
- Evidence requested:
- Next change and owner:
- Review date or condition:


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Original resource by Jon Bishop. CC BY 4.0. Illustrative examples are not customer results.