By Chelsea Macleod, Account Director
Having worked agency-side with businesses of different sizes and at different stages of growth, one of the things I find most interesting is watching how much a business can change over time.
Sometimes that change is gradual. Sometimes it is more obvious. But what happens when the business evolves faster than the way it is being presented to the market?
This is something I have been thinking about recently with one of our long-standing clients. We have worked with them for over a decade and in that time, the business has grown significantly. They have grown in turnover and headcount, are more sophisticated, they are facing different challenges and customer needs, and overall, are operating at a level that looks very different to where they were when we first started working together.
That is a brilliant position to be in. But as their trusted partner, it’s now time that we take an honest and reflective review of their existing brand and positioning and make some changes.
Positioning is usually created at a specific point in time. And as much as you can try and future proof it, it reflects who the business was at that time, what it offered, who it wanted to communicate to and how it wanted to be understood by the market.
However, businesses DO change over time and if they are successful, they will continue to grow, invest, develop new services and win bigger, more complex projects. Naturally, with those positive changes, they attract different customers with different needs, build stronger teams, become more experienced, more credible and more ambitious.
And if the positioning is not reviewed along the way, a gap starts to appear between who the business really is and how the market sees it. That gap can become a real commercial issue if not addressed.
If your positioning is still speaking to the business you used to be, it can hold back you back from further growth. You might attract the wrong type of enquiries. You might find yourself having to over-explain your value in sales conversations. You might be seen as smaller, more niche or less capable than you actually are. You might even find competitors telling a stronger story, even when your offer is better.
That is why we encourage our clients to ensure that positioning is being reviewed regularly as part of the business growth journey, not just when a company is going through a full rebrand.
To help demonstrate this, here are a few signs that a business might have outgrown its positioning.
The first is when the sales team are having conversations that are not reflected in the marketing. If they are constantly explaining new capabilities, bigger projects, different sectors or a more strategic offer, the positioning probably needs to catch up.
The second is when the business is attracting work that no longer feels aligned with where it wants to go. This often happens when legacy messaging is still speaking to an older customer base, even though the business is now better suited to more complex or higher-value opportunities.
The third is when the company has invested heavily in people, processes, technology or expertise, but the market perception has not moved on. Internally, everyone knows the business has changed. Existing customers may know it too. But new prospects, partners, potential employees or even the general public may still be seeing the old version.
The fourth is when the brand just does not feel ambitious enough anymore. It might not be wrong. It might have worked really well for years. But it may no longer reflect the scale, credibility or direction of the business today.
The key point for me is that outgrowing your positioning is not necessarily a bad thing as it is often a sign that the business has done exactly what it set out to do and matured to different stage of its lifecycle.
A positioning review does not mean throwing everything away and starting again. In fact, the best positioning work usually protects what has made the business successful in the first place. It looks at what still matters, what has changed, what needs to be elevated and what no longer reflects where the business is heading.
If this is resonating in your own business, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who are we now?
- What do we want to be known for?
- Are we attracting the right kind of work?
- Are we attracting the right kind of employees?
- Are we clearly communicating our value?
- Does our brand support the conversations our sales team are having?
- Does our positioning reflect the business we are today, not just the business we used to be?
Positioning is not just a marketing exercise; it should be seen as a sensible commercial step with full leadership involvement.
Positioning affects how your audience understands the business. It is important for supporting sales and influences pricing. It helps attract the right people, the right clients and the right type of work for your organisation. If your business has evolved, but your market still sees the old version, you are relying on people to connect the dots themselves.
If you are interested in reviewing your positioning to reflect the business you have become, and would like some support from Genoa Black, get in touch, we’d be happy to help!
