Most business owners think of their companies as a product or service, but the most successful organizations understand that they’re selling a tangible solution to a pervasive pain point. That’s why strategic positioning isn’t only about having the best features—it’s about aligning your offering with the precise frustration your customer is experiencing.
Think about CarMax. Their messaging doesn’t just speak to selling cars, they solve the pain of the entire car buying process. For decades, car buying meant stressful negotiations, hidden fees, and feeling like you got a bad deal. CarMax flipped the script by introducing their ingenious “no-haggle pricing” tagline.
As Donald Miller coined in Storybrand, however, your solution shouldn’t only target your customers’ obvious pain point of “I’ve got to buy a car.” It should also speak to how that pain makes customers feel, and to their sense of how things ought to be.
For example, CarMax recognized that car buying made most people feel like inadequate negotiators. Secondly, people share the strong conviction that they ought to be able to buy a car without getting ripped off. Addressing these two aspects of the car buying process was the real genius of CarMax, as evidenced in their headline “You don’t have to be a master negotiator to get a fair price.”
This brilliant line of copy speaks not only to the general pain associated with car buying. It speaks to how car buying makes them feel, and their sense of how the experience ought to be. With this power-packed solution, CarMax:
• Differentiated themselves in a crowded market
• Built customer trust overnight
• Created a business model that scaled into the largest car seller in the U.S.
That’s why at Icelaven, our due diligence not only starts with: “What pain do your customers feel the most, and how are you the cure?” We also ask, “How does your customers’ pain point make them feel, and what do they believe about how things ought to be?” If your solution speaks to all three, you have the potential for greatness.
When you shift to solving a problem like CarMax, instead of just selling a service or product, you unlock growth, service differentiation, and customer loyalty.
What’s an example of a company you admire that has nailed strategic positioning? Drop it in the comments!