“Keep your options open,” my mom used to say to me. Perhaps that’s good advice for a 12-year-old, but it’s terrible advice for your new business/product. Every company wants a strong strategy, a strong brand, and loyal customers. Ask a room full of decision makers if they want a clear positioning with their target market and you won’t get many saying no. If you press them to abandon some options and stand for something specific in the minds of their customers, the conversation gets awkward.

It’s easy to spend a lot time coming up with good ways to describe what we are — we can talk to potential customers about their needs, we can fuss with marketing copy ad nauseam, and we can generally convince ourselves that the path we are choosing is correct.

The most powerful way to carve out a strong position in a market is to choose what you will NOT be. And I don’t just mean making a mealy 2×2 in which you are “high-high” on some rigged axes. No, the essence of good positioning is to choose the thing you won’t pursue that will be a good option for someone else.

In some cases this is as simple as positioning against an existing competitor. In most cases it will take hard decisions because the human instinct is usually to keep your options open. These decisions aren’t irrevocable, but they do require a commitment from you and your team. So commit, and don’t listen to my mother (in this case).