How I Position an Offer Using the Buyer’s Own Words

I start positioning by finding out what the buyer has tried, what they fear and what happens if the problem remains unsolved. The answers need to come from the people being sold to, in their own language. Making them up produces a different kind of exercise from understanding why someone buys.

That is the difference between selling a skill label and explaining a reason to buy. A prospect considering email or advertising work can be worried about reputation or wasted money. The precise concern matters more than a generic promise that I know how to run the tool.

Ask about the attempts and the decision before writing the pitch

I want to know what the person has already tried and what did not work. Have they bought something similar? Did they struggle with the same service I am offering? Who is actually making the purchase, and what do they expect to happen if the issue continues? Those questions give the positioning work a concrete subject.

The common mistake is answering those questions from imagination. I tell people to use buyers’ exact syntax and sentence structure instead of wording that merely sounds persuasive to the seller. The buyers’ account of the problem is the material to work with.

Separate the person receiving the service from the person buying it

One client trained security guards to be more aware. The guards were not the buyer in the example; the security-company owner was. Once that distinction was clear, the question became why the owner would pay for the training.

We worked through what more violent altercations could mean for the business: insurance problems, damage to its reputation and more employee churn. These were the consequences we explored when formulating the message, not measured reductions in premiums or turnover after the training.

The positioning moved from training guards to be more aware toward concerns an owner could recognize: insurance costs, reputation and employee retention. The exercise was to connect the activity to the buyer’s business problem, not to change who received the actual training.

Ask converted clients how they arrived at the decision

At Client Ascension, I described asking people who joined why they had joined. I wanted the sequence: what had happened, what they had tried, what prompted a call and what finally motivated the purchase. Their story gave me actual experiences rather than invented answers to a persona worksheet.

I then used those experiences to develop marketing angles for people who had not bought yet. The premise was that other prospects could recognize similar circumstances. It was a way to choose relevant language, not a claim that every future buyer shared the same history.

Client Ascension related reading: Dan’s HubSpot agency case study describes changing an offer, repricing and building partner channels. It is a separate operator account of positioning a service rather than only naming a skill.

Keep the sales conversations close to the marketing work

I also read the setter’s text messages and got feedback from the sales team. I described attending the sales meetings so I knew the objections, prior attempts and fears people discussed in discovery. Those conversations supplied angles I could translate into marketing.

Some prospects said they had tried ads, coaching or cold email without getting what they wanted. Others described fears about depending on an outside agency or returning to a job. I treated those as accounts from people entering our funnel, not facts about every business owner.

Client Ascension related reading: the VSL breakdown explains the result, evidence, mechanics, objections, qualification and handoff in a sales presentation. It shows another part of turning offer information into an explanation a prospect can evaluate.

Interest still needs a credible way to take the next step

I described speed and certainty as the next part of the presentation: show how someone starts, and give them reasons to believe the work can help. In the historical Client Ascension example, that included scripts, leads, sending software and examples of other clients. Those details illustrated the offer being discussed then.

The lesson is to connect precise positioning with the delivery explanation and supporting evidence. The source’s old timetable and guarantee were promotional terms in that historical example, not a current promise that every reader will book calls or get results within a set period.

Client Ascension related reading: the acquisition guide discusses offer and channel fit, available time or budget, and cost per client across the sales cycle. It puts a positioning decision in the context of reaching the buyer.

Adapted by Client Ascension with AI assistance from Daniel Fazio's lesson. The first-person narrative follows the source speaker’s account. Watch the original video