Build a Real Market Position

Key Points:

0:00 – Opening and Call Setup
Howard opens the Advanced Strategy Mastermind, welcomes the group, and sets the stage for a discussion-driven coaching session.

1:24 – Virtual Business Coaching Mastery Recap
Howard asks who attended the recent VBCM event and explains that the session was heavy, useful, and full of real coach examples.

2:36 – Upcoming Fulfillment Focus
Howard explains that Focused.com has covered lead generation and conversion heavily, but more training is needed around fulfillment.

3:20 – “And Then What?” Preview
Howard previews an upcoming Workshop Wednesday session focused on what happens after a coach closes the client and begins fulfillment.

4:07 – Phil’s Client Challenge
Phil introduces a client with a branded product manufactured in China that competitors sell under other labels for less money and with longer warranties.

5:40 – Start With Target Markets
Howard recommends first looking at whether the client can focus on specific industries, sub-industries, or target markets instead of trying to appeal to everyone.

6:57 – Why Deals Don’t Close
Howard explains that many sales opportunities do not close because the buyer cannot get to a decision, not because the competitor is better.

7:25 – Work Backward From Buyer Hot Buttons
Howard recommends understanding the buyer’s specific problems and using those insights to build better positioning, collateral, and sales enablement.

8:23 – Avoid Selling Only on Price
Phil explains that the client is currently competing against similar products with lower prices and longer warranties, creating pressure to justify the difference.

9:18 – Talk to the Sales Team
Howard suggests asking the salespeople what percentage of deals do not close and why, then looking for gaps in the buyer’s decision-making process.

10:30 – Focus on Buyers, Not Just Customers
Howard points out that most companies measure customer satisfaction and churn, but rarely measure the experience or behavior of buyers who do not buy.

12:37 – Measuring the Sales Gap
Demar asks whether Phil can compare closing rates across the 75 salespeople to find who is performing best and where the training gaps are.

14:00 – Use the Best Closers as Clues
Demar explains that the highest-performing salespeople can reveal useful patterns, gaps, and training opportunities.

15:00 – Reframing the Competitive Battlefield
Rob shares a framework for getting the client out of a price fight by examining warranty, uptime, support, market focus, and other differentiators.

16:05 – Rolex vs. Knockoff Analogy
Courtney explains that if two products are not genuinely different, trying to position one as superior can become dangerous or misleading.

17:30 – Build the Product and Company First
Courtney emphasizes that the coach’s role is not simply to create an MDP statement, but to help the client build a company and product that deliver unique value.

19:35 – MDP Is More Than a Statement
Courtney explains that a statement alone is not a true Market Dominating Position. The real work is building a product, service, and company that are difficult to copy.

21:13 – Support as a Differentiator
Phil notes that one potential difference may be the client’s support, since competitors may only offer limited or warehouse-based support.

22:45 – Fulfillment Reveals the Real Problem
Howard explains that what a client first identifies as the problem may only be a symptom, and the real root cause often appears during fulfillment.

24:00 – AI and Dojo Support for Discovery
Brian shares how he uses AI and the Dojo to identify hidden differentiators that clients may overlook in their own business.

24:30 – Candle Business Example
Brian describes a candle startup where the AI identified a lifetime refill offer as a potential point of differentiation.

27:37 – Differentiators Must Be Hard to Copy
Courtney cautions that a simple offer, price point, or warranty can often be copied quickly, so it may not be strong enough to qualify as a true MDP.

28:00 – Unique Product-Level Differentiation
Courtney shares an example of creating deeply personalized candles, showing how a more unique concept could become harder for competitors to replicate.

30:24 – Naming and Packaging the Differentiator
Howard suggests language such as “Light for Life” to turn the lifetime refill concept into a more memorable positioning angle.

32:57 – Product-Level vs. Organizational-Level MDP
Courtney explains that product-level MDPs can help, but the stronger opportunity is helping the client build an organizational-level MDP.

34:00 – Jumpstart 12 as Differentiation Infrastructure
Courtney explains that the way a business implements Jumpstart 12 and Jumpstart 40 can create layers of differentiation competitors cannot easily copy.

35:30 – Internal University Example
Courtney gives an example of using FBS courses to build an internal training university for a client’s policies, procedures, and team standards.

38:00 – MDP Requires Continuous Improvement
Courtney explains that an MDP is never fully finished. It is part of ongoing improvement, refinement, and deeper competitive advantage.

41:41 – MDP Must Live Across the Organization
Brian adds that an MDP cannot sit only in marketing. It must show up in manufacturing, sales, service, support, and the team’s belief system.

43:00 – MDP as Identity
Courtney explains that an MDP is the company’s true identity: what makes it unique, valuable, and the only choice in the eyes of the right customers.

44:05 – Most Companies Sell Features
Howard explains that many companies focus on product features, speeds, and feeds instead of building from buyer hot buttons.

45:00 – Hot Buttons Can Be Misdiagnosed
Courtney warns that business owners often misdiagnose their own hot buttons and ask for the wrong solution.

46:00 – Bigger Bucket vs. Broken Pipe Analogy
Courtney uses the example of a leaking pipe to explain why coaches must find the root cause instead of simply giving the client a bigger bucket.

49:00 – Skate Where the Puck Is Going
Howard connects the conversation to changing market conditions and explains that even a strong MDP can be challenged if the environment changes.

50:00 – Trust Architecture Example
Rob shares an example from a speech therapy client where the real positioning was not just scheduling appointments but helping parents trust the provider with their children.

51:00 – Emotional Drivers and Logic
Phil notes that people buy emotionally and justify logically, even when they believe they are making purely logical decisions.

53:00 – Engineer Story
Phil shares a story about an engineer who initially resisted the idea that emotion drives decisions but later realized logic eventually reaches an emotional decision point.

54:30 – Advice for New Coaches
David shares that he is still new and trying to set things up. Howard advises him not to get stuck on the website and to start having conversations with business owners.

55:00 – Run Toward 100 No’s
Howard tells new coaches to listen to the Thursday Get Your First Client calls and run toward 100 no’s as fast as possible.

56:00 – Brian Tracy Call Advice
Brian adds that Brian Tracy recommended making 100 calls early in any new career move to quickly learn, refine, and create future client opportunities.

Five Key Takeaways

• A true MDP is not just a slogan or positioning statement. It must be supported by the business, product, team, and customer experience.
• Coaches should diagnose the real competitive issue before helping a client create or communicate a market position.
• Differentiation must be difficult to copy. Price, warranty, or a simple offer can often be matched quickly by competitors.
• Buyer behavior matters. Many deals are lost because the buyer cannot reach a decision, not because the product is weak.
• Fulfillment reveals the deeper issues. What the client says is the problem may only be a symptom of a larger business disease.

Notable Quotes

“Most companies only know how to focus on customers. They don’t know how to focus on buyers.”

“You’re looking to help them build an MDP. You never can help them craft an MDP just by a statement alone.”

“That’s not a real MDP. That’s just the MDP statement.”

“Your role is to help them build an organization that can solve their clients’ problems in unique and superior ways.”

“MDP means work, and you can never ever complete an MDP.”

“An MDP is not a marketing slogan. It’s a belief system.”

“Your MDP is your true identity.”

“They religiously misdiagnose what their true hot button issues are.”

“Don’t get wrapped up in your website. Start talking to business owners.”

“Run as fast as you can toward 100 no’s.”

Action Steps from the Call

1. When helping a client with positioning, start by identifying the specific market or niche they want to win.
2. Interview the sales team to understand which deals are not closing and why.
3. Look for buyer-side friction, not just competitor pressure.
4. Identify whether the product or service has a real differentiator or only a stated claim.
5. Separate product-level MDP from organizational-level MDP.
6. Use the Dojo and AI tools to help uncover hidden differentiators the client may be overlooking.
7. Test whether the differentiator is easy for competitors to copy.
8. Help the client build operational, support, training, service, and fulfillment systems that make the MDP real.
9. Make sure the MDP is understood across the organization, not just by marketing or leadership.
10. During fulfillment, keep listening for the difference between the client’s stated problem and the root cause.
11. Use buyer hot buttons carefully, but do not assume the client has diagnosed the real issue correctly.
12. For newer coaches, avoid getting stuck in setup mode. Start having business owner conversations quickly.
13. Revisit the Thursday Get Your First Client calls and aim for 100 conversations or 100 no’s to build momentum.

Resources & Tools Mentioned

• Advanced Strategy Mastermind
• Virtual Business Coaching Mastery
• VBCM recordings
• Upcoming fulfillment-focused Workshop Wednesday
• “And Then What?” workshop
• Market Dominating Position / MDP
• Jumpstart 12
• Jumpstart 40
• FBS
• Dojo
• AI tools
• PAS
• Harvard Business Review
• Buyer hot buttons
• SCORE
• SBA
• Thursday Get Your First Client calls
• April 23rd Get Your First Client recording
• Brian Tracy
• Dale Carnegie
• Don McMillan