03 Messaging & Positioning
Positioning Without
Buzzwords
Clarity beats clever language.
The clarity-first positioning system
Clarity
Simple, specific, honest language
Differentiation
What makes this distinct — specifically
Trust
Market understands and believes the position
Understanding
Position held accurately in market memory
Positioning that uses buzzwords creates the appearance of clarity while hiding its absence. Simple, specific language creates actual clarity — and actual differentiation.
Why this matters
Positioning built on buzzwords is positioning that sounds like everyone else.
Certain words have been used so frequently in B2B positioning that they have lost any specific meaning: AI-powered, next-generation, enterprise-grade, scalable, seamless, robust, innovative. These words were meaningful when first used. After widespread adoption, they communicate nothing specific about the company using them — because every company uses them.
The problem with buzzword-dependent positioning is not that it sounds bad. It often sounds good. The problem is that it sounds the same as every competitor. A prospect who encounters three similar companies, all of whom describe themselves as 'AI-powered, enterprise-grade, scalable solutions', has no basis for preference. The words have done nothing to differentiate.
The alternative is not poetic language or creative copywriting. It is honesty and specificity. A position expressed in honest, specific language about a real audience, a real problem, and a real differentiation creates genuine preference — because it describes something true that only this company can say.
Founder reality
Test the positioning for buzzword dependency and specificity:
Could the current positioning statement be used, unchanged, by 5 direct competitors — and if so, is it actually differentiated?
Remove the 3 most common industry buzzwords from the positioning. What remains — and is what remains specific and true?
Could the target customer read the positioning and say 'that's exactly us' — or does it describe a broad category they're a member of?
What is the one thing about the company that competitors genuinely cannot say — and is that thing in the positioning?
Has any prospect ever chosen the company over a competitor specifically because of something in the positioning — and if so, what?
The competitor test is the most diagnostic. If competitors can use your positioning unchanged, your positioning is a category description, not a company position. The work is to find what only you can say — and say that.
The system
Four tests for positioning without buzzwords
Apply each test to the current positioning. Each failure reveals a specific clarity or specificity gap.
01
The swap test — can a competitor use this positioning unchanged
Read the current positioning and ask whether it could be used by the 3 most similar competitors without modification. If yes, the positioning is a category description. It tells the market which category to place the company in — but provides no basis for choosing it over alternatives. Fix: identify the specific thing the company does that competitors genuinely cannot claim. That is the starting point for real differentiation.
02
The specific customer test — does it describe a specific person or a broad category
Positioning that says 'for growing B2B companies' describes a category so large it includes most of the market. Positioning that says 'for technical founders making their first executive hire in a regulated industry' describes a specific person with specific needs and a specific context. Specificity creates resonance with the right audience and irrelevance to the wrong one — which is the correct trade for positioning.
03
The proof test — is every claim in the positioning demonstrably true
Buzzwords are often symptoms of claims that can't be demonstrated. 'AI-powered' describes the technology. 'Detects insider threats 40% faster than signature-based systems' is demonstrable. Replacing every claim in the positioning with a demonstrable alternative removes buzzwords naturally — because demonstrated specificity doesn't require impressive language.
04
The plain English test — would a friend understand this without context
Read the positioning to someone unfamiliar with the category and ask them to explain it back. If they can't — or if they explain it significantly differently from the intended meaning — the positioning contains language that signals category membership to insiders but communicates nothing to outsiders. The plain English rewrite is not the final positioning — it is the clarity check that reveals what is actually understood.
Common mistakes
01
Using buzzwords to signal category credibility
Terms like 'enterprise-grade' and 'AI-powered' are sometimes used deliberately to signal that the company belongs in a credible category. This works for category identification — it fails for differentiation. Once the category is established, the differentiation must be specific.
02
Confusing impressive language with effective positioning
Positioning that sounds sophisticated in a team meeting is often less effective with the target audience than positioning that sounds obvious. 'Obviously, yes — that's exactly the problem we have' is the ideal audience response to effective positioning. Obvious to the audience is better than impressive to the team.
03
Iterating on positioning language without testing it
Positioning iterations that happen in internal documents without target audience testing produce language that gets cleaner without necessarily getting clearer. The test is always whether the target customer understands and recognises themselves — not whether the team is satisfied with the language.
04
Treating positioning as permanent
Positioning that works at one stage of the company is often wrong at the next — because the product, the audience, and the competitive landscape all evolve. Buzzword-free positioning built on specifics requires re-examination each time those specifics change materially.
Example scenario
A data infrastructure company. Current positioning: 'The next-generation, AI-powered data platform for modern enterprises.' Swap test applied: 12 competitors identified who used nearly identical language. Market confusion: high. Differentiation: invisible.
The specificity work
Customer interviews (10): asked what they chose the company for over alternatives.
Common answer: 'You were the only ones who could handle our data volume without requiring a full engineering team to maintain the pipeline.'
This specific differentiation appeared nowhere in the current positioning.
The positioning was general. The differentiation was specific and real.
The rewrite
Old: 'The next-generation, AI-powered data platform for modern enterprises.'
New: 'Data pipelines at enterprise scale — without the engineering team to maintain them.'
Swap test: no direct competitor could use this unchanged. It described something specific and demonstrable.
Plain English test: 10 of 10 non-technical participants understood it accurately.
The outcome
Homepage comprehension test: improved from 3/10 accurately describing the differentiation to 9/10. Sales team reported that 'the new positioning starts conversations the old one couldn't'. Prospects began arriving in demo calls having already identified the specific scenario described — shortening the discovery phase by 20 minutes on average.
Takeaway
Clear, specific, demonstrable positioning differentiates. Impressive language doesn't.
Apply the swap, specific customer, proof, and plain English tests. Find what only you can honestly say. Say that — simply. The positioning that feels obvious to the target audience is the one that works.
Related thinking
Continue reading
How Customers Actually Read You