If your sales team says one thing, your marketing another, and your leadership something else entirely – your customer hears only confusion. The companies that win are the ones where every department marches to the same drumbeat: a clear, differentiated position.

The Illusion of the USP

For decades, leaders have been taught to hunt for the mythical unique selling point. The truth is, unless you own a patent or a breakthrough technology, a genuine USP is vanishingly rare. What matters instead is clarity on the differences that genuinely shift the customer’s choice – your speed of response, your team structures, your ability to integrate across silos, your long-term commitment, etc.

We’ve seen it in practice: one organisation could mobilise a multifaceted team in 24 hours, while its competitor needed three weeks of approvals. That is differentiation. It doesn’t live in old marketing books; it lives in your current operating model.

Positioning as an Organisational Compass

When positioning is unclear, you see the symptoms everywhere:

• Sales decks that contradict one another
• Marketing campaigns chasing clicks instead of meaning
• Senior leaders who describe the company in ten different ways

The result? Buyers don’t trust you. And trust is the real currency of B2B growth.

But when positioning is defined, something powerful happens. Every department – from marketing and sales to operations and delivery – tells the same story. Customers hear one consistent narrative, reinforced in every meeting, every deck, every touchpoint. That consistency compounds into trust and, ultimately, growth.

AI Raises the Stakes

AI has changed the rules. You can’t fluff your way past it. Algorithms are already scanning your site, your LinkedIn posts, your press releases – everything – and spitting back summaries of what you do. If your positioning is unclear, AI will expose it brutally.

And buyers won’t always go deeper. Increasingly, they’ll trust the AI shortlist. If you’re not on it – or worse, if you’re misrepresented – you may never even be considered. The companies that feed AI with precise, consistent positioning will win visibility; the rest risk disappearing from the radar entirely.

Rallying the Buyer Group

Most B2B decisions aren’t made by one person but by a buyer group: perhaps six to ten people across finance, operations, IT, and leadership. If your positioning resonates only with the C-suite, but not the tactical users – or vice versa – you lose momentum.

That’s why strong positioning works on three levels simultaneously:

• C-suite: strategic outcomes, risk, long-term value
• Heads of department: operational efficiency, adoption, ROI
• Tactical users: day-to-day relevance, ease of use, confidence the solution will stick

When all three hear a joined-up story, internal debates resolve faster – and your solution moves forward.

Sales and Marketing: One Playbook

The era of “make-do marketing” is over. Generic campaigns, content for content’s sake, or sales teams improvising their own decks – it doesn’t work. Excellence today looks more like:

• Shared messaging foundations agreed between sales and marketing
• Battle cards, one-pagers, and concise decks that make salespeople instantly relevant
• Content mapped to real customer challenges, not vanity campaigns

When marketing controls the messaging and equips sales with the right tools, alignment happens naturally—and growth follows.

Short-Term Push vs Long-Term Position

Yes, quarterly targets demand action. But pouring budget into discounts and promotions at the expense of long-term positioning is a false economy. The research is clear: companies with strong positioning grow faster and sustain market share longer. The most disciplined leaders protect the balance – funding immediate campaigns without starving the brand narrative that will carry them for years.

Differentiate or Die

Differentiation isn’t optional – it’s survival. In crowded markets, clarity is the sharpest competitive weapon you have.

• Stake your position early
• Unify your departments under one story
• Rally your troops so every interaction reinforces the same truth

Because when the customer sees no discrepancy – only one confident, consistent narrative – they don’t hesitate. They choose you.

And in B2B, that is the difference between being considered and being forgotten.

Interested? Drop us a line at The Craft Strategic Marketing Services