B2B Positioning Statement Template
Five documents and four sheets that test every clause of a positioning statement against your own closed data, then put a verdict beside it.
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Competitive Alternatives Register
What the picklist said, and what the notes said
| Loss reason as recorded | Deals | What actually happened | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | 171 | Status quo, nothing bought | 174 |
| Missing feature | 88 | Direct alternative, a named competitor | 86 |
| No decision | 61 | Adjacent alternative, a tool they owned | 81 |
| Timing | 44 | Genuine price loss | 31 |
| Competitor | 30 | Build | 22 |
| Total | 394 | Total | 394 |
Where the 171 price rows went
Ninety-six bought nothing from anyone. Thirty-one were real price losses with the buyer saying so in the record. Twenty-six went to a tool they already paid for, and eighteen to a named competitor.
Two findings a picklist cannot produce
The unlike clause was aimed at 86 losses. It read “unlike legacy field service tools.” The 174 deals that bought nothing had no clause anywhere: not in the statement, not on the homepage, not on any of the three comparison pages.
The second largest competitor was an accounting package. Eighty-one losses went to the job module of something the buyer already licensed, and nobody in the building classed it as a competitor.
Buckets come from the call notes and the final thread with the buyer, never from the recorded reason.
Marlowe Field's sales team recorded Price as the loss reason on 171 of 394 lost deals. Re-reading the notes on all 394 found price evidenced on 31. Of those 171 price rows, 96 were deals where the buyer bought nothing from anyone, kept the whiteboard, and mentioned the quote on the way out. Two quarters of discount structure were being argued about on the strength of a picklist with no option for doing nothing.
That is one clause of four, and all four are falsifiable. The segment clause failed too, in a way no workshop reaches. The two attributes sales was qualifying on, industry code and technician count, win at 28.2 percent together. Strip out the deals that also meet the other two attributes and the rest win at 10.2 percent. The definition that actually wins is 16.4 percent of closed opportunities and 44.1 percent of the wins.
Then the surviving differentiator goes on a page, and the moment it says "the only" it is comparative advertising. The Commission encourages naming competitors and evaluates the comparison by the same standard as any other advertising claim, and separately wants a reasonable basis in hand before the claim runs. So it ships with a dated review of all five alternatives on file. Installs into the marketing workspace beside the messaging framework built from customer language and the rest of the template library.
What's in the pack
Competitive Alternatives Register
Every loss sorted into status quo, direct, adjacent, build or evidenced price, with the recorded reason beside it and the buyer's own sentence in the row.
Segment Fit
Win rate, median contract value and median cycle for every attribute alone and in combination, with a verdict of held, weak or failed on each line.
Differentiator Evidence
Each claim against how many alternatives make it, where that count came from, the measurement if one exists, and the demonstration if one exists.
Claim Substantiation
One row per claim per surface, with the evidence file, the basis of comparison, and the review date a capability comparison expires on.
Positioning Statement
The statement in one sentence, then the four clauses written out separately with the number that supports each one beside it.
Alternatives Analysis
The full re-read of every lost deal, the picklist beside it at the same total, and what each bucket of buyers was actually optimising for.
Rationale Note
The category not chosen, the attributes deleted for not being observable, and every differentiator that failed with the count that failed it.
Method and Substantiation Standard
The four tests in the order that narrows them, and what has to exist before a comparative claim reaches a page.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send your closed opportunities, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and run the four tests by hand.
- 2
Re-read the losses first
The alternatives decide what your differentiators have to be different from. Ignore the loss reason field and read what the notes actually say happened.
- 3
Turn the segment into a filter
Rewrite every attribute as something you could apply to a list, delete anything not observable from outside, then test each one alone before testing them together.
- 4
Count the exclusivity, then date it
Read five competitors' documentation and count how many make each claim. Whatever survives gets an evidence file with a review date before it ships.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes, with no account, no card and no email gate on the download. Edit with AI is the optional half: River re-reads your closed deals, runs the four tests and fills the sheets with verdicts. Every pack sits in the template library.
How much win-loss data do I need?
Twenty losses read properly beat five hundred sorted by a picklist. The segment test needs enough closed deals to split without the numbers becoming noise, which in practice is a couple of hundred. The alternatives test works from whatever you have today.
Why not just run a positioning workshop?
A room with a whiteboard is an instrument for producing agreement, and agreement is what people reach when nobody has looked at the numbers. All four clauses of a positioning statement are falsifiable against data you already own, so the room is optional and the test is not.
Our loss reasons say price. Is that wrong?
Usually it is under-recorded rather than wrong. Price is the option a representative picks when the reason is unknown, so most of it turns into something else on a re-read. In the worked example, 96 of the 171 price rows bought nothing from anyone.
What counts as an enumerable segment attribute?
Anything you could filter a list on without asking the prospect. An industry classification, a headcount band, a revenue mix, a licence or certification held, a system already in place, a trigger event with a date. Growing and values-efficiency are neither. Once the segment holds, the ICP pack tests the same attributes against retention rather than win rate.
Why does a positioning template care about the FTC?
Because the differentiator ends up on a page. Any claim saying "the only" compares you to every alternative, which makes it comparative advertising with a substantiation standard behind it. The pack gates that with an evidence file and a review date rather than a legal review.
What happens after the statement is written?
The clauses become copy and the differentiator becomes a comparison. Take the proven segment and alternatives into a homepage rewrite with a claim-to-proof map, then into a battlecard for the alternatives that actually showed up.
Find out what your losses were actually lost to
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or open this exact pack in River and send it a year of closed opportunities.
Edit with AI