# lens-positioning

**Lens mode.** Source authority: Justin Welsh's solopreneur-authority playbook — narrow audience, named belief shift, credentialed perspective without credentialism.

## When to use

Use when the deliverable has to make the reader *believe a specific thing about the author or product.* About pages, bio paragraphs, LinkedIn headlines, founder-letter intros, podcast guest pitches, "why us" sections, the line under the logo on the homepage. Trigger this lens when the brief says "we sound like everyone else" or "the right people aren't subscribing."

## Procedure

1. **Name the precise audience.** Not a category — a job, stage, and constraint. "Heads of growth at Series-A B2B SaaS who own paid acquisition and report to the CEO" beats "marketers." If three different people would read the audience description and all see themselves, narrow further.
2. **Name the existing belief.** What does this audience currently believe about the topic, the category, or the typical solution? State it plainly, even if it is wrong, lazy, or inherited. ("Most growth heads believe channel diversification is the safe move.") The existing belief is the thing the asset is moving *from*.
3. **Name the new belief.** The single sentence the reader should walk away repeating. Not a clever phrasing — a load-bearing claim the reader could disagree with. ("Channel diversification kills compounding; one channel, mastered, beats four, dabbled.") Vague new beliefs ("be intentional") fail to move anyone.
4. **Build the authority frame.** Two or three lines that earn the right to claim the new belief — without listing credentials like a CV. Show evidence of pattern, not titles: numbers of reps, named outcomes, named failures, time in the seat. Authority is *demonstrated*, not declared.
5. **Compress to a one-liner.** The bio, headline, or hero sentence. Combines named audience + new belief in under 25 words. If it sounds like five competitors' versions, it is not yet positioning.
6. **List trust signals.** Three to five specific, falsifiable items: clients named, outcomes sized, work shown. Avoid adjectives ("trusted by leaders") — substitute proof.

End every output with this exact contract:

**POSITIONING:**
- Precise audience: ...
- Existing belief: ...
- New belief: ...
- Authority frame: ...
- One-liner: ...
- Trust signals: ...

## Decision rules

- **Use this lens when the reader is comparing**, not when they are unaware. Positioning is a solution-aware to product-aware play. Unaware audiences need pain or curiosity first.
- **Narrow until it hurts.** A 60% audience match beats a 90% one if the 60% match brings the wrong reader. Wrong-fit attention is worse than no attention.
- **Pick a belief you can lose customers over.** A position no one disagrees with is not a position; it is a slogan.
- **No credentialism.** "Award-winning, world-renowned" reads as performance. Replace with specific proof.
- **One position per asset.** Two new beliefs in one bio cancels both.

## Anti-patterns

- **Impersonation.** Copying a known operator's LinkedIn cadence — short paragraphs, em-dashes, the "I've learned three things in 12 years" structure — without the underlying claim. Cadence is not positioning.
- **Universal-truth positioning.** "We help founders build better businesses." Whom does this exclude? No one. Position rejected.
- **Authority by adjective.** "Veteran, seasoned, proven, trusted, top-rated." The reader reads these as filler and skips. Replace with one named client.
- **Belief stacking.** Trying to install three new beliefs in one bio. Pick one. The other two go in long-form content.
- **Positioning that the product cannot honor.** Claiming the new belief in copy but selling the old belief in the product. Reader leaves on the second meeting.

## Anti-patterns continued

The trap behind all five: positioning is not how you sound, it is what you stand for. If the asset reads as a costume, return to step 3.

## Before / after

**Brief:** LinkedIn headline for an independent fractional CFO targeting bootstrapped agencies.

**Before:**
> *Experienced fractional CFO helping businesses scale growth and financial clarity.*

Universal-truth, jargon-laden, no audience, no belief.

**After:**
> *Fractional CFO for $1–5M agencies. Most agency owners track revenue and ignore cash. I rebuild your forecast around the only number that matters: weeks-of-payroll-on-hand.*

Precise audience (agency size). Existing belief named (revenue tracking). New belief installed (weeks-of-payroll is the real number). Authority demonstrated by specificity. One-liner under 35 words.
