Positioning is about applying a systematic, repeatable process to identify my service's secret sauce, differentiate my offering from my competitors, and translate my positioning into an effective sales pitch. I'm creating a differentiated value proposition based on my service's unique features and capabilities in this proposal.

A positioning problem emerges as I am seen as a technology consultant by some clients and a software developer by others. I compete with alternatives in both categories and fully staffed software vendors without a precise positioning. The challenge is there are so many technology consultants on the market. In a sea of competitors, even the best consultant won't be able to win the projects. Clients don't get why they should choose Victor over the alternatives. How can the service stand out and help the client intuitively understand the value of Victor's consultancy? The power of product positioning can help solve this challenge and capture the unique value of my service and win a crowded market.

Good-fit customers are someone who I have today that intuitively understand my services. The best-fit customers are CEOs / Growth-stage startup founders in the fintech industry who are pretty technical. This audience's priorities are rapidly expanding their team and scaling their product. They are building products and solving their technical challenges.

There are competitive alternatives from my good-fit customers' perspective. Startup founders attempting to solve the technical problems before they moved to my solution are:

Alternatives 1: Outsource to consulting firms

• Accenture
• Deloitte
• Capgemini

Alternatives 2: Search on the Internet for technical answers

• Stackoverflow
• Quora
• Reddit

Alternatives 3: Hire in-house roles

• Software developer
• Business analyst
• Architect

Alternatives 4: Watch videos and figure it out themselves.

• Youtube tutorial
• Udemy class
• Online coding Bootcamp

The unique attributes are feature/capability in differentiating my service against at least one of the competitive alternatives. For example:

• Blog content
• Technical skill
• Knowledge sharing
• Product management skill
• Personal stories
• Video content
• Best practice content
• Business skill

Picking my blog as a capability to value by asking "so what". Ask as many times as necessary until I get to a value that’s clearly differentiated and hits the sweet spot of helping customers achieve their goals without being too abstract.

1. I have written a blog and shared technical knowledge. So What?

2. CEOs are readers. They read a lot. So What?

3. They got recommended blogs by their friends. They read the blogs that all other CEOs are reading. So What?

4. The blog would be a good lead generation tool for my business. So What?

5. Understand my thinking in business and technology before working with me.

The above are differentiated value that came up from the “so what” exercise:

Differentiated value 1: CEOs are known to be readers. They read a lot. They got recommended blogs by their friends. They read the blogs that all other CEOs are reading. This could map to my unique attributes:

• 1.1 Blog content: rearranged to a book and is selling on Amazon Kindle. Most business books are too long for CEOs. They annoyed CEOs, full of fluff, too hard to skim, way longer than they needed to be. My blog is a short and skimmable product, something you can pick up and read in a busy schedule.

• 1.2 Product management content: I have done three startups products and delivered four enterprise software in total, with a lot of product launch experience. My product development expertise is more than other folks.

• 1.3 Technical content: With hands-on software development experience, which many business consultants cannot provide.

• 1.4 Business content: It's about soft skills in stakeholder management, leadership, communication and presentation, which many software developers cannot provide.

Differentiated value 2: The blog would be a good lead generation tool for my technology consulting business. Mapping it to unique attributes:

• 2.1 Best practice content: Understand the banking industry, which I can teach people or facilitate a training session through best practice.

• 2.2 Knowledge sharing: Deploying new technical products in the financial market.

Differentiated value 3: Understand my thinking in business and technology before working with me. Mapping it to the unique attributes:

• 3.1 Personal Stories: Contact and hire for Technology Consulting Services in the Banking Industry after reading the blog.

• 3.2 Video content: Storytelling with humour

Reference the Positioning Canvas, my Personal Blog could be adopted to this framework below:

A. Competitive Alternatives

• Search for an answer on Google and try to solve their technical problem themselves. Then they don't need to hire a technology consultant to come in and do it for them. Try to do it themselves and not pay all the money to the consultant.

B. Unique Attributes

• Blog posts that bring value to business and technology. Most business books are too long for CEOs, annoy CEOs, and are too full of fluff. They're too hard to skim. They're way longer than they needed to be. My blog post is shorter and skimmable.

C. Differentiated Value

If you read my blog and think I would be the best person to help, Victor might be the right consultant. Sometimes, startups try to solve technical problems themselves with an internal team, and their small team lacks experience. Having somebody from the outside come in and facilitate the architecture design is often beneficial to build a foundation for the product to scale.

D. Best-Fit Customers

CEOs of Series A and Series B venture-backed startups. Technology is essential to get right. In that stage, it's imperative to get the technology right because they are about to pour a lot of money into software development and infrastructure. So if the technology isn't right, they will waste a lot of money, potentially millions of dollars.

E. Market Category

Technology Consultancy for Financial Companies. My blog shares what I know and builds my authority without hurting my consulting business.

After the above analysis, next steps would be a Validation Plan:

By April 2022

• Modify landing page messages on https://victorleungtw.com/
• Add additional case studies to the website.
• Conduct interviews with top-five clients to further clarify messaging.

By May 2022

• Create a sales pitch on the technology consultancy positioning
• Response to RFP (request for proposal) for consultancy work
• Add technology and business content to the personal blog for brand awareness

Overall, I am re-positioning as specialized technology consulting services for financial companies. Technology defines how our product is different and better than competitors. Good technology is the foundation of a great product and is the starting point of innovation. I help financial companies architect and develop software to improve their business performance. I use an agile methodology that I adopted during my career as a software developer at a series of successful consulting firms. The process has been proved to work for early-stage startups.

Service 1. Software Development for StartUps

I can help you and your executive team make decisions and alignment around the best technology for your product. As a group, we work through each component of your product using my agile development methodology. Once we have built a proof of concept, we will decide the architecture for your product that would be able to scale.

Service 2. Consulting Services for Larger Tech Companies

I can up-level your team's skills for companies with a larger software development team. I dive deep into software development methodology, how larger companies can adopt it, and common mistakes or roadblocks that teams encounter. These sessions can be delivered virtually or in person. Contract me to find out more about this might work for your team.
Book a call

Service 3. Customize Product Management

Companies with unique technology challenges can engage me. I've worked with companies wresting managing their technical product, how to respond to sudden, unexpected production incidents, or pivoting into a new entrant into a market. Particular problems sometimes require unique solutions. If your company is wrestling with a new technical challenge, I'd love to see if there is a way I can help

Want to learn more about how I can help your team in business and technology? Visit https://victorleungtw.com/