Buying guide
What drives the cost and timeline of a positioning project
Five things set the cost and the timeline of a positioning project: how many kinds of buyer you sell to, how many markets or divisions have to share one story, how much customer evidence already exists, how far your sales team currently is from saying the same thing, and how many senior people have to agree before anything changes. A single-product company selling to one buyer in one market with recent customer research is a short project. A group with four divisions, three buyer types and no interviews on file is not.
The five factors
1. How many buyers you sell to
Every distinct buyer needs their own version of the story: the CFO who signs, the operations director who lives with it, the IT lead who has to integrate it. One buyer type means one set of interviews and one set of words. Three buyer types roughly triples the research and the writing, because a message that tries to serve all three serves none.
2. How many markets, divisions or countries share the story
A single business line is the simplest case. A group that needs one sales story across divisions, or a company selling into the UK, the US and Europe with different buyers in each, needs the proposition built once and proved in each place. That is where projects grow, and where the biggest gains sit.
3. How much evidence already exists
Recent customer interviews, win-loss notes, call recordings and a clear picture of lost deals shorten the diagnosis. Nothing on file means the research has to be done from scratch, which is the longest single stage. Most mid-market companies have less evidence than they think: a satisfaction survey is not the same as 15 conversations with people who chose someone else.
4. How far the sales team is from one story
If five salespeople describe the company five ways, the fix includes rebuilding the deck, the discovery questions and the objection answers, then getting the team to use them. If the team is already close, the work is mostly sharpening. The gap is easy to measure: ask them.
5. How many people have to agree
Positioning is a leadership decision. A founder-led business decides in a meeting. A board with a new CEO, a founder and a PE investor who each have a view takes longer, and the project has to make room for that. The work is the same; the calendar is not.
What the timeline usually looks like
Diagnosis first, in weeks: interviews, a read of the current message, and a plain statement of what buyers hear versus what you think you are saying. Then the proposition and the words, tested with real prospects before they go anywhere near the website. Then the sales team equipped and the story embedded. The first 90 days page walks through it stage by stage.
Why we do not publish prices
Because a price on a page would be either wrong for you or wrong for the company next to you. The five factors above move the scope by a multiple, and a figure chosen to look reasonable for the average case misleads everyone who is not average. What you get instead is a short conversation about where you sit on those five, and a fixed scope with a fixed fee before any work starts. No day rates, no retainers, no surprises at the end.
What makes it cheaper and faster
Having the evidence ready, or giving access to customers and lost deals quickly. One decision maker with authority to say yes. A sales team willing to be interviewed and then to change. And starting with the diagnosis rather than the rebuild, because a fortnight of listening saves a quarter of rewriting the wrong thing.
Questions people ask
Do you charge day rates?
Every project has a fixed scope and a fixed fee agreed before the start, so you know the whole cost on day one.
Can we start small?
Yes. The Mirror, the diagnosis stage, stands on its own. Many companies run it first and decide what to do with the findings before committing to the rest.
What if we already have customer research?
Good. It shortens the diagnosis, sometimes by weeks. Dan reads what you have before deciding how many new interviews are needed.
How long before the sales team is using the new story?
Usually within the first quarter, with the diagnosis in the first few weeks. The slowest part is almost always internal agreement, so a leadership team that decides quickly gets there sooner.
Get your Growth Story Score Or speak to Dan or start with the free sales pitch audit
What happens after you get in touch: you pick a 20-minute slot, Dan reads your website and sales deck before the call, and you leave with a view on whether the story is the problem and what to do first. A proposal follows only if you ask for one.