Answer in sentences, not in adjectives. Adjectives are how a positioning exercise ends without a decision. "Simple, trusted, modern" can be copied onto any rival by an intern with a thesaurus. A sentence has a subject and a refusal. It can be wrong. Wrong is useful. A list of nice words cannot be wrong, which is why teams love them. This page is the five questions I actually use when a draft could belong to anyone.
The essay behind the questions is positioning is a refusal. The test that used them is one-sentence positioning. The reading that pushed this into practice is Obviously Awesome, kept here as a practice and not as a retelling. If you only answer these questions inside a workshop and never publish a sentence, you did the workshop. You did not position anything.
If the answers could be swapped with another company's answers, they are not done.
The questions
- Who is this for, in a way that excludes someone real?
- What are they comparing it with, even if we wish they were not?
- What do we refuse to be, even if that refusal costs a deal?
- What can we say that a competitor would not want to say?
- What would make the wrong customer leave the page on purpose?
They are in that order because each one is a trapdoor for the previous answer. A flattering audience fails the exclusion test. A brave exclusion fails if you will not name the comparison. A comparison fails if you will not pay for it with a lost deal. A refusal fails if a competitor would happily say it too. And the last question checks the page, not the deck. If the wrong customer would still feel welcomed, the sentence is hiding.
How to answer them
Write in complete sentences. "Founders" is not an answer to the first question. "A marketing lead who already has a job and wants a record of learning, not a course" is an answer. It excludes a student looking for a curriculum and a founder looking for a retainer. Those are real people. If you cannot picture the person who should bounce, you have described a market segment, not a refusal.
Name the comparison they are already making. Not the comparison you wish you had earned. For this notebook, the dangerous comparisons are a course, an agency, and a personal brand. I do not get to pick "a research institute" just because it sounds better. The opening note is explicit: this is not a company site. The questions are how that intention survives contact with a homepage, where the old habits come back.
State the refusal as something you will not do. "We refuse to be generic" is not a refusal. Everyone refuses to be generic. "We will not offer a syllabus, a service menu, or a fake subscriber count" is a refusal. It costs something. The syllabus would be easier to sell. The service menu would make the site legible to a buyer. The fake count would make it look alive. Costs are the proof. A free refusal is a slogan.
Say the sentence a competitor would not want to say. This is the hardest one, because it has to be specific and true. "We care about customers" fails. "The list is not open, and the form will tell you your address was not saved" is closer. A competitor who needs the list for a funnel would not want that sentence on their homepage. Good. The sentence should be slightly uncomfortable to the business you are not.
Then design the leaving. What, in the first screen, tells the wrong customer they are in the wrong room? A headline that sounds like a course will keep the course-seeker and disappoint them later. A headline that says notebook, learning in public, not a class, lets them leave while the bounce is still cheap. Cheap leaving is kinder than a long page that wastes them. Attention is the constraint. Spend yours, and theirs, on the right mismatch early.
| Question | A finished sentence | A sentence that is not done |
|---|---|---|
| Who is it for? | Names a person and a person who is out | "Anyone who cares about growth" |
| Compared with what? | Names the rival frame they already use | "We're in a category of one" |
| What do we refuse? | Costs a real deal or a real reader | "We refuse to be boring" |
| What wouldn't they say? | A true line a rival would hate to publish | "Quality is our priority" |
| Why would the wrong reader leave? | A first-screen line that sorts | "The about page explains it" |
If the answers swap, they are not done
Read your five sentences next to a competitor's site, or next to a generic template. If you can paste your answers onto their business by changing the product name, start again. Swap-ability is the bug. It feels like professionalism because the sentences are smooth. Smooth, interchangeable sentences are the opposite of a position. They are camouflage.
I run this test on my own pages when a paragraph starts to sound like a marketing publication that could be anyone's. The tell is a run of abstract nouns: value, impact, solutions, insights. Abstract nouns survive a swap. Concrete refusals do not. "No CMS, files in git, list closed" would be a strange boast for a different kind of company. It can stay. "Thoughtful content for modern teams" cannot.
There is a softer version of the bug, where the answers are specific and still cowardly. You exclude a persona nobody wanted, you refuse a tactic you were never going to use, and you call it focus. The cost question is the correction. If the refusal does not scare you a little, it is not the real one. I am still scared to be boring to people who want tactics. That fear is a signal that the refusal is alive. When the fear goes away because I have quietly broadened the headline, the questions need to be answered again, on paper, not in my head.
What to do with the answers
Put them where a decision can see them. The hero gets one refusing sentence, not all five. The other four stay as the test you use when someone wants to add a section. A new section that re-opens a refused comparison does not get a design pass. It gets a no. Write the decision: what we chose, what we refused, what would change it. These questions are a way to fill those three lines without a two-hour meeting.
Then try the sentence in public. The experiment does not need a large sample to be worth writing down. It needs one change, a measure you picked first, and a willingness to keep an inconclusive result. If the refusing line loses everyone, including the reader you named, the answer to question one was a fantasy. Update the sentence. Do not "fix" a true refusal by sanding it back into an adjective. Sanding is how the workshop reasserts itself a week later.
Use the answers on the work you already have. I would rather reposition a real page than produce a positioning document that never touches one. Documents feel complete. Pages feel risky. Risk is the environment where a refusal either exists or does not. A PDF cannot bounce. A homepage can. Trust the bounce more than the PDF.
Common ways the exercise fails
It fails when the room answers together. Group answers seek the sentence everyone can tolerate, which is the sentence that swaps. Give people ten minutes alone. Read the refusals. Keep the one that costs the most and is still true. Consensus is a different tool. It is good at coordination. It is bad at exclusion, and exclusion is the assignment.
It fails when question two is answered with a wish. "They should compare us with the premium option" is a strategy for a later year, maybe. The question asks what they are comparing you with now, including the unflattering one. If they think you are a blog, say blog, then say what kind. Pretending you are already in the flattering set is how the first screen lies. Lies in the first screen are expensive because trust never gets a second step.
It fails when the answers are used as copy in a pile. Five clever lines stacked in a hero are a mood board. Pick one. The rest are criteria. Criteria that all try to speak at once recreate the adjective list, just with more grammar. Grammar is not positioning. The no is.
A filled example, from this site
This is not a template to copy onto your company. It is a record of one pass, so the questions do not stay abstract.
This is for a person who does marketing work and wants to see the learning written down, including the inconclusive parts. It excludes someone shopping for an agency or a course. They are comparing it with both, and with a personal blog. We refuse to be a services menu or a curriculum, even if that refusal makes the site look small. A competitor who sells seats or retainers would not want to say the list is closed and the notes are the product. The wrong reader leaves when the first screen says notebook, not program, and offers no call to book a call.
If your filled example has no one leaving, you have written a welcome mat. Welcome mats are pleasant. They are not a position. Run the five questions until a real person, kindly and early, can tell the page is not for them. Then keep that sentence where they will actually see it.