week 58: position or be positioned

you have to stand for something

thank you to over 11,000 of you who read this weekly and share with your friends and family for behind the scenes on building a million dollar business from scratch and beyond.

i also include a personal note in the end so i am grateful that you let me do that without judgement.

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hard truth: if you don’t position yourself, you will be positioned by someone.

when i co-founded, Terminus - i remember telling an analyst firm that we are an ABM platform.

since one of the key features we had was advertising, they kept trying to push us in the advertising bucket.

so i went and invited 5 other competitors to form a consortium of sorts to say we all are ABM platform back to the analyst.

we fought tooth and nail all the way for 6 months and finally they created the ABM category and listed us and the other 5 competitors in there.

now, if we didn’t fight the good fight, we would have been positioned.

we would not have been able to raise prices and be forever looked at as an advertising platform with minimal valuation.

because there is no such thing of category of one, we had to make it bigger than us.

it didn’t matter if we were on the top or bottom, we just wanted to make sure that we have a fair positioning.

looking back at it - that was probably our best move that gave us legs, created a brand new category, and most importantly and industry that has over 10,000 jobs now collectively.

many people because of this one move are now VP and CMO with ABM as the key driven for their career growth and that makes me really happy.

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on a personal note, recently my son’s coach was cursing a little and my son didn’t like it.

Krish asked me what should he do.

well, i said - you need to tell him that but first you have to earn the right.

well, “how”, he asked.

i told him to play so hard and such a way that the coach will come to you and say good job and then you can tell him straight up how you feel.

well, he did that and when the coach said - “good job, Krish”, he mustered the energy to ask the coach - “i appreciate you but can you pls not curse?”

the coach obliged.

few days later, the head coach called him and said, “hey Krish, why did you tell my coach to not do something?”

krish - to my surprise and wonder, in front of a whole group of coaches, parents, and kids looking at him said to the head coach- “because i am a Christian…”

the head coach said, well… me too. i get it and don’t worry no more.

just know no one is cursing around here to someone. it’s a way of talking and he does not have to worry about it.

Krish later told me that he was sweating and afraid to say it but he did take a stand and was glad he did.

to me Krish positioned himself, stood for something and earned respect.

not easy but the alternative is simply status quo.

leaderpoint: if you don’t position yourself in life and in business, someone else will position you.