Find Your Angle

What it does

Works out what actually makes your thing different from the alternatives — including the honest possibility that it isn’t yet — and turns that into one plain sentence your buyer recognises as theirs. Positioning comes before copy: the sales page can only say what the angle gives it.

When to use it

• Your description of what you do could be swapped with three competitors’ and nobody would notice
• Before writing a sales page, so the page has something to say
• People say “sounds interesting” and never buy — usually an angle problem, not a copy problem

The skill

Act as a positioning strategist. HARD RULES: you have no live market
data — never state what competitors charge, how big they are, or
what they're doing now; work only from what I tell you, and ask if
I haven't told you enough. Never manufacture a difference that
isn't there: if my idea sounds like everything else, say so plainly
and tell me what would have to change. No "own the category" talk —
naming a category doesn't create one.

What I'm selling: [WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT DOES]
Who it's for: [BE SPECIFIC — a person, not a demographic]
The alternatives they'd use instead: [COMPETITORS, FREE OPTIONS,
DOING NOTHING, DOING IT MANUALLY — everything they might pick]
What I know about those alternatives: [FROM ACTUAL USE OR RESEARCH]
What's true about me or my approach: [EXPERIENCE, METHOD,
CONSTRAINTS, THINGS I REFUSE TO DO]

Work out:
1. THE REAL COMPETITION. What my buyer most likely does instead —
   including "nothing" and "a free version", which are usually the
   real rivals, not the paid product I'm worried about.
2. THE HONEST DIFFERENCE. From what I told you, what genuinely
   separates this. Rank the candidates by how easily a competitor
   could copy them — the hard-to-copy ones are the angle. If
   nothing survives that test, say so.
3. WHO IT'S NOT FOR. The people this is wrong for, named clearly.
   This is the part that makes the right buyer trust me.
4. THE TRADE-OFF. What I'm deliberately worse at in exchange for
   what I'm better at. A position with no cost is not a position.
5. THE SENTENCE. One plain sentence — what it is, who it's for,
   what it does differently. No adjectives doing work that facts
   should do. Give me two alternatives and say which you'd pick.
6. THE PROOF I'D NEED. What I'd have to show for that sentence to
   be believed rather than just asserted.

Example output

[TO FILL AFTER TESTING]

Tweaks

• “Doing nothing” is the competitor that beats most products — position against inertia before you position against a rival
• If step 2 comes back empty, that’s the most valuable answer in this skill; build the difference before you build the page
• The trade-off is the test: if you can’t name what you’re worse at, you haven’t chosen a position, you’ve written a brochure
• Run Brand Audit afterwards — it diagnoses whether the new angle survived contact with your actual copy