Unmistakable professional positioning

Translated from the original Spanish article.

My father's workshop has been closed for 15 years, and people still ask me whether it's there.

My father has been many things. But if you ask the neighbors of his generation in La Laguna, and beyond, they'll tell you he was the technician at the electronics repair shop.

He was self-employed and worked out of a small shop, where he fixed electronic devices. Televisions, radios, VCRs, DVD players, everything that, before it became disposable, could be repaired.

From him I learned the value of a job well done, of caring about the details. When I was a boy, he would explain to me the difference between a proper solder joint and a hasty one. The solder joints and internal components of a television aren't what customers see; even so, they're what I remember him talking about most.

My mother, for her part, taught me the importance of responsibility and commitment at work. I cross paths with her every day, around 6:30 in the morning, each of us on our own way to work. We get up very early to take care of our responsibilities. One difference between her and me is that she's been doing it for almost forty years. That's why everyone who knows her knows what kind of professional she is, and what they can expect from her.

My parents, both of them, taught me many things. But in that small workshop, and in those 40 years of constancy, there's a hidden lesson.

Both had unmistakable professional positioning.

The same thing happens with companies, and what my father did so well is what we call brand positioning: he did without appearances, experiments, and gimmicks, and kept his focus on what he did best. In a broad sense, positioning also has to do with prices, culture, or type of service—what sets it apart.

But the essential part is the most utilitarian one: what a company does.

I like to picture it with folders.

In your “burgers” folder, several brands will come to mind. And then you'll have your own subcategories or subfolders. “Fast-food burgers,” “modern burgers,” “cheap burgers,” “vegan burgers,” even “burgers I like.”

My father's workshop occupied an exact spot in people's minds. So when anyone, anywhere on the island, had a radio that stopped playing, they knew where to go.

If my father, in that workshop, had given himself some odd name, or expanded his service to household appliances, cell phone sales, or heaven knows what, that positioning would have been diluted across more folders than people have the capacity or interest to manage. It would have been confusing. Whoever spreads themselves across categories, or stays undefined, ends up being nowhere at all.

I'll confess, because it's rather funny, that if you ask my father what I do for a living, the poor man couldn't tell you. I'm afraid my mother couldn't either.

What they never told me is whether the shoemaker's children ever did end up with shoes. That I'll have to find out for myself.