Big-brand positioning is a decision, not a budget. Big brands decide who they are for, what they want to be known for and what proves it, then repeat it everywhere. A small business can do the same this week with five questions, a one-sentence position and a five-touchpoint audit, before spending a dollar on new marketing.

Kevin D'Ambros-Smith is a business coach and advisor who has coached 200+ businesses one-on-one across 30+ industries, after a career at DDB, Ogilvy and Saatchi and Saatchi and founding nine companies.

After more than 30 years in business, including time inside three global agencies, the biggest difference I see is not money. It is clarity. A global brand team can tell you in one sentence who the brand is for and why it is different. Most SME owners can tell you everything they sell, which is not the same thing.

Big brands also repeat themselves. The same promise, the same look and the same tone turn up in the ad, the website, the invoice and the phone greeting. That repetition is what makes a brand easy to remember and easy to choose. It costs very little. It takes discipline.

Spending on marketing without a position is paying to say several things at once. The customer hears none of them. Position first, and every dollar after that works harder because it points the same way.

There is research behind the idea that building a brand and driving immediate sales both matter. The IPA's The Long and The Short of It, by Les Binet and Peter Field (2013), analysed UK advertising effectiveness cases and found an optimum budget ratio of 60:40 between brand building and activation. Treat that as a UK-derived guide for large advertisers, not a rule for a 12-person business. The useful lesson for an SME is simpler: if all your effort goes into short-term promotions, you are not building the thing that makes the next customer easier to win.

Block 90 minutes. Answer these in writing, in plain words, with no jargon.

1. Who exactly is the customer you want more of? Describe one real person or one real type of business, not everyone.

2. What job are they hiring you to do? Describe the problem they have on the day they call you.

3. What is the one thing you want to be known for? Pick one, not four.

4. What proves it? Name three pieces of evidence: a result, a process, a story or a guarantee you can stand behind.

5. What would a competitor have to change to say the same thing? If the answer is nothing, you have not found your position yet.

Use this frame: For [who], we are the [category] that [one benefit], because [proof]. Write ten versions, cut every word that is not doing work and read the best one aloud. If it sounds like something your competitors could print on their own trucks, keep going.

This is the same discipline a brand team applies before a campaign brief is written. It just fits on one line.

A position only counts if customers meet it. Pick the five places they meet you most and check whether each one says the same thing.

Score each one out of three: does it say who you are for, what you are known for, and the proof? Fix the lowest score first. These are free changes, and they are usually the fastest way to make a small business look and sound bigger.

Take a hypothetical 15-person commercial cleaning company. Before: our team delivers quality cleaning services across the region. After the five questions: for office managers who are tired of chasing missed cleans, we are the cleaning company that sends a signed checklist after every visit, because every cleaner uses the same 30-point system. Same business, same price. The second version is specific, provable and easy to repeat on the van, the quote and the website. That is a position.

The hardest part of positioning is seeing your own business the way a stranger does. When you are surrounded by your industry every day, your own language feels normal and your differences feel obvious. They are not. I call this edge-of-the-world thinking: a fresh view from someone who is not inside your market, who asks the question your team stopped asking years ago.

A cheap way to start is to show your one-sentence position to three people outside your industry, including at least one customer. Ask them to say it back in their own words. What they say back is your real position.

Sophie Preen of Preen Fashion worked with me on exactly this kind of groundwork:

"Kevin brought real retail and online marketing experience to our fashion business. He helped us with the fundamentals of our brand values to help us move forward in the future. Giving us practical and innovative ideas we could put into action straight away."

— Sophie Preen, Preen Fashion

The writing takes about 90 minutes. Testing it with three people outside your industry takes another week. Rolling it through your five touchpoints can be done in a day.

Not to start. A clear sentence and consistent words cost nothing. Invest in design once the position is settled, so you are not paying to polish the wrong message.

Choose the type that is most profitable and easiest to win, and lead with them. You can still serve the others, but your message should be written for one.

If you are a manager or executive inside a large organisation and you want help with your own leadership or career, an executive coach is the better fit. If you are pre-revenue with a very small budget, free mentoring and The Inside Track newsletter will serve you better to begin with. Our online programmes are launching soon, and the best way to hear first is to join The Inside Track. Simple-Growth coaching suits owners of established SMEs who want more customers, a sharper strategy and big-company thinking made simple.

Source: IPA, "The next chapter for The Long and The Short of It."

If you want help turning your own position into one sentence everyone in the business can repeat, that is exactly where the Simple-Growth System starts.