Fintech Positioning Workshop

A 90-minute session to find what makes your fintech the obvious choice, and say it in one sentence. Use it with the free Fintech Positioning Workshop board (FigJam or Miro): the board holds the questions and fictional examples, this guide says what to run and what to watch for.

Who it’s for and the outcome

The workshop is for B2B fintech and payments companies that sell to a buying committee rather than one person. Run it when your website sounds like every competitor (“fast, secure, compliant, global”), when sales and marketing describe the product in different words, or when you’re entering a new segment.

After 90 minutes you have the two or three alternatives you are really compared with, a one-line best-fit customer and the buying committee, two or three attribute and value pairs only you can claim, the proof for each and the gaps to close, and a draft positioning statement with a short version and an owner. Treat it as a strong first draft: it becomes positioning once customers repeat it back to you.

Who to invite and what to bring

Invite 3 to 6 people: a founder, whoever sells, whoever markets, and one product person. Fewer than three gives you one point of view; more than six turns the read-outs into speeches. Leave out investors and board members for this one: people perform when they are in the room.

Pick a facilitator who keeps time and stays neutral. Ideally that’s not the founder, because the founder breaks ties. If the founder has to facilitate, say so at the start and hold opinions until the votes.

Bring your last 10 won and lost deals (who, what they compared you with, why you won or lost) and two or three things customers said in their own words: call notes, emails, RFP answers. They stop the session drifting into what the website already says.

Preparation checklist (30 minutes before)

• Duplicate the board for this session and rename it with the date.
• Invite everyone as editors, not viewers, and check each person can add a sticky.
• Put the deal list and customer quotes in a shared doc, or paste them into a card beside step 1, so people can look while they write.
• Open the board’s timer and voting tools so you know where they are. Decide on three votes per person for each dot-vote.
• Leave the fictional examples in place to show the level of detail; ask people not to copy them.
• Confirm who breaks ties (the founder) and who writes up the board afterwards (usually the facilitator).

The script, step by step

Times are from the start of the session. Silent writing means no talking, cameras on, one idea per sticky.

Warm-up (5 min), 0:00 to 0:05

Say: “Today we decide what makes us the obvious choice for the right buyer, and we write it in one sentence. Five rules: write first, talk second. One idea per sticky. Write what customers say, not what our website says. We dot-vote to decide, and [founder] breaks ties. Side debates go to the parking lot.”

Run: Ask “What do we do, and for whom?” Three minutes of silent writing, one sentence each on a yellow sticky. Then everyone reads theirs out. No discussion.

Watch for: the differences. Don’t fix them. If five people wrote five answers, that’s the reason for the session; say so and move on.

1. Competitive alternatives (15 min), 0:05 to 0:20

Say: “What would your best customers use if you didn’t exist? Not only named competitors: their bank, a large PSP, an in-house build, spreadsheets, or doing nothing.”

Run:

• 3 minutes silent writing on orange stickies.
• 5 minutes: each person reads theirs out; cluster duplicates as you go.
• 3 minutes dot-vote: “Which alternative do we lose to most often?”
• 4 minutes: agree the top two or three and write them in the output card.

Watch for: a list made only of other fintech startups. Check it against the deal list.

Trap: “do nothing” is missing. The real competitor is often doing nothing, or “the bank we already use”. If nobody writes it, ask: “Of the deals we lost last year, how many went to a competitor, and how many just didn’t happen?”

2. Best-fit customers and buying committee (20 min), 0:20 to 0:40

Say: “Who buys fastest, stays longest, and who signs off?”

Run:

• 4 minutes silent writing in “Best-fit customers” (green). Work from the won deals: size, market, trigger, setup.
• 4 minutes: read out and cluster. Ask: “Which three customers would we clone tomorrow?”
• 4 minutes silent writing in “Buying committee” (blue): one role per sticky, plus what that person needs to hear.
• 4 minutes: read out and fill gaps.
• 4 minutes: write the output: a one-line best-fit customer and the committee roles.

Watch for: “anyone who moves money” or “banks and fintechs of all sizes”. That’s a market, not a best-fit customer. Push for a trigger: what happened just before they bought?

Trap: compliance and procurement are left out. B2B fintech deals stall in compliance and procurement more often than in sales. Give each of those roles its own sticky, along with legal, information security and finance where they apply. Ask: “In the last deal that stalled, who stalled it, and why?”

3. Unique attributes and value (20 min), 0:40 to 1:00

Say: “What do we have that the alternatives don’t, and why does it matter to the buyer?”

Run:

• 4 minutes silent writing in “Attribute” (violet), working against the alternatives from step 1: a feature, licence, coverage, team or data.
• 2 minutes: cross out anything every alternative also has.
• 8 minutes, as a group, row by row: for each attribute, keep asking “so what?” until you reach a value a buyer would pay for (teal), then name who cares most (blue), using the roles from step 2.
• 3 minutes dot-vote on the strongest rows.
• 3 minutes: write two or three attribute and value pairs in the output card.

Watch for: values that every product claims, such as “saves time” or “reduces risk”. Ask “how much, for whom, compared with what?”

Trap: unprovable adjectives. “Secure”, “fast”, “easy”, “compliant” and “AI-powered” are not attributes. Ask: compared with what, and how do we know? “Fast” becomes “sellers are paid the same day”. Also flag regulated words: terms like bank, safeguarded, insured or instant can carry legal meaning, so check them with compliance before they reach the website.

4. Proof (10 min), 1:00 to 1:10

Say: “What can we show a buyer to prove each value?”

Run:

• 4 minutes silent writing: green stickies in “Proof we have”, pink in “Gaps to close”. One sticky per proof point: a customer result with a number, a named customer, a quote, a licence or certification, a case study.
• 4 minutes: walk through each value from step 3 and ask whether the proof would satisfy a compliance reviewer on the buyer side.
• 2 minutes: write the output.

Watch for: the room grading itself generously. A number from a named customer beats a quote, and a quote beats an adjective.

Trap: proof you can’t use. A result from a customer under NDA isn’t proof yet: move it to pink as “ask for permission”. Never fill a gap with a number nobody can source. A gap is useful output: it becomes the next case study, quote or customer interview.

5. Positioning statement (15 min), 1:10 to 1:25

Say: “Can we say it in one sentence?” Point at the template card.

Run:

• 5 minutes: everyone drafts their own version on a yellow sticky in “Drafts”, filling the template from steps 1 to 4.
• 4 minutes: read them out without debate; each person votes on the phrases they would keep.
• 4 minutes: the facilitator, with the founder, combines the strongest parts into “Our positioning statement”.
• 2 minutes: write “The short version”: what a buyer understands in five seconds on your homepage.

Watch for: an invented category. Pick a category your buyers already search for. Competitor test: if a competitor’s name fits the sentence, it isn’t specific enough.

Trap: wordsmithing. The decisions matter, not the wording. Keep every claim provable and polish later.

6. Next steps (5 min), 1:25 to 1:30

Run the checklist on the board, putting a name next to each line: who owns the statement, who tests it with five customers or prospects this month, who updates the homepage hero, LinkedIn and the first slide of the sales deck, who turns each proof gap into a task, and when you revisit it (in 90 days, or after ten new deals). Then give the parking lot one minute: each sticky gets an owner or is dropped.

Say: “This is a draft. It earns the name positioning when customers say it back to us.”

Running it remotely versus in a room

Remotely:

• Ask everyone to open the board before the call. Most lost minutes are access problems.
• Cameras on, microphones muted during silent writing.
• Use the board’s timer and voting so everyone sees the same clock and votes privately, and “bring everyone to me” when you move between steps.
• For read-outs, call names in a fixed order so people don’t talk over each other.

In a room:

• Everyone works on their own laptop, with the board on one large screen.
• Silent writing matters even more in person: it stops the loudest or most senior voice setting the answer before anyone else has written.
• If you use paper stickies, photograph each zone and add them to the board the same day.

Hybrid: run it as if everyone is remote, each person on their own laptop and headset.

After the session

Within 24 hours: the facilitator tidies the board and shares a one-page write-up of every output card and who owns what.

This month: test the short version with five customers or prospects, then ask them to describe what you do. Their words are often better than yours. Update the homepage hero, LinkedIn and the first slide of the sales deck, in plainer language than the statement.

Next: turn the statement into messaging for each role in the buying committee. The guide to writing a positioning statement for B2B fintech covers the five tests and the messaging framework.

In 90 days, or after ten new deals: duplicate a fresh board and rerun steps 1 and 4 against the new deals. If the alternatives or the proof have changed, the statement probably has too.