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On Positioning1 min readFeb 2026

Nobody wants the product

They want the version of themselves the product implies. On selling identity, and why the best positioning never mentions features.

By Ilias Ennajmi

Nobody wants a drill, the old line goes, they want a hole. It is truer to say nobody wants the hole either. They want the shelf, and the kind of person who has the sort of home where the shelf is up. The product is the last, least interesting link in a chain that starts with who someone is trying to become.

This is why feature lists persuade so poorly. A spec sheet answers a question the buyer is not really asking. They are not weighing your gigabytes; they are checking whether owning this makes them more like the person they picture when they picture themselves at their best.

Sell the after-photo of the person, not the before-photo of the product.

The best positioning barely describes the thing at all. It describes a self, and quietly lets the product become the cost of admission. Get the identity right and the features become evidence. Get it wrong and no feature will save you.

Ilias Ennajmi · Ilias

Now ask why people act
You are your defaults

Most of who you are was never chosen. It was inherited, assigned, or never questioned. On the quiet power of the settings nobody changes.

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