The hardest positioning question for an IP expert is not: how do I want to present myself? It is: what have I been accepting without question?

Many IP experts think of positioning as something external. A clearer profile. A sharper LinkedIn presence. A more convincing website. A better way to explain what they do. All of this matters. But it is only the visible part of positioning.

Before positioning becomes communication, it is a decision. It is the decision to become clearer about the kind of work you want to be known for, the clients you want to attract, the problems you want to solve and the conversations you want to be part of. It is also the decision to become more conscious about what you no longer want to accept without question.

This is why positioning is not only a communication task. It is also a form of self-leadership.

For IP experts, this can be particularly relevant. Their work is often complex, confidential and shaped by client needs, legal developments, technological change and business pressure. In such an environment, it is easy to become defined by what others ask for.

A client needs a filing. A company needs an opinion. A founder needs urgent advice.

The expert responds. The work is done. The expertise is applied. But over time, something important can become blurred: the expert’s own direction.

What do I want to be called for? Where do I create the most value? Which problems should reach me earlier? Which clients understand my contribution best? Which topics do I want to build authority around? And which requests pull me away from the kind of expert I want to become?

These are not marketing questions. They are leadership questions.

Positioning begins before visibility

Earlier in this series, I explored why IP experts need to make their thinking more visible, why the market is moving upstream, and why simplifying complex expertise does not mean diluting it.

All these topics point to the same underlying issue: expertise becomes more valuable when others can understand where it belongs, when it matters and why it is relevant.

But this cannot be solved only by producing more content.

If an expert starts communicating without inner clarity, the result is often inconsistent. One post follows a recent court decision. Another explains a technical point. Another reacts to a trend. Another shares a conference impression. Each piece may be correct. Some may even be useful. But the audience may still not understand what this expert stands for.

This is not a knowledge problem. The knowledge has simply not yet been organised around a clear professional centre.

Positioning helps create that centre. It forces a productive form of selection. Not everything you know needs to become part of your public profile. Not every service you offer needs the same level of visibility. Not every topic you can speak about should define your authority.

This is difficult for many experts, because they are used to being competent across a broad range of issues. In IP, breadth is often necessary. Clients expect flexibility, technical understanding, legal precision and strategic judgement.

But a strong professional position does not deny breadth. It gives it direction. It answers the question: from which perspective do I want the market to understand my expertise?

Clarity also creates boundaries

One of the most underestimated effects of positioning is that it creates boundaries.

Many experts hesitate here. They fear that sharper positioning will make them appear narrower. They worry that clients might assume they only do one thing. They do not want to exclude opportunities.

This concern is understandable. But in practice, weak positioning often creates a different problem: it attracts the wrong kind of attention, at the wrong moment, for the wrong reasons.

When your value is not clearly framed, people place you where they already know how to place you. They may see you as a technical service provider, although your real value lies in strategic judgement. They may involve you late in the process, although your work would create more impact earlier. They may ask you to execute, although you could help them decide. They may compare you on price, although the real value lies in risk reduction, orientation or commercial relevance.

Positioning does not solve all of this immediately. But it gives you a clearer basis for steering the conversation. It allows you to explain where you create the most value, what kind of problem you help clients solve and when it makes sense to involve you. That is professional orientation, and it is also a boundary.

It protects you from being reduced to execution, from accepting every request as equally strategic and from letting the market define your role only through past assignments. It also helps you communicate your thinking more clearly, instead of keeping the most valuable part of your expertise invisible.

For IP experts who want to move closer to business decisions, this is essential. The market will not automatically understand where your expertise should enter the conversation. You have to make that role recognisable.

Consistency is not repetition

Another reason why positioning is a form of self-leadership is that it supports long-term consistency.

Many experts underestimate how much discipline visibility requires. Not visibility in the sense of constant posting or personal exposure, but visibility as a coherent professional presence over time.

A strong position helps you avoid random communication. It gives you a filter for what to say, what to leave out, how to interpret developments, which examples to use, which questions to raise and which perspective to return to.

Consistency means that people can recognise a pattern in how you think. Over time, they start to understand what you care about, how you approach problems and why your perspective is relevant. They do not only remember one post, one article or one presentation. They remember the logic behind your work.

This is especially important in expert markets. Clients rarely choose an IP expert because of one piece of content. They build trust gradually. They observe how someone frames issues, how they handle complexity, what they prioritise and whether their thinking feels relevant to the decisions they face.

Positioning gives this observation process a structure. Without it, visibility becomes scattered. With it, even small communication moments build cumulative authority. A comment, a conference contribution, a client conversation, a profile text, a publication and a LinkedIn post can all point in the same direction, not because they use the same words, but because they express the same professional logic.

That is when personal branding starts to become useful.

Positioning requires professional honesty

There is another, more uncomfortable side to positioning. It requires honesty.

Not every expert can credibly claim every strategic space. Not every topic is worth owning. Not every market need fits your strengths. Not every ambition is supported by your current proof points. Not every audience will care about the work you personally find most interesting.

Good positioning sits between aspiration and evidence. It should stretch you, but not invent you. It should make your value clearer, not create a persona that does not fit your actual work. It should help the market understand your relevance, not decorate your expertise with language that sounds impressive but remains vague.

This is where professional support can make a real difference. Experts are often too close to their own work to see the patterns that make them distinctive. They know the cases, the technical details, the client situations and the outcomes. But they may not see the recurring logic behind them.

A strong positioning process helps extract that logic. It looks at the work behind the work: how you make decisions, how you reduce uncertainty, how you create clarity for clients, how you connect IP to business consequences, and how you influence timing, risk, investment or negotiation.

For IP experts, this is often where the real brand material lies. It is rarely found in a slogan, a polished description or a list of services. It is much more often hidden in the specific way an expert helps clients think and act more effectively.

A positioning question for IP experts

A useful starting point is not: “How do I want to present myself?”

A better question is: “What should people understand about my expertise before they need me?”

This shifts the focus. It moves positioning away from self-description and towards decision relevance. It asks what the market needs to recognise earlier. It asks which situations should trigger the thought: this is the person we should speak to.

For one IP expert, this could mean becoming known for connecting patent strategy with commercial timing. For another, it could mean guiding companies through uncertainty before major IP investments. Others may create most value by making complex portfolio decisions understandable for leadership teams, or by helping innovation teams avoid strategic mistakes before protection decisions are made.

The point is not to sound different for the sake of differentiation. The point is to become easier to recognise for the value you are already capable of creating.

Positioning is how you lead your own expertise

Visibility alone is not enough. The real question is not only whether people see you. It is what they understand when they see you.

Positioning helps answer that question with more clarity, discipline and intention. It helps experts move from being broadly competent to being clearly recognised. It helps them decide what to make visible and what to leave in the background. It helps them build authority without becoming louder than they want to be. It helps them protect their time, sharpen their relevance and create a professional presence that can grow over years.

Before the market can understand your value, you have to lead yourself towards a clearer definition of it. For IP experts who want to move upstream, attract better-fit clients and become part of more strategic conversations, that clarity is not a cosmetic advantage.

It is part of the work.

Until then, a question to reflect on:

Are you actively leading the way your expertise is understood, or are you still letting the market define it for you?

About the columnist

Giulia Donato
Branding & Communication Advisor | Executive Coach | Lecturer
people & brand strategies
www.donatostrategies.com