Probably the part of business I find most challenging is the concept of positioning: knowing who your customer is, what their problem is, and how to package in a way that they can understand it, be satisfied, and you can fulfill your promise.

Personally, I am in the business of developing customizable social networks -- world-making, as I call it -- that consumer-facing businesses can use to increase their revenue, profile their leads, and increase their visibility in search engines through the development of a vibrant online community. I previously tried to position it as a solution for bloggers, and while I am firmly convinced that that is where the truly open social networks will end up bringing about, I don't think I have things polished enough to make the solution I offer scalable and successful for bloggers (yet). I also think lots of bloggers, even those that consider themselves professional bloggers, don't really see or believe in the value of what they have with their communities. They are too fixated on their own content, as evidenced by the fact that most everyone still uses traditional copyright licensing (in spite of the fact that such licensing is well on the path of obsolescence).

Anyway, my latest effort at determining how to package it is to call it a custom lead machine: you send the traffic to the social network I build for you, and out come leads.

I've started contacting companies to sell them this solution, and have learned a bit from the responses -- but more testing and feedback are needed. I've mapped out the new offer over at my site with my "other" identity -- the one I use when I psychologically enter the matrix. If you have any thoughts on how I've positioned it, or if you are interested in having your own custom lead machine, feel free to share your thoughts.