Attention CEOs: Think twice before changing your category.

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Somewhere along the way, companies started believing growth comes from sounding broader. More capabilities. More buzzwords. More “platform” language.

So the cybersecurity company becomes a “digital resilience ecosystem.” The software company becomes an “AI-powered experience orchestration layer.” And suddenly nobody knows what you actually do.

Here’s the problem: The market rewards clarity, not confusion. Every time you change your category, the market perceives it as a pivot.

Customers start wondering: “Wait, I thought they did something else?” Prospects hesitate because they are no longer sure if you are built for their problem. Even your own team starts struggling to explain the company consistently.

There are also real consequences to category change in the AI era. LLMs, search engines and recommendation systems rely on consistent market signals to understand who you are and what you do. If your positioning constantly shifts, you weaken your discoverability. You stop showing up clearly for the category you originally owned. You confuse the algorithms the same way you confuse buyers. The companies winning in AI discovery are the ones with repeated, consistent association to a specific problem and outcome.

Positioning should make you easier to find, not harder to understand. And this is why PR is so critical. PR is how you become known in your market and build trust, but poor positioning and constant category shifts kill good PR. Trust erodes. Every category shift is like PR starting all over again.

The companies that win are usually known for one thing first. The thing they do exceptionally well. The thing customers repeat to other people without needing a slide deck to explain it.

Your best revenue growth often comes from doubling down on the thing customers already trust you for:

– The problem you solve better than competitors

– The outcome you consistently deliver

– The reputation you’ve already earned in the market

You can always expand later. But first, own something. Because if the market can’t quickly answer: “What do they do?” You’ve already lost attention.