Years ago, I wanted to write for the Sunday New York Times Book Review. An editor there liked my writing and offered to give me a chance. On the phone, he asked what kind of books I reviewed.

I thought the honest answer would impress him. I had been a director at a large book wholesaler, and had helped them sell over a billion dollars’ worth of books. As a part of my job, then, I had a working knowledge of nearly every book on the market.

So I said, “I review any type of book.” I was waiting for excitement. Maybe even awe. Instead, there was a pause.

Then the editor spoke to me with great sarcasm, slowly, as if I were four years old: “Mark, I have an index card here with your name and address on it. There’s a spot at the top for me to write the type of book you review. If I write ‘Reviews any type of book,’ I will never call you. Do you know why?” I didn’t.

“Because publishers don’t publish books in the category of ‘Any type of book.’”

At least I was quick on the uptake. I asked him what kinds of books he had the fewest reviewers for.

He paused, gathering a list in his head. “Sports and . . . “

“Stop,” I said. “I review sports books.”

And just like that, the totality of me was reduced to one thing. Sports books. Not because it captured everything I knew, but because it fit on the card. It gave him a reason to remember me and a reason to call.

Once you notice this kind of reduction, you see it everywhere.

The other day, I was in a pizza place. A waitress was talking to a woman about a former boyfriend. She referred to him as “the lasagna guy.” Later, two customers nearby were talking. One mentioned his son and called him “a baseball kid.”

This is how people think and talk in the wild.

The full complexity of the boyfriend was compressed into his love of lasagna. The entire inner life of the boy was shrunk down to baseball. There was no cruelty in it. No nuance either. Just fast shorthand.

This is how buyers think, too.

They don’t slowly assemble a complete picture of your company, or hold your full range of capabilities in their heads. They grab the first usable handle they can find, and they use that to decide whether you’re relevant and worth another conversation.

Understand that I’m not arguing for reduction as a virtue. All I’m say is reduction happens whether you like it or not.

Which is why the distinction between pigeonholing and positioning is important.

Pigeonholing is what happens when someone else does the reducing for you. Positioning is when you decide, in advance, which reduction you’re willing to live with.

The mistake I made with the Book Review was thinking that breadth was impressive. In business, breadth is usually invisible. Specificity is what gets you called back.

Good positioning doesn’t try to describe everything you do. It chooses the thing people can name. The thing they can repeat to a colleague. The thing that fits on the metaphorical index card.