#201 April Dunford: Perfecting Your Product's Positioning

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish

What if people aren’t buying your product or service because their idea of what it does is wrong?

In this episode, Shane asks April Dunford to reveal all her secrets about what makes good and bad product positioning, how a startup should differ in its communications from a big company, and the difference between B2B and B2C positioning. Dunford also shares how a startup can better identify pain points their customers face, how to write the best sales page copy, and the best way to objectively evaluate a product’s positioning.

If you’re an executive at a company, this episode will make you reflect on your current marketing and sales pipelines and ask, “Are we doing this right?” If you’re a designer, engineer, or marketer at a company, this episode will teach you the secrets to selling a product that will help get you promoted and earn trust within your organization.

Dunford spent the first 25 years of her career as a startup executive running marketing, product, and sales teams positioning products acquired by companies like IBM and Siebel Systems. Since then, she’s worked with over 200 companies as a consultant, developing a system to better position technology products and companies. She studied Engineering at the University of Waterloo and is most recently the author of Sales Pitch.

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(00:00) Intro

(02:07) Positioning, explained

(16:47) Why is positioning important?

(20:40) B2B vs. B2C positioning

(29:03) When re-positioning a product failed

(32:31) How to identify customer's pain points

(34:35) How to position a product on a sales page

(38:06) How technology has changed positioning

(41:40) How to evaluate product positioning

(45:43) Who's in charge of positioning at a company?

(50:27) On storytelling

(56:35) Should a company have a point of view on the market?

(1:00:21) Dealing with gatekeepers in B2B marketing

(1:03:02) Mistakes people make with positioning

(1:05:21) What schools get wrong about marketing

(1:08:59) Secrets of B2B decision-making

(1:11:18) On success