April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process

Steps of positioning: - scope competitive alternatives: status quo and shortlist - chart out differentiating capabilities- translate them into values: so what - theme/bucket the values 2 or 3 - chart the characteristics target account- what market category or context I am in

Example of positioning: Helpscout great product, in a terrible market among zendesk. The value they had delivering human amazing services. They have to go to the people who really care about customer service and loyalty rather than companies' low-cost call centres, who see customers as a number.

The below highlights are the content of B2b positioning.

It is hard to get - people always do not understand or they say they get it and it is totally wrong.. like you are salesforce! no. Or worse - yeah I understand but why would we pay for that! sign of weak positioning.

status quo: 30% of deals are lost due to indecision. excel sheets, interns, pen and paper you have to position towards those too. win against alternatives.

Personas are people, sales reps who are the end-user, Eric the IT person, and Janet the sales rep, John the champion in the account (the most important).

"Positioning seems to be important folks, if wrong everything sucks, if get it right we make a bunch of money "

I wish there was a KPI for this but weird positioning affects you in all the areas. Like all the metrics might be bad. Your sales might be great but still, all metrics might suck.

After positioning is done, then it does not finish. the next is telling the story, so sales can use it.