Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

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

June 9, 2022

AI Summary

5 min read

April Dunford explains product positioning as defining how your offering is the best at delivering specific value that certain companies prioritize, including alternatives, differences, target customers, and market category. Drawing from her experience repositioning products at startups and consulting for over 200 B2B tech firms, she outlines practical steps to identify issues, align teams, and craft narratives that clarify value for buyers.

Spotting positioning problems

Weak positioning shows up across the sales funnel: low marketing response because prospects don't grasp the offering, mid-pipeline sluggishness where sales reps need multiple calls for the "lightbulb" moment, or high churn when users realize expectations don't match. Listen to initial sales calls for signs like confusion ("Back up and pitch again"), miscomparison to wrong competitors ("You're just like Salesforce"), or dismissed value ("I can do that in a spreadsheet"). Misalignment across founder, marketing, sales, product, and customer success teams often amplifies these, as each group interprets the story differently without shared agreement.

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What you'll learn

1 `* (00:04) **Intro and April's Background**`
2 `* (06:27) **Signs of Positioning Problems**`
3 `* (10:58) **What Positioning Is and Why It Matters**`
4 `* (20:32) **Positioning Process: Step-by-Step**`
5 `* (25:59) **Help Scout Case Study**`
6 `* (30:07) **Workshop Output and Sales Narrative**`
7 `* (33:08) **Customer Buying Process and Justification**`

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

April Dunford is the author of the best-selling book Obviously Awesome, a definitive guide to product positioning. She spent 25 years leading marketing, product, and sales teams and now runs her own consulting firm, helping companies of all shapes and sizes nail their positioning. April has worked hands-on with over 200 companies on positioning, including Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games.

In today’s episode, you’ll learn:

1. How does April define positioning?

2. How do you assess if your product’s positioning is weak? And strong?

3. What are some examples of great products with weak positioning?

4. What are the essential five steps to figuring out your product’s positioning?

5. What is the difference between positioning vs. messaging vs. branding?

6. What’s the difference between segmentation and persona?

7. When should you bring in a professional?

8. Is it essential for a company to always figure out a differentiator and be different?

9. How does this concept help you nail sales for enterprise software?

Where to find April:

Website: https://aprildunford.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford

Book: Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It

April’s guest post: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning

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Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:

• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/

• Flatfile: https://flatfile.com/Lenny

• Productboard: https://Productboard.com/

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