Stop Competing on "Better" ,
Win by Reframing the Category

April Dunford

Author, Obviously Awesome
Positioning Consultant · 200+ B2B companies

POSITIONING

Definition

What Positioning Actually Is

"Positioning defines how your product is the best in the world at delivering some value that a well-defined set of companies care a lot about."

5 components: alternatives, differentiation, value, who cares, market category
Not just a tagline, it's the foundation every other go-to-market decision rests on
When positioning is wrong, everything looks broken: marketing, sales, churn
Most companies have weak positioning from misalignment, not ignorance

Framework

April's 5-Part Positioning Process

200+

B2B companies repositioned

VP Marketing roles held

6/7

startups acquired

Step 1, Competitive Alternatives

What would a customer do if you didn't exist? This sets the real benchmark, it's often a spreadsheet, not a named competitor.

Step 2, Differentiated Capabilities

Only list features you have that alternatives genuinely lack. Avoid "we're better", be specific about what's structurally different.

Step 3–5, Value → ICP → Category

Map each differentiator to a business outcome, identify who values that outcome most, then name the market category you intend to win.

April's rule Positioning is a team sport. Marketing, sales, product, CS, and the CEO must all be in the room, or the output won't stick.

Playbook

From Positioning to Sales Narrative: The Help Scout Blueprint

Real alternative: Help Scout competes with shared email inboxes and Zendesk, not each other. Know which fight you're in.
Unique capability: Human-first service design, no ticket numbers, no bot pretending to be a person, no low-cost channel pushing.
Value: Customer service as a growth driver, not a cost center, deeper loyalty, more repeat buying.
ICP: D2C and e-commerce brands where support is the only real customer touchpoint.
Sales narrative opens with the insight: "Modern e-commerce sees customer success as a growth driver." Stats first, category context second, product third.

"The best thing we could do is say, 'Look, buddy, there's lots of CRMs out there, let me tell you how this market shakes out… and here's why you should pick us.' We need to make that customer feel comfortable they've made a good decision."

The workshop output

First: a positioning document with all 5 components locked. Second: a storyboard that becomes a pitch deck, demo, and script, tested live with qualified prospects.

Why the narrative matters

If sales can't tell the story, they'll make something up. A shared narrative means marketing, sales, product, CS, and the CEO all sing the same song.

The 40% problem

40% of B2B deals end in "no decision." When buyers can't justify the choice to their boss, they default to the spreadsheet. Your positioning must arm them with the reason.

Diagnosis

How to Know Your Positioning Is Broken

Prospects say "Can you just start from the beginning?" after the pitch, confusion signal
"Oh, you're just like Salesforce", they've mapped you to the wrong category
"I get it, I just don't know why anyone would pay for that", value is invisible
Deals close but churn fast, you're attracting the wrong ICP
Weak positioning spreads: sluggish top of funnel, long mid-funnel, and post-sale churn, all at once

April's first move as VP Marketing Sit in on initial sales calls. You'll hear the positioning failure in real time, faster than any dashboard.

Most common root cause It's rarely "no positioning." It's that the founder has it right, but sales, marketing, and product each have a slightly different version.

Contrarian

April's Counterintuitive Positioning Takes

✗ Good positioning = a catchy tagline or slogan INSTEAD → ✓ Positioning is an internal strategic document, the tagline is a downstream output. Confusing the two is why most taglines are useless.

✗ You can win by being "better" than the incumbent INSTEAD → ✓ "Better" is not a position. You must articulate better how, for whom, and why no one else can match it. Vague superiority loses to brand recognition every time.

✗ Positioning is marketing's job to figure out alone INSTEAD → ✓ If only marketing writes the positioning and "heaves it over the wall," the rest of the company ignores it. Sales, product, CS, and the CEO must co-create it to make it stick.

✗ Great positioning feels bold and provocative INSTEAD → ✓ Great positioning feels obvious. When you nail it, customers say "Well of course that's what it is, what else could it be?" The best proof it's working is that it sounds simple.