| name | positioning |
| description | Run April Dunford's positioning process (Obviously Awesome). Use when positioning or repositioning a product, feature, or company; choosing a market category; writing a homepage hero, one-liner, or elevator pitch; defining competitive alternatives and differentiators; or when symptoms of weak positioning appear - confused prospects, long sales cycles, price pressure, fast churn. |
Positioning (Obviously Awesome)
When to use
Run this whenever you are defining or revising how a product/company is framed: category choice, hero copy, one-liner, pitch, competitive narrative. Also run it diagnostically when any weak-positioning symptom appears: current customers love it but new prospects can't figure out what it is; long sales cycles and low close rates; fast churn shortly after purchase; constant price pressure. Any one symptom means suspect the frame before the product.
The procedure
Mandatory ordering constraint: never run the chain backwards. Alternatives -> unique attributes -> value -> who cares -> market category -> (optional trend). Starting from features, a persona, or a category you picked at inception is how bad positioning happens. Each step's output is the next step's input.
- Start from the customers who love the product. List best-fit customers only: understood it fast, bought fast, didn't haggle, refer others. They define what the product actually is. If there aren't enough happy customers yet, stop — keep positioning deliberately broad and loose, sell wide, and wait for patterns. Don't tighten pre-product-market-fit.
- Assemble the deciders. Positioning is business strategy, not a marketing deliverable: the business owner must drive it, with one or two senior people per function (marketing, sales, product, success). Solo founder or agent-run? Fine — just make sure the output binds roadmap and pricing, not only copy.
- Name and drop the baggage. State explicitly how the product has always been framed ("we set out to build X, so we are X"). Customers carry none of that history. Get agreement to suspend it for the exercise.
- List true competitive alternatives. Ask: "what would our best customers do if we didn't exist?" Include spreadsheets, an intern, "nothing." Exclude rivals customers have never heard of, however closely you watch them. Rank by how common; cluster into 2-5 groups.
- Isolate unique attributes — with proof. Only capabilities the alternatives lack, and only what you can prove (data, third-party reviews, approved customer quotes — your own opinion is not proof). "Easy to use" without evidence doesn't count. Prefer consideration attributes (drive the buy) over retention attributes (drive renewal).
- Map attributes to value themes. For each attribute, ask "so what?" repeatedly until you reach a goal the customer already has (feature -> benefit -> value). Cluster into 1-4 themes. Positioning fronts the most critical value; it is not a feature catalog.
- Determine who cares a lot. Segment by easily identifiable traits that predict loving the value — tools they already use, how they sell, skills they lack — not demographics. Target as narrowly as possible while still covering near-term sales goals (sizing test: deals needed this year vs. companies in the segment). The segment must also have a specific, important, unmet need.
- Choose the market category — then the style. The category is a frame that silently sets assumed competitors, expected features, and price band; pick the frame where your strengths are assumed, not explained. Find candidates by abduction ("what kind of product has these features?"), adjacent fast-growing markets, and (cautiously) customer suggestions. Then pick one of the three styles (see reference below).
- Optionally layer a trend. Only on an already-clear category, only with a real product link. A trend says why now, never what you are.
- Capture it on the positioning canvas (fields below), then operationalize: sales story arc (problem -> today's gaps -> perfect world -> product-in-category -> value themes -> proof -> ask), one master messaging document to prevent drift, and roadmap + pricing realigned to the category. Recheck every 6 months or on landscape events (credible competitor, regulation, economic swing, tech shift, taste shift) — re-enter at step 4. What matters is customer perception of the change, not the change itself.
Rules and quick reference
Three market-category styles — pick the fight you can win:
| Style | When to use | The work |
|---|
| Head to Head (win the existing market) | You are the leader, or the category has no clear leader yet | Leaders reinforce current buying criteria; challengers prove superiority on those criteria with hard evidence. Needs speed and usually funding. |
| Big Fish, Small Pond (win a subsegment) — the default for small players | Clear leader that isn't you + an identifiable, listable group with a specific, important, unmet need you serve far better | Educate the subsegment on how the general-purpose leader fails them; still meet the category's baseline criteria; expand later. |
| Create a New Game (new category) | Last resort: no existing category can center your differentiators, or you have big money and patience | Sell the problem first, define the criteria, answer "why now?" — all at once. Fast-followers steal ill-defended categories. |
Positioning canvas (one page, in order): product name + one-line description; market category (+ subcategory); competitive alternatives; unique attributes; value (what the attributes enable); who cares a lot.
Trend-layering rules:
- Trend != category. Category answers "what are you"; trend answers "why now."
- Never a trend without a declared market ("Uber for cats" fails; "a marketplace for pet services, riding the sharing economy" works).
- Never a trend without a genuine product link (Long Blockchain: renamed, spiked, delisted).
- No fitting trend? Skip it. "Better a little boring than completely baffling."
Guardrails:
- Positioning is not spin: if the new frame can't survive a demo, it's the wrong frame (step 5's proof discipline is the check).
- Niche-down fear is usually wrong, but always run the sizing math.
- Category creation is seductively overrated; if any existing category can host your strengths, use it.
- Put the 6-month check-in on the calendar — the canvas rots quietly, and the new positioning becomes the new baggage.
Translating beyond sales-led B2B
The book assumes post-traction, salesperson-mediated B2B. Translate accordingly:
- PLG / self-serve / consumer / content-led: the "sales story arc" becomes the landing-page narrative, onboarding flow, and launch post — same order (problem -> gaps -> perfect world -> product-in-category -> value themes), different medium.
- Pre-product-market-fit: the process needs happy customers to pattern-match on. At day zero, keep positioning loose and broad; don't force the workshop.
- No facilitator needed: a disciplined leader (or agent) with the component definitions gets most of the value; the outside-facilitator advice is partly the author selling facilitation.
- Not covered by the method — plan separately: pricing mechanics beyond "match the category's expectations," naming/branding, and quantitative validation that new positioning is working. Define your own success metrics (close rate, cycle length, churn, discount frequency — the inverse of the four symptoms).
Source
Compiled from Obviously Awesome — April Dunford (2019). The skill is the procedure; the book carries the depth (worked examples, edge cases, the author's reasoning). If this stage is where your venture lives right now, buy and read it.
