Obviously Awesome Positioning Method
Build positioning from alternatives, differentiation, value, customers, and context.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 99%
The method builds positioning in a fixed causal order. Start with the alternatives a buyer would use if the product did not exist, including the status quo and products on the shortlist. Compare against those alternatives to identify capabilities only your product or company has. Translate each capability into its customer value, then cluster the results into two or three differentiated value themes. Next, identify the account characteristics that make those themes unusually important, producing a best-fit customer definition. Finally, choose the market category or context that makes the value obvious to that customer. April recommends doing the work with product, marketing, sales, customer success, and senior leadership together, then turning the agreed positioning into a sales narrative that can be tested with qualified prospects.
Origin
April Dunford developed the methodology while repeatedly repositioning B2B technology products across seven startups, six of which were acquired. She later refined it through work with roughly 200 companies and documented it in her book Obviously Awesome.
Core principles
- 01Position against what customers would actually do or buy, not just look-alike products
- 02Derive value from capabilities competitors lack instead of brainstorming generic benefits
- 03Define the customers who care most about the differentiated value
- 04Choose a market context that makes the differentiated value obvious
- 05Build positioning with the functions that must execute it
How to run it
- 1
Assemble the positioning team
Bring product, marketing, sales, customer success, the CEO, and any other relevant executive into the exercise. Their combined customer and product knowledge is needed, and joint participation creates the alignment required for adoption.
Pro tip Use a facilitator when strong executive opinions prevent the group from reaching agreement.
Watch out Positioning created by one department and handed to everyone else is unlikely to stick.
- 2
Name the competitive alternatives
List what a customer must stop using or reject for you to win. Include both the status quo, such as spreadsheets, pen and paper, or interns, and the products that normally appear on the buyer's shortlist.
Pro tip Ask what you must beat to win the deal rather than which companies look most like you.
Watch out Ignoring the status quo misses the alternative behind many B2B no-decision losses.
- 3
Inventory differentiated capabilities
Compare your product and company against the alternatives. Record the features, functions, pricing, services, and other capabilities you have that those alternatives do not.
Pro tip Include company-level advantages such as professional services, not only product features.
Watch out Do not call a capability differentiated unless the named alternatives genuinely lack it.
- 4
Translate capabilities into value
For each differentiated capability, ask why a customer cares and what useful outcome it enables. Group the answers into two or three coherent value themes.
Pro tip Use the repeated question 'So what?' to move from feature language to customer value.
Watch out Brainstorming why people love the product without tying the answers to differentiation produces generic benefits.
- 5
Define best-fit customers
Identify the characteristics of accounts that make them care intensely about the differentiated value. These characteristics become the practical definition of the target customer.
Pro tip Look for observable conditions that distinguish customers who consistently respond well to the pitch.
Watch out A company can have the relevant problem without valuing your particular advantages.
- 6
Choose the market context
Select the market category or frame in which the product's differentiated value is easiest for the target customer to understand. Use the prior choices to judge the category instead of choosing a fashionable label first.
Pro tip Prefer the context that makes the value feel obvious to qualified buyers.
Watch out Starting with a category and working backward gives no reliable test of whether the category is useful.
- 7
Build and test the sales narrative
Document the five positioning components, storyboard the story, and turn it into a pitch, demo, deck, or script. Test that narrative with qualified prospects and use their response to assess whether the positioning works.
Pro tip Have marketing and sales turn the storyboard into the working pitch together.
Watch out If sales cannot tell the agreed story, representatives will improvise their own positioning.
In the wild
Help Scout competes with Zendesk, other service tools, email, and shared inboxes. Its differentiated capabilities emphasize personal, high-quality service rather than ticket numbers and low-cost deflection. Those capabilities map to deeper customer relationships and loyalty. Direct-to-consumer and e-commerce companies care strongly because service is one of their few direct customer interactions. Help Scout can therefore frame customer success as a growth driver, while positioning alternatives as tools built around a cost-center model.
→ The positioning gives qualified buyers a clear reason to prefer Help Scout and supplies sales with a coherent narrative.
Common mistakes
Brainstorming value from opinions
Asking a room why people love the product produces unranked opinions. Starting from competitive alternatives ensures the resulting value is differentiated.
Treating only look-alikes as competitors
B2B buyers also compare the product with doing nothing, spreadsheets, manual work, and other status-quo approaches. Those alternatives must be beaten too.
Stopping at the positioning document
A document creates conceptual agreement but does not teach the company how to tell the story. The positioning must be converted into a pitch that sales and other teams can use.
Is it for you?
Best for
B2B product teams with customer evidence that need alignment on how to compete, whom to target, and what story sales should tell.
Not ideal for
A pre-launch product with too little market evidence to support tightly defined positioning.
From the episode
April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process