Positioning with April Dunford

Learn how to effectively position your sales pitch by starting with a unique insight about the market. Understand why it's crucial to emphasize the differentiated value of your product or service. Discover the significance of starting with insight in marketing campaigns and how it leads to natural discovery conversations. Explore how the storytelling arc can be used in various marketing activities to effectively communicate a message.

In this podcast, April Dunford discusses the different forms of qualification and BANT criteria in sales. She emphasizes the importance of discovery in the first sales call and how it helps buyers and sellers learn more about each other. April also shares her unique sales pitch structure and gives examples, including one from LevelJump. Don't miss the opportunity to pre-order her book, Sales Pitch, on Amazon.

Positioning for startups and big companies, distinguishing between marketing and positioning problems, handling positioning after an acquisition, and aligning positioning strategy in a cross-functional team.

Bob Moesta, co-creator of Jobs To Be Done framework, discusses the importance of context in product design. They share the famous milkshake story and how it led to a new category of yogurt smoothies. They emphasize the need to understand why people buy something rather than convincing them to buy. Positioning should guide customers in buying, not selling. The chapter also delves into the evolution of Intercom's positioning and the importance of building a product that fits customer needs.

Learn how to avoid bad marketing and sales by understanding that your product is only a part of your business. Discover the importance of a formal positioning process and crafting a great marketing and sales strategy. Understand the core of sales and marketing, which is knowing your differentiated value. Find out how to build a compelling story for your positioning and sales team.

Learn how to discern good marketing and sales advice by not blindly following popular trends, but instead carving your own path. Discover the limitations of traditional marketing education and the importance of figuring out what works for you. Hear the entertaining story of a fax machine campaign that became a top-performing initiative. Gain insights on deciphering good vs bad marketing advice and why it's crucial to be careful in the advice you give.

Today I explore developing a point of view for your business. I cover: How to build your company’s points of view What to do if you don’t know your point of view Two examples from IBM and Sampler Why features don’t matter, value does How to apply this to your sales and marketing — If you want to skip ahead: (00:00) How to develop a point of view for your business (03:07) How Sampler built a point of view for their market (06:20) What if you don’t know your point of view (09:00) Why features don’t matter (10:11) How IBM handled its own point of view (15:15) How to apply point of view in sales and marketing (17:38) Thanks for listening — Where To Find April Dunford: Podcast Website: https://www.positioning.show/  Personal Website: https://www.aprildunford.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprildunford/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford — Referenced: Sampler https://www.sampler.io/  — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/

Today I dive into what to do with your positioning once you’ve nailed it. I cover: • How to capture positioning • How positioning makes its way into messaging • Why you should create a messaging document and what ends up happening if you don’t • What the market needs in order to understand our differentiated value • How to go from positioning to branding • How to take boilerplate messaging and apply it globally — If you want to skip ahead: (00:00) How to put your new positioning to use (01:00) A quick recap of building and testing your positioning (02:48) The messaging document (05:00) Messaging drift (06:13) The contents of the messaging document (07:24) Who should own the messaging document (08:03) How changes should be approached (12:38) Helping customers understand your POV (15:08) LevelJump’s calculator example (17:27) Postman example (19:50) How to go from positioning to branding (24:10) How to take boilerplate messaging and apply it globally (27:34) Proof of value and the importance of local proof (28:46) An example where core positioning varied regionally (30:11) Thanks for listening — Where To Find April Dunford: Podcast Website: https://www.positioning.show/ Personal Website: https://www.aprildunford.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprildunford/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford — Referenced: • LevelJump: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/leveljump • Postman: https://www.postman.com/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/

I sat down with Nick Francis, the Co-Founder and CEO of Help Scout. A few years ago I worked directly with Nick and his team to tighten up their positioning and brought him on to share their story. Together we discuss: • What the positioning of Help Scout looked like during the early days • How their positioning evolved over time • Why they utilized outside help • How he took the sales narrative he worked on with me and turned it into a pitch • How their strategy has changed as they’ve moved upmarket — In This Episode, I Cover: (00:00) About my guest, Nick Francis (02:05) The origin story of Help Scout (04:50) How Techstars informed their messaging early on (06:00) How they differentiated themselves from other help desk companies (08:28) Where early inbound customers came from (09:58) Copycat competitors, and how Help Scout thinks about competition (11:57) Identifying key differentiators (13:20) Why they decided to bring in outside help (me) and what they learned (15:29) The evolution of their sales pitch (18:42) Why you should always test your sales pitch first (20:27) Who was responsible for building the sales pitch (21:24) Signals it was time to revisit the pitch (24:58) The future of Help Scout (26:27) How the product itself reinforces their positioning (28:42) How their strategy has changed as they’ve moved upmarket (30:17) Why positioning is so important — Where To Find April Dunford: Podcast Website: https://www.positioning.show/ Personal Website: https://www.aprildunford.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprildunford/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford — Where To Find Nick Francis: Website: http://nickfranc.is/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickfrancis1/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickfrancis?lang=en — Referenced: • Help Scout: https://www.helpscout.com/ • Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/ • David Cohen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgcohen/ • Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com/ • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/ • Front: https://front.com/ Production and marketing by https://penname.co/

Today we continue our conversation on translating your positioning into a sales pitch. You’ll learn: • Popular pitch structures (discovery-led, problem-solution, venture-informed) and where they fall short • Common problems to avoid when crafting your sales pitch • Why the “new way” doesn’t necessarily beat the “old way” • How focusing on the future of your product can backfire • What conventional storytelling techniques can teach you about pitching • A tried and true storytelling structure that works for sales pitches — In This Episode, I Cover: (00:00) Sales pitches and product walkthroughs (05:35) The discovery-led sales pitch (08:35) The problem-solution sales pitch (10:26) The venture-informed sales pitch (13:22) Old way vs new way (16:33) No decision losses (17:43) Takeaways from the standard pitch structures we’ve covered (18:29) Conventional storytelling: where it does and does not work (22:23) The IBM sales pitch structure (the challenger sales methodology) (25:23) How to start your pitch and the vital components to include (28:50) My upcoming book — Where To Find April Dunford: Podcast Website: https://www.positioning.show/ Personal Website: https://www.aprildunford.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprildunford/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford — Referenced: • Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen: https://www.amazon.com/Building-StoryBrand-Clarify-Message-Customers/dp/0718033329/ • Star Wars: https://www.starwars.com/ • Matt Dixon on The Positioning Show: https://www.positioning.show/overcoming-customer-indecision-and-challenging-conventional-sales-wisdom-with-matt-dixon/ — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/