April Dunford @aprildunford Twitter profile | Pikagi

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April Dunford

@aprildunford

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Positioning for tech companies. Author - Sales Pitch, Obviously Awesome. Newsletter - Podcast -

Toronto

https://t.co/7jlnjX9xm8

Joined September 2007

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

5 years

My first job out of engineering school, I worked at a startup. We repositioned a product from a lightweight personal database to an embeddable database for mobile devices. Our growth exploded and we were acquired. My eyes were opened to the power of positioning. (thread) 1/

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

4 years

I think startups focus too much on pitching features of their product where they could be selling their point of view on the market. Your point of view describes why you prioritized features the way you did and why your product is the best solution for a certain type of buyer 1/

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

2 years

Product walkthrough demos generally suck (I've seen a lot of them). I think doing a good one is easy. Here's how I like to think about it - 1/13

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

3 years

Marketers - if catch yourself writing "One year ago our world changed forever..." in marketing emails, I recommend you step away from the keyboard, pour yourself a good stiff drink, and just re-connect with your human self.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

5 years

Hey former founders from wealthy families complaining that most startup advice is bad and folk need to "just take the risk" and start companies (when the biggest "risk" they ever took was the risk of mild ego bruising) - your advice is also bad.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

3 years

Sept 30 is my year end. My best salesperson (me), exceeded their quota by a lot, so my VP Sales (me) decided the whole company (me) gets to go to Quota Club this year. 💃💃

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

2 years

One neat positioning trick that most companies don't take advantage of is a good product diagram. These can be super-powerful if done well. Here are some examples (mainly good plus one not so good) for you to think about 1/

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

3 years

Understanding customer pain is not the same thing as understanding how a buyer makes a purchase decision.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

3 years

Customers can't tell us everything. They are experts in pain, not solutions. Customers don't understand our products better than we do. If marketing/sales aren't educating customers about differentiated value - customers won't necessarily discover it for you.

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April Dunford

4 years

Last week I had a handful of discussions on Segmentation vs Personas. These two get really muddled, particularly in startups. In my opinion startup folk spend way too much time on personas and not nearly enough time on segmentation 1/

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

4 years

I don't think startups should be trying to copy marketing strategies from giant category leaders. What they're doing now isn't what got them here.

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April Dunford

4 years

Every product has three types of competitors - the hoard (everyone else in your space) the giant (the big market leader), and the ghost (the status quo) and you have to beat all three 1/

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April Dunford

5 years

Unpopular opinion: Product Market Fit isn't a thing. I'm not even sure it's a useful concept for startups.

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April Dunford

4 years

If your offering isn't better than the alternatives, for any segment of the market - no marketing magic will fix your growth problems.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

4 years

Just had a Zoom call with a CEO in a suit (they're in Sweden) and let me tell you we have just let ourselves go over here.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

5 years

And today, for about the price of a beer (OK, 2 beers if you want a paperback), you can read the result of my years-long deep dive into the guts of how I believe startups should tackle positioning. I hope folks find it useful /end

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

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

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

5 years

In the past 2 years I've gone from being an occasional breakout speaker to a keynoter at small conferences to a keynoter at bigger ones. Yesterday I did a really big one and thought to myself - Hey April, you're still learning how to do new things.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

5 years

Sweet bouncing bananas look at this!!

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April Dunford

3 years

Words that marketers all use but almost never agree on what we mean when we say them: Strategy "Go to Market" "Demand Generation" Branding Positioning For a profession that's all about communication - we kind of suck at making ourselves understood.

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April Dunford

4 years

An unexpected side-benefit to grinding on with your work is that suddenly you are old and successful and kinda important and folks that wronged you in the past because they thought you didn't matter get to feel the impact of their douchiness because you always did in fact matter.

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April Dunford

4 years

I don't understand talented marketers that work for founders that don't treat them well. There are so many awesome teams out there and such a dire shortage of skilled folks.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

2 years

The most common positioning problem I see at B2B startups is misalignment. The founders, sales, marketing, product, all have slightly different views on competition, ideal customers, market category. This misalignment causes a bunch of problems 1/

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April Dunford

4 years

It's my birthday today and I'm celebrating by doing 9 back to back Zoom calls and eating nothing but donuts. How's your day going?

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April Dunford

2 years

Great software is opinionated - it has a built in point of view on how a problem should be solved. It's the job of marketing and sales to communicate that point of view in a compelling way for prospects.

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April Dunford

2 years

Sometimes I cross paths with marketing consultants that turn out to be such brazen swindlers I have to go walk around the block and contemplate whether or not there is any point in doing good work when so much absolute garbage goes unchallenged.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

2 years

Every non-marketer on the planet believes they are secretly a genius at writing taglines.

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April Dunford

3 years

Good morning! This is a reminder that bosses and companies can delight or disappoint you, but betting on yourself is always a good decision.

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April Dunford

2 years

The saddest thing in marketing is that there is advice that sounds so good but after you grind on it in the real world for years and discover it's wrong, there's often no way to warn folks. Sometimes a story is so compelling that the only argument against it is personal failure.

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

2 years

Great marketing is all about making your differentiated value obvious to buyers that care a lot about it. If there is no real differentiated value, marketing can't solve that.

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April Dunford

3 years

I think the most dangerous belief a B2B tech startup can have is that marketing alone can differentiate you from the alternatives in your space.

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April Dunford

4 years

Today I almost ran over a beaver in my kayak, which might be the most Canadian thing that's ever happened to me.

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April Dunford

2 years

Consumer marketers are often tapping into a range of emotions (status, self-worth, love, acceptance). In B2B, the grandaddy of emotions is fear. Fear of making a bad decision and the consequences of making a mistake. Fear of looking stupid. 1/

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April Dunford

3 years

I know amazing marketers that have done stints at unsuccessful companies. I've known terrible marketers working at very successful companies. You are not the company you work for (and neither are the folks you follow here).

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April Dunford

3 years

After I'd been a VP marketing through a couple of exits, I thought I was pretty smart. 2 companies after that I realized I didn't know what I didn't know. Be skeptical of what marketing folk tell you, particularly if it's an unqualified "Do this" vs a qualified "it depends"

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April Dunford

4 years

Sometimes your product gets used in ways you could never have imagined.

@DudeWhoCode

naren.io

4 years

Client: We don't want to spend time on UX. Our product is easy to use, anyone should underst... User:

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April Dunford

3 years

You're a startup. You don't need different value propositions for every market sub-segment you sell to and every persona on the buying team. I've built a lead pipeline generating hundreds of millions of revenue with 1 segment, 1 persona, 1 set of value props. You can too.

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April Dunford

3 years

I've been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between Vision, Strategy, and Positioning. I think sometimes in startups we get them mixed up or we think they are all the same. I think about it like this... 1/

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April Dunford

3 years

Charm is such an underrated business skill. Especially in tech where the bar is so low.

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April Dunford

4 years

A few thoughts on positioning in a downturn. Pay attention to what's changed for your buyers - a shift in their priorities could have a big impact on your unique value 1/

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April Dunford

2 years

What are the best books you've read on Storytelling for business? (Bonus points if the book is not Building a Storyband, Made to Stick, that Pixar book, or books on storytelling for Hollywood/scripts/novels/etc).

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April Dunford

3 years

Pour one out for the Spotify product manager yelling "We can't just change features everytime one customer asks us to!!"

@verge

The Verge

3 years

Spotify stops shuffling albums by default because Adele said so

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April Dunford

4 years

OK, little announcement: My book is on sale starting now for a sweet $0.99. Give one to a friend! Gift your co-workers! Suck up to your boss! Sale's over in 48 hours so get it while it's hot

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

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

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@aprildunford

April Dunford

4 years

Never meet your heros. Like, never.

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April Dunford

10 months

OMG it's book launch day!!! My new book Sales Pitch will give you a structure to help translate your positioning into a sales story that wins. 15 years in the making and today's the day!! 🎉🎉🎉

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Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win

Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win

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April Dunford

5 years

I got an email today that made me feel bad but then I filed it under "douche" and that made me feel better. Yay technology.

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April Dunford

4 years

I feel like today is a day where the marketing folk might want to pause the pre-scheduled tweets.

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April Dunford

2 years

Too much focus on vague personas, not enough focus on actionable market segmentation.

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April Dunford

3 years

Went to Banff for a week. Re-prioritized my life. Now I'm back home cleaning out my email backlog by responding "nope" to pretty much all of it. How's your week starting off?

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April Dunford

4 years

I may or may not be making this into a sticker. Would you like one? I'm testing the poo sticker market here...

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April Dunford

4 years

Your ideas need to stand up to criticism. You should feel grateful that anyone is paying enough attention to call bullshit on your stuff and give you the opportunity to either prove that you've really thought it through or go back and patch the holes to make it better.

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April Dunford

2 years

It's just me, on stage on Paris, talking about how buying B2B software is just like buying a toilet.

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April Dunford

3 years

Good morning to everyone except you folks that schedule your emails for Monday morning.

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April Dunford

3 years

Positioning isn't an expression of your vision, strategy or mission. It defines why and where you win the market today. Positioning is the foundation of everything we are doing in sales and marketing. Bringing too much of your vision/strategy into sales pitches is dangerous 1/

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April Dunford

3 years

Writing a book taught me there are 2 kinds of critics. Some respect the work + want it to be better. Others lack the guts to show their own work and jealously nit pick. 1's are medicine (tastes bad, good for the work). 2's are poison. Knowing the difference is hard but important

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April Dunford

3 years

Every restaurant wants me to scan a code to get the menu on my phone. None of those menus are readable on a phone.

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April Dunford

4 years

Google Calendar changed their icon and I can't find my calendar tab and I'm shocked at how unsettling this is.

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April Dunford

2 years

Saying "just talk to customers" feels like a lazy copout to me. Some companies think customers know everything about why their product is valuable. Some companies think they know everything about why their product is valuable for buyers. The reality is always in the middle. 1/

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April Dunford

2 years

I've noticed that lately when someone disagrees with something I say on Twitter, they immediately tag in a handful of guys that they hope will fight me on this point, instead of trying to make a counterargument themselves. It's a bummer because I like a good honest discussion.

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April Dunford

3 years

Studying your wins at a startup can teach you much more than looking at losses. Markets are crowded, the status quo has mega-gravity. There are so many reasons not to pick your product, it's amazing that anyone does. Understanding who loves your stuff and why is the key to growth

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April Dunford

3 years

Apparently nobody has kids anymore.

@bchesky

Brian Chesky

3 years

1. I think we’re on the verge of a revolution in travel

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April Dunford

3 years

We like to say "Just talk to your customers" like it's a cure for everything in marketing but it isn't. Customers are experts on their own pain. Their perceptions on solutions matter but they can and do change. This matters a lot for positioning work 1/

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April Dunford

4 years

The purpose of customer segmentation is to help marketing/sales know where to focus. Most of the segmentation stuff I see at startups is too broad or too vague to actually DO anything with it. "SMBs" is not a useful segmentation. Sales/Marketing can't use that to make decisions.

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April Dunford

4 years

Bad news: the flight is delayed. Good news: the airport wine bar is pouring, uh, generously.

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April Dunford

4 years

Working with a company this week where we spent some time talking about competitors that lie - or at least make claims that aren't entirely true. I have an opinion about one way to deal with that 1/

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April Dunford

1 year

Announcement - I'm launching a podcast, and the first episode drops Thursday. I'm so stoked! I'm going to go deep into the practical aspects of Positioning with examples and strategies. Trailer is here (spotify, Apple links in thread:

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Welcome to Positioning with April Dunford

Welcome to The Positioning Show with me, your host, April Dunford. I am the best-selling author of Obviously Awesome and a seasoned marketing professional wh...

www.youtube.com

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April Dunford

4 years

I feel like Ronaldo did when they unveiled that statue.

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April Dunford

2 years

Most LinkedIn posts feel like they could (should) be tweet-length. So much blah, blah. Plus spacing.

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April Dunford

4 years

I disagree with a lot of marketing frameworks/methodologies out there but the reality is that so many teams are running by gut feel alone that using anything that gets teams making deliberate choices is a win.

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April Dunford

3 years

Most of the weak go-to-market stuff I see isn't because the company's positioning is bad per se - it's because every senior person on the team has a slightly different interpretation of it.

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April Dunford

5 years

I figured positioning could be broken into parts - competitive alternatives, unique capabilities, differentiated value, target customers, market category - essentially the “blanks” of a positioning statement. Get the best answer for each and voila, you've got great positioning /8

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April Dunford

5 years

Positioning a product (or company) when you have no customers (or very few) is different from positioning after you have some traction. New companies should keep it loose, but once you have some traction you need to tighten it up (thread) 1/

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April Dunford

3 years

You give them an award. Everyone wants an award. Companies display them. Execs love them, marketing loves them. Your buyer just won "Development innovators of the year" - nobody in legal will say no to the press release, case study, that goes with that. Everyone wins /end

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April Dunford

3 years

About once a week I log on to LinkedIn and....that's more than enough.

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April Dunford

2 years

This week I'm thinking about positioning, B2B complex deals, and personas. If we have multiple folks involved in making a purchase decision - do we need different positioning for each persona? How do we handle that in our marketing? I have opinions about this 1/

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April Dunford

4 years

Keep doing your best work and eventually you will be recognized and rewarded for it. Didn't work until I was the only person responsible for doling out the rewards and recognition. Thanks, me.

@lennysan

Lenny Rachitsky

4 years

Ok, so what’s the *worst* advice you got in your 20s?

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April Dunford

3 years

Since yesterday I keep thinking about this. The worst company culture I ever experienced was the one where the CEO spent the most time talking about the great company culture he was building.

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April Dunford

3 years

Positioning your product as "the new stuff" and everything else as "the old stuff" is often too simplistic to convince customers. "New" often isn't inherently valuable. If it is, you'll soon find yourself scrambling as new competitors move into your space and you're the old news

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April Dunford

4 years

There are 2 main reasons you want to get your positioning solid. 1) It helps your sales and marketing teams understand where to focus and 2) It gives customers an easily understandable framework for making choices 1/

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April Dunford

4 years

@jasonfried My experience is that as an employee, the more exits you've been through (6 in my case), the more you get how rare a payout for employees is (even when the exit is huge). There are so many ways you can lose (dilution, pref shares, lockup, swaps, asset sales + plain ol' fuckery).

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April Dunford

4 years

Amazon has selected my book for a "Kindle daily deal" - if you've been on the fence, TODAY is the day to grab a copy for a sweet $1 (in the U.S. store only). Do it now, this won't be here tomorrow.

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

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

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April Dunford

4 years

I'm amazed at how much I can accomplish now that I'm not flying around every week. I can't imagine ever going back to flying the way I did pre-covid. Do you think we will ever go back to flying like we once did? Or is this just a blip?

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April Dunford

5 years

If you are a single product startup your company name sould be the same as the product name, even if you think you will launch other products later. Building one brand is hard enough.

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April Dunford

3 years

Sometimes I worry that B2B marketers are mainly excited about product-led growth because they can't be bothered to figure out how to work effectively with sales.

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April Dunford

4 years

I've been thinking a lot about positioning and how it relates to storytelling and messaging. Folks often confuse the two but they are NOT the same. Starting with storytelling without working on positioning first is dangerous 1/

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April Dunford

2 years

Happy Friday Twitter! You asked for it - here are my top 10 threads on Positioning 1/

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April Dunford

2 years

Some days it's easy to think that people kinda suck but then other days you get a note from someone like Dave who's just out there quietly being a force of goodness.

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April Dunford

2 years

Startups often avoid talking about competitors because they a) don't want to call attention to other alternatives, or b) don't want to be seen as trashing the competition. Those reasons make sense but it's possible to position against alternatives in a way customers appreciate 1/

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April Dunford

5 years

My whole life has been a lie.

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April Dunford

3 years

A CEO sent me an email thanking me for a call we did last week and my "good vibes." This is now my main Zoom call goal - I aspire to be a dispenser of GOOD VIBES!

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April Dunford

4 years

This year I'm doing socially distanced Halloween - the kids stand out in the street and I'm going to pelt them with candy from my doorstep. It's going to be the most fun I've had since lockdown.

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April Dunford

2 years

Partnerships. Rarely worth the pain.

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April Dunford

3 years

This was a really good day.

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April Dunford

3 years

"It's also a huge windfall for the founders of Mailchimp, which opted for profit-sharing instead of stock-based compensation for employees" - Actually no, it's a windfall for the founders because they didn't give 90% of their ownership away to investors.

@axios

Axios

3 years

JUST IN: Mailchimp has been acquired by Intuit for $12 billion — the biggest-ever deal for a privately-held bootstrapped company, as Mailchimp took no outside funding since its 2001 founding.

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April Dunford

2 years

It's my birthday and I'm having a BIRTHDAY BOOK SALE. To celebrate my 99th birthday, the Obviously Awesome ebook is only 99 cents (yeah, I look incredible for my age). 48 hours only so get on it.

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

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

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April Dunford

3 years

Me: I need a new computer with more guts. My kid: I built you this. Me: Maybe overkill for the gal that just builds presentations all day....

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April Dunford

2 years

Your product isn't better because it's new. It's better because it delivers value for a buyer's business that the other solutions can't. "Newness" in itself isn't valuable.

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April Dunford

10 months

Not bad for a book that doesn't get released until next week 🎉

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April Dunford

3 years

Folks tell me you can't do creative things in B2B tech marketing and then there's @getpostman blowing my mind with a graphic novel that explains their #positioning .

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The API-First World Postman Graphic Novel

At Postman, we believe the future will be built with APIs. The API-First World graphic novel tells the story of how and why the API-first world is coming to be.

api-first-world.com

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April Dunford

4 years

A little positioning example on the front page of my Sunday NYT. A lot of companies claim they are #1 at something but they don't bring the proof and they don't dare name the others. Great positioning gives customers a way to think about the entire market (not just you).

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April Dunford

3 years

Hahaha - seen this more than once

@AndrewAllsop

Andrew Allsop

3 years

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