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The argument for treating positioning as iterative and cross-functional rather than a one-time launch decision, which is what separates companies that keep it sharp from ones whose story rots. Also the case for reframing a market instead of accepting its boundaries.

Everything You Know About Positioning Is Wrong

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford ~8 min read

• Positioning dates to Jack Trout in 1969 and the Ries and Trout book, written for an era of scarce channels.
• Digital changed three things: buyers now gather data outside the company, feedback arrives in hours not months, and market boundaries keep moving.
• So positioning has to be iterative and cross-functional (product plus market), not a one-time marketing exercise.

The method behind the talks, with a Positioning Canvas you can actually run a session against. Short enough to finish in a weekend, which matters if you are the founder doing this yourself.

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

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford Short book

The cleanest statement of the boundary you are asking about: positioning is the input, and messaging, taglines and branding are all things that happen after it. Read this before you let anyone book a messaging workshop.

An Introduction to Positioning

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford 10 min read

• Positioning has five components: competitive alternatives, differentiated capabilities, value, target segment, and market category.
• Positioning is not messaging, a tagline, a brand story, or a mission statement.
• The category sets the expectations: the same features are judged differently as email than as chat.
• It works like an opening scene in a film, telling the buyer where they are before anything else lands.

A five step exercise you can actually run in a room this week, ending in the market frame of reference that makes your strengths obvious. This is the working session, not the theory.

A Product Positioning Exercise

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford ~12 min read

• A five-step exercise: drop your origin story, isolate uniqueness, map it to value, ask who cares, then pick the market frame.
• List unique features without judging their value first, then work out what each one lets a customer do.
• Every product can be positioned several ways, so a single positioning statement creates a false sense of being done.
• Once-unique features quietly become table stakes as a market shifts, which is how established products lose.

A four phase model for handing off sales, with a clear warning that most of the damage comes from adding closers too early. Short enough to read before your next hiring decision and specific enough to change it.

Evolving From Founder Selling To A Sales Team

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford short read

• The common mistake is adding account managers and closers too early, before the process is repeatable.
• Hiring a well-connected senior seller while you are still building a suspect list is almost always wrong.
• Hire an inside BDR to book qualified meetings first: lower risk and easier to hire than a closer.
• Once the funnel works, a rep's contact book matters far less than their ability to build relationships and close.

Explains why the deck that impresses a VC actively repels a buyer: different positioning, different proof, different ask. If your demos go well and then stall, this is usually the reason and nobody tells you.

Why Your Investor Pitch Is Ruining Your Sales Pitch

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford short read

• Founders often do 10x more investor pitches than customer pitches before product/market fit, and it warps the sales pitch.
• Investor positioning argues you could win a huge future market; customer positioning has to sit in today's alternatives.
• Disruption language that excites investors makes buyers freeze, fearing what they buy will be obsolete.
• The asks differ: an investor pitch wants another meeting, a sales pitch wants the next stage of the process.

The clearest short explanation of why market category is one of five interdependent positioning pieces, with a real repositioning story attached. It is also where Dunford makes the case that most companies should not invent a category.

A Quickstart Guide to Positioning

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford 12 min read

• Positioning has five components: competitive alternatives, differentiated features, value, target segment, market category.
• Always start from competitive alternatives, or you get positioning that sounds good internally but is not differentiated.
• 90 percent of tech companies that IPO'd in the past five years were positioned in existing markets, not new ones.
• Dunford's own repositioning took a product from under 2M dollars to close to 80M dollars in 18 months.

Makes the distinction between competitors and competitive alternatives, and points out that the status quo wins roughly one deal in four. That reframe changes which comparison you should actually be fighting.

Positioning and Competition

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford 8 min read

• Your main competitive alternative is usually the status quo (spreadsheets, manual work), not a rival product.
• Enterprises lose roughly 20 to 30 percent of deals to no decision, so the status quo is the competitor to beat.
• Ignore phantom competitors that never actually appear on a buyer's shortlist, they only dilute your story.
• The common mistake is defining competition either too narrowly (lookalike products) or too broadly (everything).

Explains why the category word next to your name does more work than the name itself: call yourself email and you inherit email's competitors, price and expected features. This is the argument for spending your effort on the descriptor.

Don't let Customers Decide What Your Product Is

From aprildunford.com by April Dunford 8 min read

• Most companies never position at all, which means customers position the product for them.
• Customers are experts on their own pain, not on your product, so they slot you into the nearest category they know.
• A winner in one category is a loser in another, on identical features.
• If your best capability is irrelevant inside the category the buyer assumed, it is simply invisible.