April Dunford is a product positioning expert with decades of experience in marketing and sales, having worked with notable companies like IBM. In their conversation, she uncovers how misaligned product perception can hinder sales. Dunford shares vital strategies for startups to identify customer pain points and the distinctions between B2B and B2C positioning. She emphasizes the importance of storytelling and clear messaging in successful marketing and highlights mistakes organizations make. Discover how leveraging personal strengths can enhance career fulfillment.

April Dunford, author and expert in sales pitching, shares invaluable insights and tactics on creating effective sales pitches. Topics include crafting a sales pitch for value, helping buyers overcome inertia, importance of differentiated value and insight, walking away from business that's not a good fit, category creation and extending boundaries, the Bowling Pin Strategy, aligning with the customer's point of view, refining sales pitches, exploring different frameworks, the value of writing skills in product marketing, and the perseverance in business.

April Dunford is the author of the best-selling book Obviously Awesome, a definitive guide to product positioning. She spent 25 years leading marketing, product, and sales teams and now runs her own consulting firm, helping companies of all shapes and sizes nail their positioning. April has worked hands-on with over 200 companies on positioning, including Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games.In today’s episode, you’ll learn:1. How does April define positioning?2. How do you assess if your product’s positioning is weak? And strong?3. What are some examples of great products with weak positioning?4. What are the essential five steps to figuring out your product’s positioning?5. What is the difference between positioning vs. messaging vs. branding?6. What’s the difference between segmentation and persona? 7. When should you bring in a professional? 8. Is it essential for a company to always figure out a differentiator and be different?9. How does this concept help you nail sales for enterprise software?Where to find April:Website: https://aprildunford.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford Book: Obviously Awesome: How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It April’s guest post: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/positioning—Thank you to our sponsors for making this episode possible:• Amplitude: https://amplitude.com/• Flatfile: https://flatfile.com/Lenny• Productboard: https://Productboard.com/ Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

If you ever wanted to distill 3,310 hours of knowledge into 60 minutes, then this episode is for you. For the last 6 months, Lenny’s Podcast has been downloaded more than 2 million times and is now a top 10 technology podcast across both Apple and Spotify. And in this special episode, I’m breaking down the top 10 most downloaded episodes, plus sharing my favorite lessons from each. It's unlike anything I've done before, and I hope you love it. Happy holidays, happy new year, and from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening, sharing, and for supporting the podcast. I’ll see you in 2023!—Find the full transcript here: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/countdown-of-the-top-10-episodes-of-the-year/#transcript—Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting this podcast:• TED—ReThinking with Adam Grant: https://adamgrant.net/podcasts/rethinking/• Notion—One workspace. Every team: https://www.notion.com/lennyspod• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—The 10 most downloaded episodes of 2022:* April Dunford on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/april-dunford-on-product-positioning-segmentation-and-optimizing-your-sales-process/* Crystal Widjaja on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-scrappily-hire-for-measure-and-unlock-growth-crystal-widjaja-gojek-and-kumu/* Julie Zhuo on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/julie-zhuo-on-accelerating-your-career-impostor-syndrome-writing-building-product-sense-using-intuition-vs-data-hiring-designers-and-moving-into-management/* Shishir Mehrotra on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir-mehrotra-coda-youtube-microsoft/* Kristen Berman on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/using-behavioral-science-to-improve-your-product-kristen-berman-irrational-labs/* Elena Verna on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/elena-verna-on-how-b2b-growth-is-changing-product-led-growth-product-led-sales-why-you-should-go-freemium-not-trial-what-features-to-make-free-and-much-more/* Ethan Smith on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-ethan-smith-graphite/* Shreyas Doshi on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/shreyas-doshi-on-pre-mortems-the-lno-framework-the-three-levels-of-product-work-why-most-execution-problems-are-strategy-problems-and-roi-vs-opportunity-cost-thinking/* Marty Cagan on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/the-nature-of-product-marty-cagan-silicon-valley-product-group/* Matt Mochary on Lenny’s Podcast: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-fire-people-with-grace-work-through-fear-and-nurture-innovation-matt-mochary-ceo-coach/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) About this episode(02:46) April Dunford on positioning your product(07:16) Crystal Widjaja on why most analytics efforts fail(11:42) Julie Zhuo on overcoming imposter syndrome(19:14) Shishir Mehrotra’s favorite interview question(23:27) Shishir Mehrotra’s PSHE career growth framework(27:10) Kristen Berman on using behavioral science to improve your product(33:29) Elena Verna on why retention is so important(36:31) Elena Verna on what to put into your freemium product(37:57) Ethan Smith on how people often under-resource SEO(38:46) Ethan Smith on when it’s time to invest in SEO(42:41) Shreyas Doshi’s LNO Framework(50:12) Marty Cagan on why big companies are often bad at product(51:46) Marty Cagan’s four steps to being a good product manager(53:48) Matt Mochary on the power of small teams(57:17) Matt Mochary’s advice for making hard conversations easier(59:05) Other episodes that left a lasting impact(59:40) Thank you for joining me (Lenny) on this incredible journey—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

April Dunford, B2B positioning expert and author, discusses positioning, differentiation, and lessons from 200+ B2B sales pitches. She emphasizes that positioning should be a cross-functional activity and provides a structure for a strong sales pitch. April explains the challenges of selling against the status quo and the importance of effective positioning and differentiation in B2B sales pitches.

Guest April Dunford, author of Obviously Awesome, shares her journey of self-publishing a book that transformed her consulting business. She discusses attracting high caliber clients, her process for qualifying them, and the frustrations and successes of self-publishing. She also mentions the benefits of working with Page Two for editing and production.

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/

April Dunford, author and executive consultant, joins Kipp and Kieran to discuss the framework for creating compelling sales pitches. They explore the importance of blending company perspective with customer needs, personalized AI assistance in sales, and the challenges sales teams face in translating positioning into a pitch. They also discuss tailoring sales pitches for different levels and handling customer skepticism.

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/

Marketing executive April Dunford shares her journey to building a 7-figure solo consulting business, highlighting the importance of focus and narrowing down. She also discusses her struggles with positioning, the criteria for selecting B2B clients, transitioning to higher pricing, and future plans including a new book release.