Why April Dunford Separates B2B Positioning from Product Strategy

It takes a long time for a position to actually get established in the market. And it definitely doesn’t happen in a quarter.

But many B2B positioning conversations don’t reflect that. Teams revisit and reshape their positioning constantly. And often, they’re trying to solve two different conversations that are happening at once. The board wants the vision, buyers want a reason to choose you today.

And when those two conversations get collapsed into one, the messaging tries to do both jobs and ends up doing neither.

In a recent episode of the Attributed podcast, we spoke with April Dunford, product positioning expert and author of the books Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch, about why positioning starts to drift as companies grow and why separating it from product strategy is what makes it hold up in real deals.

Keep reading to learn how to build positioning that holds up under pressure or listen to the full conversation here.

The Problem With “Vibe Positioning”

B2B positioning often starts the same way. The founding team knows their market and who they’re beating in that market, so the answer to “why us?” feels obvious. It’s written down, shipped, and they move onto the next project.

It works... until it doesn’t.

The market shifts, a new competitor shows up, the product itself evolves, or leadership simply wants a refresh. Suddenly, the positioning that once felt so clear is getting pulled in different directions with no real basis for deciding which direction is the right one.

That’s the moment that April calls out directly: “If we’re just positioning based on vibes, how do we know when we have to change?”

Positioning based on what feels right or obvious leaves you with nothing to stand on when you need to revisit it. And every new input starts to look like a reason to change direction. So, if your positioning was built on gut feel, how do you know when the gut feel is wrong?

Building it on a specific methodology gives you an answer.

As April explains, it turns positioning from a statement into a conclusion. One that comes from working through a specific set of inputs: what a customer would do if you didn’t exist, who actually lands on their shortlist, what’s genuinely different about your product, and who cares most about that difference.

Then, when something changes in the market, you can go back to those inputs and check. And when it doesn’t, you can confidently leave the positioning alone.

Without that foundation, competitive pressure tends to fill the gap. And the competitors you end up reacting to aren’t always the ones your buyers are actually considering. “I don’t have to position against a ghost,” April argues. “If my customers aren’t seriously considering it, I don’t have to position against it.”

The real shortlist, she explains, isn’t in a market report. You’ll find it in your sales team’s pipeline.

Your Buyers Have Already Narrowed the Field

Every deal is a live conversation about alternatives: who else is being evaluated, what the buyer is weighing, and what’s actually making them hesitate.

And this is why your sales team knows the real shortlist.

What potential buyers are weighing is almost always narrower than what marketing assumes. When April asks sales teams to name the competitors (the companies that come up in deals time and time again), the list is usually two, maybe three companies.

That 15-company competitive matrix only exists in a deck. It doesn’t exist in the buyer’s head.

April explains that this is because a buyer evaluating a solution isn’t asking “why are you the best option in the market?” They’re asking “why you, over the two other things I’m seriously considering right now?”

Positioning that can’t answer why they should choose you over another vendor, cleanly and directly, doesn’t land. Or, as she puts it, confused positioning comes from not succinctly answering “why us versus them”, because the messaging is too busy worrying about competitors that aren’t actually showing up in deals.

Positioning and Product Strategy Are Not the Same Document

Once you’ve grounded your positioning in real buyer alternatives, a different kind of pressure starts to show up. This time, from inside the company.

At the same time you’re trying to answer “why us versus them,” leadership is asking a different set of questions: What does the market look like in five years? Where is this company going next?

And then the message begins to blur.

The vision for the next 3 - 5 years gets pulled into positioning, the product roadmap starts shaping the story, and before long, the message is trying to do two jobs at once: explain why you win today and where you’re heading tomorrow. These are two fundamentally different conversations being collapsed into one.

They’re both legitimate and important, but one is a positioning conversation and the other is a product strategy conversation.

Positioning answers a very specific question: why should this buyer choose you over two or three alternatives they’re actually considering, right now, with the product you have today? “All we’re trying to do is stay alive to work on that vision,” April explains. “We just need to close deals today with the product we have today against the competitors we have today.”

When those two conversations merge (and they do, constantly), the result is messaging that tries to do both jobs and ends up doing neither. It becomes too visionary to answer the buyer’s actual question and too tactical to satisfy the board. Sales struggles to use it, marketing finds it hard to defend, and every time positioning comes up in a leadership meeting, it turns back into a product strategy conversation again.

According to April the fix is that “we need to separate positioning from product strategy. Those are separate things.”

Positioning lives in the present tense. It’s built around today’s competitors, today’s differentiation, and today’s buyer. Product strategy, on the other hand, lives in the future tense. It’s the roadmap that gets you where you want to compete next.

As April describes, if you believe a new category or competitor is coming for you, that’s a signal for your product strategy. “You need a product strategy that gets you to a point where you can compete against them when that eventually turns into right now.”

What it’s not is something to lead with in your positioning before buyers are ever actually considering it. Because the same rule we mentioned above applies: if it’s not on the shortlist, it doesn’t belong in the comparison. “There is no point in talking to a customer about how you’re better than [X] when they’re not even thinking about [X],” April argues.

Separating those two conversations makes your positioning sharper, giving buyers a clear reason to choose you now while giving the business space to build what comes next.

The Meeting That Keeps Positioning Honest

Separating positioning from product strategy is one thing. Keeping them separate as the company grows and the market moves is another.

April’s answer to this isn’t a major overhaul every quarter. It’s a scheduled two-hour meeting with four people.

Head of Product.

Head of Sales.

Head of Marketing.

And the CEO.

The agenda is deliberately narrow:

• Has anything changed with our competitors?

• Have our differentiated capabilities shifted, have rivals caught up or have we pulled further ahead?

• Has any new product development unlocked value that could change who we’re selling to?

Most of the time, the answer to all three is no. Two hours and you leave with confidence that your positioning is still doing its job.

But occasionally something surfaces. A new competitor starts showing up in deals or a capability that used to differentiate you has been matched. That’s when the exercise pays off.

As April explains, if the head of sales flags that a new name has started appearing on the shortlist (even without causing pain yet), that’s the signal to act. Catch it early and a positioning adjustment is a focused, manageable exercise. Otherwise, you could be firefighting after deals have already started slipping.

A lot of positioning anxiety comes from not having a process, so every board question or competitor announcement sends the team back to square one. This meeting changes that. It gives you a simple way to check whether anything has actually changed and a defensible reason to leave your positioning exactly where it is when it hasn’t.

Conclusion

Positioning breaks when it tries to answer the wrong question.

Buyers aren’t evaluating your roadmap. They’re choosing between the few options in front of them, based on what they can actually use today. That’s the decision your positioning needs to support.

When the board’s vision conversation and the buyer’s shortlist conversation stay separate, both get sharper. The product strategy can be ambitious and the positioning can be specific. And, in the end, the sales team has something they can actually use in potential deals.

About the speaker

April Dunford is a widely recognized expert in positioning for B2B technology companies and the author of the bestselling books Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch. As a consultant, she draws on decades of experience as a marketing executive to help companies define their unique value and stand out in crowded markets.