Positioning with April Dunford

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This is a podcast episode titled, Positioning with April Dunford. The summary for this episode is: In this episode, we sit down with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">April Dunford</a>, founder of Ambient Strategy and author of the books "Sales Pitch" and "Obviously Awesome". She is most known for her expertise in market positioning, having personally launched 16 products and influenced many others. Our conversation covers several key insights from Dunford's work:<ul><li>The disconnect between how marketing and sales teams communicate product value, with marketing focused on perfect messaging while sales reverts to feature-dumping demos.</li><li>The importance of crafting a sales pitch that tells a compelling story about why a customer should choose your product over competitors, rather than just listing product capabilities.</li><li>Her experience launching her own positioning-focused podcast, where she was able to dive deeper into niche positioning topics than is typically possible as a guest on other shows.</li></ul>This episode offers valuable lessons for anyone involved in product marketing, sales, or positioning - whether at a tech company or any other type of business. Dunford's insights provide a framework for crafting more effective, customer-centric sales and marketing narratives. A big thank you to our guest co-host, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshcolter/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Josh Colter</a>. Josh is the CEO of <a href="https://cardboardit.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Cardboardit</a> and has great experience in marketing and positioning. We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to <a href="https://app.casted.us/account/62/shows/81b7557b-52e8-4ea3-87b9-a8f2cdaa00e4/episodes/9b8e5049-3269-4d01-a208-ec35aa12083d/podcast@sep.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">podcast@sep.com</a> to share your feedback on this show.You can find more information about this podcast at <a href="https://app.casted.us/account/62/shows/81b7557b-52e8-4ea3-87b9-a8f2cdaa00e4/episodes/93ecce9c-0530-4661-a507-b77e2748f4ee/sep.com/podcast" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sep.com/podcast</a> and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Key Takeaways

April's Response to change in the world paradigm.

00:36 MIN

A common trap to start from when positioning your product.

00:32 MIN

DESCRIPTION

In this episode, we sit down with April Dunford, founder of Ambient Strategy and author of the books "Sales Pitch" and "Obviously Awesome". She is most known for her expertise in market positioning, having personally launched 16 products and influenced many others. Our conversation covers several key insights from Dunford's work:

The disconnect between how marketing and sales teams communicate product value, with marketing focused on perfect messaging while sales reverts to feature-dumping demos.
The importance of crafting a sales pitch that tells a compelling story about why a customer should choose your product over competitors, rather than just listing product capabilities.
Her experience launching her own positioning-focused podcast, where she was able to dive deeper into niche positioning topics than is typically possible as a guest on other shows.

This episode offers valuable lessons for anyone involved in product marketing, sales, or positioning - whether at a tech company or any other type of business. Dunford's insights provide a framework for crafting more effective, customer-centric sales and marketing narratives.

A big thank you to our guest co-host, Josh Colter. Josh is the CEO of Cardboardit and has great experience in marketing and positioning.

We'd love to hear from you! Reach out to podcast@sep.com to share your feedback on this show.

You can find more information about this podcast at sep.com/podcast and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

Today's Host

Zac Darnell

|Host of Behind The Product & Principal at SEP

Today's Guests

Josh Colter

|CEO, Cardboardit.com

Josh is an experienced marketing leader and now CEO with many years of building comprehensive and strategic programs in competitive markets. He is known for his ability to craft compelling strategic narratives and lead cross-functional teams. Josh's background includes roles spanning sales, product marketing, product management, and marketing leadership. He has a track record of driving results by bridging the gap between quantitative and qualitative analysis to reduce sales friction and amplify business impact.

April Dunford

|Author, Founder, Marketing Leader

April is an experienced startup executive with a deep interest in how companies bring new offerings to market and get them into the hands of customers that are willing to pay for them. She has deep expertise in Market Positioning and has launched 16 products into market. She has experience creating new markets, expanding markets and positioning new products in existing established markets. She's held executive roles in a series of successful startups as CEO, COO, and VP Marketing. She's also held executive roles at global companies such as IBM where she launched and grew a new product division. She is the author of two books. Her best-selling book on positioning "Obviously Awesome - How to Stand out in Noisy Crowded Markets," and the recently released "Sales Pitch - How to Build a Story to Stand Out and Win."