LPC. How to build a product story that sells? A. Dunford
At the LPC, we had the chance to attend the presentation of a major player on positioning: April Dunford.
If you don’t know her yet, she is the world’s leading expert on product positioning. She has worked with over 200 fast-growing technology companies to accelerate their growth through clear, compelling positioning.
So, in addition to being a very inspiring talk, here are our key learnings.
#1 Purchasing a B2B Product is not fun
It started with the 2 types of purchase: considered and unconsidered purchases. And the fact that one is much more pleasant than the other.
But first, what does the level of consideration lies on?
- The decision process: what does it take to make a decision, how hard is it?
- The impact of the decision: what are the consequences of buying?
This is why buying B2C products (clothes, decoration, leisure…) could be pretty fun most of the time. Well, except for buying toilets for your new house, as April told us about her epic own experience.
With B2B products, what makes a huge difference and why it is way less fun, is that the buyer and the user are often two different persons. And so, the buying process is often an erratic experience ending with “No decision” as a final decision in 40% of the cases.
When customers can’t figure out what to do, they don’t do anything.
#2 Guide the customer on the road towards the right decision
As the decision is THE crucial step for purchasing: how can we help our clients to make the right decision? In other words, how can we make sure we clearly stand out from the crowd and show we are the right fit with our clients’ needs?
First, by analyzing the decision process. And looking closer, there are 3 main pain points:
- Distinguishing between what is important and what is not
- Finding information that makes sense
- Avoiding making mistakes
Why? Because looking for the right solution anyone’s first reflex is: Google it. It’s great because you find a lot of information, but you get overwhelmed and sink in a sea of details, features and technical information on each solution 🤿. Good luck to find your way in these and make a decision!
From here, how can we do?
So, working on the SEO and SEA is great. But it is obviously not enough to stand out and provide the relevant information that makes sense for the customer to make the right choice.
Features are great but they don’t drive clients to make their decision. They are often very specific to the product and you cannot understand them without the help of an expert to vulgarize. And customers are not experts in solutions and features. Customers are experts in problems.
Let’s destroy a myth: features are not that important in the purchasing process as they don’t make them feel more secure in their choice. It makes them hesitate even more, and they need to make effort to match their needs with features. Not sure they are willing to spend so much energy on each solution they benchmark, would you do that? So, what matters to customers is the answer to their needs, not a list of features.
#3 Market insights are what customer expect
It is pretty clear now: customers don’t want a sales pitch (drowning into more features 😵💫). You remember their pain points? They want to avoid mistakes.
So customers are looking for market insights, and this is what will make them choose a solution over another. This is the kind of information and advice they expect from the vendors when talking with them.
By market insights, April Dunford means “unique and valuable perspective on the market”, so :
- Help the customer navigate alternatives: What is your differentiator? And to analyze competitive alternatives, a good question to ask yourself is: What would customers use if you did not exist?
- Help them avoid potential landmines
- Educate them on issues and outcomes
This is also a very good way to assess how hard is it to buy your product today and where there is room for improvement.
Ok, no sales pitch, but market insights instead. What does it mean for Sales teams?
For April Dunford, they shouldn’t play the role of features experts, but approach customers as guides instead, experts of solutions. Adopting this role provides a great advantage when answering the purchasing pain points we listed earlier 👆: the customer makes his own choice and feels good about it.
#4 Build a point of view pitch
The most common pitch framework is not adapted for the sales to guide the client. April shows her analysis of the 3 main pitch frameworks:
- “The hero’s journey”
- Features! Features! Features!
- The VISION pitch
Why they are not adapted?
❌ The hero journey
Advantage: It’s a great story with the structure we all like and are familiar with, so it works well for customer stories
Shortcomings: But it is designed for entertainment/engagement but not for Sales as there is no mention of the market (so no market insights) and the concept of value brought to the customer with your solution is absent.
❌ Features! Features! Features!
Advantage: It’s your comfort zone as it is easy to demo and mention features to the customers, most companies fall in this pitch (”this is how you log in, how to navigate in the app, how to set up…”
Shortcomings: It doesn’t answer the question “So what” for the features, so there is no concept of value either. And it doesn’t say why picking you over the others (so no market insights again).
❌ The VISION pitch
Advantage: It is a very high-level pitch providing a long-term view of the solution and its evolution, adapted to investors
Shortcomings: But it is so high level that it gives customers a reason to delay their purchase, and falls into the “no decision” mentioned before. And once again, it does not provide the market insights customers are expecting to make their choice, as it doesn’t say why they should choose you over anyone else TODAY. Customers don’t want to buy what your solutions will be tomorrow, they have a need today and they are looking for an answer today.
✅ The point of view pitch: the best option to answer customers’ expectations and needs
The structure of this pitch framework is actually meant to bond with the customers, their pain and expectations to make the right choice.
- It starts with your insight into the buyer’s situation His use case, his need, his problem
- Recognizes that buyers have choices There is competition and it’s worth mentioning it to provide market insights
- Successfully communicates the pros and cons of each approach for different types of customers
- And describes the unique value we enable for a best-fit buyer
And she gave an example of this pitch to be more concrete with Leveljump 👇
#5 A good point of view pitch starts with a good positioning
Building a point of view pitch starts with building a solid basis: the positioning.
Here we are, in the core of the product and how to sell it. April Dunford presents her 5-steps method (from her own book “Obviously awesome, how to nail product positioning so customers get it, buy it, love it”) to define positioning.
1️⃣ Competitive alternative
If you didn’t exist, what would your customers use?
2️⃣ Key unique attributes
What features or capabilities do you have that alternatives do not?
3️⃣ Enabling value
What value do the attributes enable for customers?
4️⃣ Customers that care
Who cares a lot about the value?
5️⃣ Market you win
What context makes the value obvious to your target segments?
It allows making the link with both the market insights and the product value customers are looking for to make their decision.
The market
- The insight: Our insight into the problem/situation
- The alternatives: For some buyers, current approaches are lacking
- The gap: What is missing from alternatives that are important for customers like you
Our product :
- The value we enable by closing the gap: That allows us to deliver unique business value
💡To conclude, a very interesting insight she shared on positioning, yet basic but crucial is that positioning is not only a product marketing matter. It is actually a company-wise stake to be defined with cross-functional teams impacted around the same table (CEO, Sales, Marketing, Product…).
