Had to cut the title down, because it broke my layout. The full title is:

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

This is my second time reading it. I recommended it to my book club, remember it as a really practical guide to how to work with market positioning. Second read through didn't really help me much. But I think it's because of how much of Dunfords thinking has already penetrated the indie hacker spaces where I normally hang out.

“How do you beat Bobby Fischer? You play him at any game but chess.” · Warren Buffett

The core message of the book, at least for me, is that positioning is always an active game of figuring our what the market of tools and services look like to the customer, and adapting your messsaging, so you are competing against the specific competitors you want for a specific market. Instead of being locked into a huge red ocean with the IBMs and Microsofts of the world.

Positioning is the act of deliberately defining how you are the best at something that a defined market cares a lot about.

Doing this well is the difference between Hermes and the leather jacket shop on mainstreet. The products are similar. But the markets they deliver value to are very different.

This quote is a great summary:

Great positioning takes into account all of the following: The customer’s point of view on the problem you solve and the alternative ways of solving that problem. The ways you are uniquely different from those alternatives and why that’s meaningful for customers. The characteristics of a potential customer that really values what you can uniquely deliver. The best market context for your product that makes your unique value obvious to those customers who are best suited to your product.

And here’s the take away if you want the TlDr;

These are the Five (Plus One) Components of Effective Positioning:

• Competitive alternatives. What customers would do if your solution didn’t exist.
• Unique attributes. The features and capabilities that you have and the alternatives lack.
• Value (and proof). The benefit that those features enable for customers.
• Target market characteristics. The characteristics of a group of buyers that lead them to really care a lot about the value you deliver. Market category. The market you describe yourself as being part of, to help customers understand your value.
• (Bonus) Relevant trends. Trends that your target customers understand and/or are interested in that can help make your product more relevant right now.

If you haven’t worked with marketing or communication before. I highly recommend the book. If you have, listen to one or two of her interviews on podcasts instead. The book is great, but it’s not a condenced tome of knowledge. More like a few really good blog posts.

Get the book on amazon using my affiliate link and you’re treating me to a coffee!