"Obviously Awesome" is Well ... Obviously Awesome
January 17th, 2022

Don’t try to appeal to everyone and beware of trends + other top takeaways from “Obviously Awesome”.

The key to any successful product is a strong positioning foundation. “Obviously Awesome” by April Dunford is a short, snappy crash course on product positioning: What is it? Why does it matter? And how to do it? My manager recommended this book as I transition into a product role and I want to share the love for this great resource.

Have I convinced you already? In the wise words of Staples, that was easy! Buy the book here.

1. Find & Focus on Your Best-Fit Customers

Much of the wisdom in this book reminds of Seth Godin’s blog post 1,000 True Fans, inspired by Kevin Kelly’s thoughts here. The idea is simple, you should focus on capturing your true best fit-customers first. You aren’t the solution for everyone, so don’t try to be. Harness all your energy and resources on being the best product for your best customers; this is especially crucial for startups and growing businesses. As Dunford writes:

Otherwise, poor-fit prospects consume your sales team’s valuable time, energy and attention - only to choose a competitor that was a better fit for them all along.
— Obviously Awesome (pg 12)

Respect there’s no one-size-fits all and find your niche. Disclaimer: Your pool of best-fit customers should be large enough to meet your sales objectives or consider expanding.

2. Choose Your Market Category Carefully, Very Carefully

One of my favourite passages in the book is when Dunford explains via cake analogy the importance of correctly choosing your market category:

Imagine you’re a baker and you decide you’re going to make the greatest chocolate cake the world has ever known. You probably weren’t aware of it, but the minute you decided your product was ‘cake,’ you made a set of critical business decisions before the flour hit the bowl.
— Obviously Awesome (pg 24)

A chocolate treat positioned as a cake is completely different to a chocolate treat positioned as a muffin or a snack. The same physical product triggers different assumptions and expectations depending on its positioning. Don’t accept the default category, position your product intentionally to your advantage - perhaps your chocolate cake is better as a bread?

It’s important to note that your category can shift over time, so don’t be afraid to transition into a better fit. Avoid the sunk cost fallacy.

4. Have an Inclusive Positioning Team

Assemble representatives from across the company when designing your positioning. Your ‘Positioning Team’ will be strongest if it includes members of different branches. As Dunford notes:

Assembling a team often exposes how different groups in your company hold certain assumptions about your attributes, value and target markets.
— Obviously Awesome (pg 77)

Don’t be alarmed if there’s major discrepancies in how your Positioning Team perceives the product, but acknowledge there’s lots of work to do.

Note: Including different disciplines in your Positioning Team will also make it easier to achieve company-wide buy-in later on.

3. It’s Not Always Good to Be Trendy

Embrace the trends, but only if they make sense or else risk confusing your customers. Voice-activated sounds cool but does it make sense for your water bottle design? Avoid spoiling thoughtful positioning with an irrelevant trend added for “cool points.” As Dunford warns:

Companies can get too focused on the trend to the exclusion of the market, which ultimately leads to confused customers. It’s like describing why you are interesting without first telling people who you are.
Obviously Awesome (pg 158)

Stick to the basics. The best positioning is clear and concise, cool is bonus points. We’re not in middle school anymore.

4. Effective Positioning Has Company-Wide Buy-In

Positioning has ripple effects across the company and can only be effectively executed with company-wide buy-in. Your customer service will thrive when sales representatives know what they’re selling. Your marketing campaigns will perform better when your designers know who the competition is. If you care about your positioning you should make sure your team does too.

To optimize your positioning, every facet of the company has to buy-in:

Positioning on its own isn’t useful to a company. Once you have worked through your positioning, you need to share it across the organization. Positioning needs to have company buy-in so it can be used to inform branding, marketing campaigns, sales strategy, product decisions and customer-success strategy.
Obviously Awesome (pg 165)

5. There’s (x3) Ways to Come-To-Market

There’s essentially three ways to position your product in relation to a market:

  1. Create a new market
  2. Attempt to become the leader in an existing market
  3. Try to capture a segment of an existing market

Each strategy has pros and cons for companies at different stages of development. Creating a new market is the most challenging approach but can be highly lucrative if you’re positioning a radically innovative product. Alternatively, competing in an existing market allows you to reap the benefits of those who have come before. Dunford writes, “Many startups compete in established market categories and do so successfully by first breaking up the market into smaller pieces and focusing on one piece they can win” (135).

There’s a million more takeaways not mentioned above but to find out what they are you’ll have to check out the book yourself!

**Note: Article originally posted on October 5th, 2020 on brandcereals.com, migrated to Mirror in Jan 2022

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