Dunford: Initial sales calls reveal weak positioning when prospects get confused
April Dunford · How to nail your product positioning | April Dunford (Obviously Awesome) · Jan 22, 2023 · at 10:56
Positioning consultant April Dunford describes the three primary behavioral signals on initial sales calls that indicate a B2B product has weak positioning.
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“In sales calls, like particularly in an initial sales call with a client. And what you'll hear is things like the customer comes on, your sales rep comes on and your sales reps like doing a great job pitching the product. Like, oh, we got this thing and it does this, that, and the other thing. And, you know, and they'll get certain way through the pitch and that you can see the customer's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just back it up and pitch it to me again. That's probably the most common one I get is, huh, could you just say that again? Could you just back up at the beginning and do that thing from the beginning? So there's this confusion. Sometimes what you'll get is the even worse one is customer thinks they know exactly what you are, but you ain't that. So, so you'll get people say, yeah, I get it. You're just like Salesforce. And you're like, oh, actually no, we're in a fake like Salesforce. Sorry. No, that's it. Now let me back up and start from the beginning. Or you'll get this. And this one is actually terrible where people will say, well, I get it. I mean, I totally get it. I totally get what you do. I just don't get why anyone would pay for that. Like, you know, I can do that in a spreadsheet. Like, why would I bought, like, I don't get, so they think they get what you do, but they don't really understand the value. And so if you start hearing stuff like that in an initial sales call, those are usually good signs that the positioning is weak.”
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