Overcoming the tyranny of choice: the importance of getting your product positioning right (and how to do it)

Back in 1982, Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote the definitive book on positioning. They talked about the tyranny of choice. Yet then there were just hundreds of brands. Now there are thousands putting out millions of messages. This makes it incredibly hard for customers to make a decision.

While we talk about the importance of emotion in branding, the biggest emotion in B2B is fear. No one wants to look bad in front of their boss. Which is why buying the incumbent product is always a safe bet. Or even not making a decision.

This means if you’re competing against the incumbent, you need to find your niche, your secret sauce that the big players can’t match. Because you’re likely not as feature-rich out of the gate, but you might have something they can’t copy.

And this is where positioning comes in.

Strong product positioning is the foundation upon which everything else is built. Get it wrong, and your business will crumble no matter how fancy your website looks or cool your swag.

What exactly is product positioning? In simple terms, it's how you define your product, who it's for, and why it's better than the alternatives. It's the core promise you make to your customers. And it’s a key part of differentiating your brand from your competition (think blue oceans vs. red).

Product positioning expert April Dunford sums it up nicely, "Product positioning is how you differentiate your offering and make it meaningfully compelling to your target customer."

Here are a couple of examples on how two brands (love them or hate them) positioned themselves against their competition:

Slack vs. Microsoft Teams

Slack positioned itself as a hip, user-friendly communication platform for teams. The emphasis was on simplicity, integration, and making work-life less frustrating. Microsoft Teams, on the other hand, was positioned as an enterprise-grade collaboration suite - more robust features, but also more complexity.

The result? Slack's crystal-clear product positioning allowed it to carve out a distinct niche and win over users who wanted an intuitive, distraction-free experience. Microsoft Teams is still dominant in large organizations, but Slack has thrived by focusing on a specific user need.

Certainly Slack can be just as busy with multiple chats and threads as Teams once used by larger and larger teams, but it still stands out a being a trifle more approachable.

Zoom vs. Webex

Webex has been the incumbent for years before zoom. Yet zoom came on the scene and positioned its video conferencing tool as "frictionless”: one-click joining, reliable connections, and an emphasis on simplicity. Webex, meanwhile, tried to be a feature-packed enterprise solution. And anyone who’s used it knows how long it can take to get a meeting started.

That’s why Zoom's laser-sharp focus on the user experience and removing barriers to joining a call allowed it to rapidly gain market share during the pandemic, even against an incumbent like Webex.

The lesson here is that product positioning isn't just about what features you have. It's about defining precisely who your product is for and what value it uniquely provides. You have to know why you’re different and why you matter. If you can’t state why you’re different and why you matter, you sure can’t expect your customers to know why.

You also have to make sure the features you build are those people want to pay for. More than a few companies have built products that some engineers got excited about but they may not be important to customers or something people would even pay for.

Get this right, and everything else becomes a lot easier.

So how do you nail your product positioning? Here are a few key steps:

1. Define your target customer. Don't try to be everything to everyone. Identify the specific user or company that gets the most value from your product.

2. Understand their key pain points. What are the biggest challenges they face that your product can address? Dig deep; the surface-level problems are usually not the most important.

3. Articulate your unique value proposition. What makes your solution better, faster, or cheaper than the alternatives? This is your competitive edge.

4. Test, iterate, repeat. Product positioning isn't a one-and-done exercise. Check in with customers regularly and be willing to adjust as their needs evolve.

Eric Ries of Lean Startup fame talks about going out and getting the voice of the customer to do this. That’s important in identifying what their pains are and what they might pay for. But you have to be careful not to take everything at face value. Customers don’t always know what they want. And they may not always tell you the truth out of fear of revealing weaknesses or secrets. That’s why you want to both listen to your potential customers AND validate assumptions. And make sure those well-meaning engineers understand what customers really want and need.

Getting your product positioning right is the difference between building a thriving business and just spinning your wheels.

Do that, then develop a memorable brand identity that brings your product positioning to life. Both working together are how you create a sustainable competitive advantage.

With that here's your kickstart for this week:

Maybe you’ve got your product positioning dialed. Even so, take a moment to validate it. Does it need to be updated? Are there new challengers nipping at your heels? Schedule an annual check in for this. Never get complacent.

If you’ve not spent time honing your product positioning, work through the steps outlined above. Make sure you know what problems you’re solving for that people will value and pay money to solve.

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