GTM 15: How to Position Yourself

Who are you? Who do you help? How are you uniquely qualified to solve this problem? Three important questions every founder needs to answer before they step out.

In this week’s episode, Brendan Dell talks about all things ‘positioning’. He shares insights from his own past failures in business and how these have propelled him to understand the importance of positioning better.

Brendan Dell is a positioning and messaging expert with over ten years' experience in helping businesses optimize high impact sales and investment pitches, and build and execute high-growth GTM strategies.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why it’s important for a business to hone it’s messaging to better position itself
2. When the business should broaden its messaging
3. Love for the customer Vs Love for the Tech

Highlights

• (00:00) Introduction
• (2:55) About Brendan Dell
• (5:40) Brendan’s thoughts on the Sam-Bankman Fried trial
• (11:28) What is positioning?
• (12:26) Brendan’s story about failure
• (20:45) How founders can focus on solving real problems before rolling out products
• (24:34) How do founders know when to broaden their marketing message?
• (30:12) What makes great B2B brands unique?
• (33:38) Why it’s important for businesses to position themselves for a specific persona
• (39:00) Brendan’s message to listeners

Quotes

‘It's not the best product that wins; it's the best positioned product that wins.’

‘But for most founders, the place to begin is what are the jobs to be done and then where does your tool intersect with that?'

‘Chapter one of your business is finding a very clear person with a very clear problem’

‘Be much more direct around the need to focus clearly on one core problem for one core persona and really nail that down.’

‘Be far less in love with the tech and be far more in love with the customer’

‘The reason a lot of products have a hard time being clear is because the product doesn't really do anything different or better and that often comes because they don't have clarity around who they're trying to help, what the problem is and what result they're trying to deliver so they can't come up with new and unique mechanisms to do that.’

‘You are seen by a very particular set of people as being able to solve a very particular problem that is unique to them and that they don't feel can be adequately solved by someone else. You are famous for that thing and that doesn't mean that people just know your name, it means that they know you as a promise and resolution to some core problem they have.’

‘Nobody has the bandwidth to be able to be expert in 17 different niches and different ways of doing things which is essentially what you're asking your sales team to do if you don't give them clarity of position.’

The GTM Podcast

Don’t miss The .GTM Podcast dropping every Tuesday, discussing true stories and experiences including trials and tribulations in the Go-To-Market world.

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