Positioning a b2b Product

• Source: Report research library
• Frameworks applied: April Dunford five-component positioning, Dunford ten-step positioning process, Jobs To Be Done (Christensen Institute)

Enforces Dunford's dependency order with a mechanical table-stakes demotion rule and an eleven-line chain-integrity validation loop.

Known weakness, published as found: Steps 2-6 largely restate Dunford's published process; cut the explanatory framing to one line each and keep only the rules that change agent behaviour (two-list alternatives, table-stakes demotion, three-theme cap). Add a filled example row to the canvas tables so the expected granularity of a 'qualifying characteristic' is demonstrated, not just described.

1. 1.Copy the SKILL.md text below, or download the raw file.
2. 2.Create a folder named exactly positioning-a-b2b-product in your agent's skills directory.
3. 3.Save the file inside that folder as SKILL.md.
4. 4.Ask the agent one of the trigger requests below.
5. 5.Check the output against what you already know before it leaves your desk.

• Our messaging isn't landing and we sound like every other vendor — can you help us redo our positioning?
• We keep losing deals to 'no decision'. Help me work out what our real competitive alternatives are and reposition against them.
• Build me a positioning canvas for our product: differentiators, value, best-fit customers, and what category we should say we're in.

• Write me three LinkedIn ad variants for our new feature launch
• How should we split next quarter's marketing budget between brand and performance?

---
name: positioning-a-b2b-product
description: >-
  Runs April Dunford's five-component positioning process (competitive
  alternatives, differentiated capabilities, value themes, best-fit customer
  characteristics, market category) in dependency order and outputs a filled
  positioning canvas plus a sales-pitch skeleton. Use when the user says
  "positioning", "position our product", "we sound like everyone else",
  "reposition", "positioning statement", "what category are we in", "who is our
  ICP really", "competitive alternatives", "differentiators", "our messaging
  isn't landing", or "we keep losing to do-nothing". Do NOT use for writing
  campaign copy or ad creative, for building a category-creation narrative and
  lightning strike (see designing-category-narrative), for budget allocation
  across programs (see planning-demand-generation), or for brand asset testing
  (see auditing-brand-distinctiveness).
metadata:
  version: "1.0"
---

# Positioning a B2B product

Produce one artifact: a completed five-component positioning canvas with a derived pitch skeleton, grounded in evidence from real deals. Out of scope: messaging copy, taglines, brand stories, visual identity, and pricing — all of those are downstream of positioning and require this canvas as an input ([April Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/an-introduction-to-positioning)).

## Workflow

Copy this checklist into your reply and tick items as you complete them:

```
- [ ] 1. Assemble evidence and the cross-functional input set
- [ ] 2. List competitive alternatives (two sets)
- [ ] 3. Isolate differentiated capabilities against those alternatives
- [ ] 4. Derive value themes (stop at three)
- [ ] 5. Define best-fit customers by value fit
- [ ] 6. Choose the market category last
- [ ] 7. Run the dependency-chain validation loop until it passes
- [ ] 8. Emit the canvas and pitch skeleton
```

Run steps 2 through 6 in that exact order and do not let the user jump to the category first. The order is the method: a capability is differentiated only relative to a real alternative, value counts only if it traces to a capability, best-fit customers are defined by the value they care about, and the category comes last because it is the only component that can be judged against the preceding four ([Gavel's breakdown of Dunford's process](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)).

**1. Assemble evidence.** Start from customers who already love the product and ask what they nearly bought instead — that answer is the raw input for everything downstream ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)). Pull, or ask the user for, at least: 5 recent won-deal notes, 5 lost-deal or no-decision notes, and current website/pitch language. If the user has fewer than 3 won deals, say so in the canvas confidence note and proceed with what exists rather than stalling.

Then gather three internal perspectives — marketing (what messaging is shipped), sales (what objections come back), customer success (what value is actually delivered). Positioning written from only one of the three misses the other two ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)). If only one perspective is available, flag the gap explicitly.

**2. Competitive alternatives.** Answer: what would customers do if this product did not exist, and what has to be beaten to win a deal ([Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/a-quickstart-guide-to-positioning)). Produce two separate lists, because both must be beaten:

- **Status quo set**: spreadsheets, a manual process, an internal build, hiring a junior person, doing nothing.
- **Shortlist set**: the named vendors the buyer actually evaluates.

Do not skip the status quo set. Dunford's rule of thumb is that in enterprise software roughly 25% of deals are lost to "no decision", so the status quo is usually the largest single competitor ([Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/a-quickstart-guide-to-positioning)). Reject any alternative the team merely wishes it competed against; the test is whether it appeared in a real deal.

**3. Differentiated capabilities.** For each capability, check it against every alternative from step 2. If any alternative can credibly claim it too, label it **table stakes** and move it out of the differentiator list ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)). Keep table stakes in a separate column — they still have to be covered in the pitch to clear the buyer's checklist, but they cannot carry positioning.

This step is where teams cheat. Apply the rule mechanically before applying judgment: any capability with no named alternative it beats gets demoted.

**4. Value themes.** For each surviving capability, ask "so what for the customer" until the answer is an outcome the buyer's economic sponsor cares about, then cluster into **two or three themes**. Stop at three — a fourth dilutes the rest and nobody remembers any of them ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)). Each theme must name the capability it traces to; a value theme with no capability behind it is a claim, not positioning.

**5. Best-fit customers.** Define them by who cares a lot about the value themes, not by headcount or industry. Firmographics describe a segment; value fit describes a buyer ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)). Write each characteristic as an observable, qualifiable trait a rep can check on a first call — for example "runs a multi-entity close in more than 4 ERPs" rather than "mid-market finance teams". Then add the firmographic filter separately as a targeting proxy, clearly labelled as a proxy.

This step is judgment work, not a script: the goal is a characteristic set that discriminates between deals that closed fast and deals that stalled. Test each candidate characteristic against the won and lost lists from step 1 and keep only those that separate them.

**6. Market category.** Choose the frame of reference that makes the value obvious to the best-fit customers ([Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/a-quickstart-guide-to-positioning)). The category decides which questions the product is judged on, so evaluate each candidate by asking what the buyer will now compare you against and what feature checklist they will arrive with ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)).

Default to an existing category. Roughly 90 percent of tech companies that went public positioned inside an existing category rather than creating a new one, and the vast majority of legendary businesses did not create the categories they are in ([Gavel, citing Dunford](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)) — note this 90% figure is Dunford's assertion with no study cited, so present it as such. Only route to a new category when the differentiated capabilities genuinely solve a problem no existing category is organised around; in that case hand off to `designing-category-narrative`.

Layer a market trend on only if it is already true of the buyer's situation, or not at all. A borrowed trend makes the positioning about the trend, which is all the buyer remembers ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)).

**7. Validate, fix, re-validate.** Run every check below. If any fails, return to the named step, fix it, and run the entire list again. Only proceed to step 8 when all checks pass — agents otherwise validate once and ship a canvas whose chain is broken.

```
- [ ] Every alternative in step 2 appeared in a real deal (not aspirational)
- [ ] The status quo set is non-empty
- [ ] Every differentiator in step 3 names >=1 alternative that lacks it
- [ ] No differentiator is claimable by any listed alternative
- [ ] Value themes number 2 or 3, never 4+
- [ ] Every value theme traces to >=1 differentiator by name
- [ ] Every best-fit characteristic is observable on a first sales call
- [ ] Best-fit characteristics separate the won list from the lost list
- [ ] The category was chosen after steps 2-5, not assumed at the start
- [ ] Stated category implies a comparison set the product can win
- [ ] No trend is layered in that the buyer is not already living
```

**8. Emit the canvas.** Use the output template below. Treat the canvas as a starting point for messaging, not the finish line ([Gavel](https://usegavel.com/april-dunford/positioning-process)) — say so in the handoff line.

## Output format

Use this exact section order and headings, because downstream messaging and enablement work reads the canvas positionally. Wording inside each section is yours to adapt.

```markdown
# Positioning canvas — <product>

**Evidence base:** <n> won deals, <n> lost/no-decision deals, <perspectives covered>. Confidence: <high|medium|low> because <reason>.

## 1. Competitive alternatives
| Alternative | Type (status quo / shortlist) | Seen in deal | What the buyer likes about it |
|---|---|---|---|

## 2. Capabilities
| Capability | Alternatives that lack it | Differentiator or table stakes |
|---|---|---|

## 3. Value themes (2-3 only)
| Theme | Traces to capability | So-what for the economic buyer | Proof point |
|---|---|---|---|

## 4. Best-fit customers
| Qualifying characteristic (observable) | Why they care disproportionately | Firmographic proxy for targeting |
|---|---|---|

## 5. Market category
- **Category:** <name>
- **Chosen because:** <what it makes obvious to the best-fit buyer>
- **Rejected alternatives:** <name> — <what wrong comparison it invited>
- **Comparison set this invites:** <who the buyer now benchmarks against>
- **Trend layer:** <named trend, or "none — no trend layered">

## Pitch skeleton
1. Setup — the market context and the alternatives buyers weigh.
2. Insight — what most buyers get wrong about those alternatives.
3. Value theme 1 → proof.
4. Value theme 2 → proof.
5. (Optional) Value theme 3 → proof.
6. Table stakes covered in one line, not three slides.

## Open questions and evidence gaps
- <gap> — resolve by <specific research action>
```

## Freedom calibration

- **Fixed, non-negotiable:** the order of steps 2-6, the two-list structure of competitive alternatives, the table-stakes demotion rule, the cap of three value themes, and the step 7 validation loop. These are the load-bearing mechanics of the method; changing the order breaks the dependency chain that makes the output defensible.
- **Your judgment:** which won and lost deals to weight, how to phrase each value theme, which qualifying characteristics discriminate best, and how many candidate categories to evaluate. Adapt freely here and state the reasoning inline in the canvas.
- **Ask the user, do not guess:** actual deal outcomes, pricing, and named competitors. Fabricated deal evidence corrupts every downstream component, because the whole chain is anchored on step 2.

## Gotchas

- Teams answer "who is our competition" with the vendors they benchmark on analyst grids, not the alternatives buyers actually weigh. Force the question into Dunford's form — "what would they do if we did not exist" — because the honest answer is usually a spreadsheet or an internal build, and roughly 25% of enterprise software deals go to no decision ([Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/a-quickstart-guide-to-positioning)).
- A "Mad Libs" positioning statement template is not this process and produces a worse result. It assumes there is exactly one answer per blank and that you already know it ([Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/an-introduction-to-positioning)). If the user hands you one, treat it as an input hypothesis to test against steps 2-6, not as a starting structure.
- Value themes written as capability restatements ("we have real-time sync") pass casual review and fail in the field. Push each through "so what" at least twice until the answer names a business outcome the economic sponsor is measured on.
- Changing the market category changes the buyer's evaluation checklist, and therefore changes which table stakes become deal-blockers. After picking a category in step 6, re-check the step 3 table stakes column; a category switch often introduces new required features nobody planned for.
- Positioning drift shows up as sales inventing their own decks. If the user reports reps going off-message, treat it as a symptom that the canvas never traced value to capabilities, not as an enablement problem.
- Jobs To Be Done is the lineage behind starting at alternatives — Dunford credits Christensen and JTBD with resolving where to start ([Dunford](https://www.aprildunford.com/post/a-quickstart-guide-to-positioning)). If the user already has JTBD "Help me…" statements ([Christensen Institute](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done/)), map each job to a competitive alternative rather than treating the jobs as a substitute for step 2.

What does the Positioning a b2b Product skill do?

Runs Dunford's five-component positioning process on real deal evidence and outputs a positioning canvas

Where does the Positioning a b2b Product skill come from?

Report research library. It was written by The Revenue AI Report against a 12 criterion quality rubric and graded in an independent scoring pass.

Why was the Positioning a b2b Product skill chosen for this library?

Enforces Dunford's dependency order with a mechanical table-stakes demotion rule and an eleven-line chain-integrity validation loop.

When should the Positioning a b2b Product skill not be used?

Do not use it for: Write me three LinkedIn ad variants for our new feature launch Or: How should we split next quarter's marketing budget between brand and performance?

How do I install the Positioning a b2b Product SKILL.md file?

Download the file, create a folder named exactly positioning-a-b2b-product inside your agent's skills directory, and save the file inside it as SKILL.md. The agent loads it when a request matches the description.