post

Footer About

Footer Get Involved

Footer Links

Mind the Product

General

Product Unplugged Episode 3 with Pierce Healy

Product Unplugged Episode 2 with Lorilyn McCue

Product Strategy

Building Product Teams

Diversity and Inclusion

Digital Transformation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML)

Product Leadership

Product Management Career

Product Ethics

Minimum Viable Product

Enterprise Product Management

OKRs

Customer Research

Hypothesis and Testing

Business Strategy

User Research

👩‍🚀🚀   Live now for MTP members: <a href="https://mtp2017stg.wpengine.com/membership/#events" style="color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:underline;">Driving Innovation AMA with Tendayi Viki</a>

Roadmaps: Break the rules without breaking the principles

Got questions about your product career?

Product roadmaps vs data – Jeremy Levy on The Product Experience

From engineering to product management at Google

Mind the Product joins Pendo

As a certified Product Manager and freelance writer, Jon likes to bring clarity of communication to his work at BibliU - making digital learning more effective. Jon loves how fast the world of product management is evolving and is always interested in opportunities to be part of the conversation.

Product Manager

Jon Horvath

<p>In this <a href="https://mtp2017stg.wpengine.com/mtpcon/digital/" target="”_blank”" rel="”noopener” noopener noreferrer">#mtpcon Digital 2020 keynote</a>, April Dunford, author of <a href="https://aprildunford.com/obviously-awesome/" target="”_blank”" rel="”noopener” noopener noreferrer"><i>Obviously Awesome</i></a>, answers the key question: “How do we beat our competitors?” emphasising the importance of product positioning and outlining a battleplan-like methodology, showing how to fight fights you can win, turn competitor strengths to weaknesses, and how to justify why your product is the priority.</p>
<p>Watch the video to see her talk in full. Or read on for an overview of her key points:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fight fights you can win</li>
<li>Turn competitor’s strengths to weaknesses</li>
<li>Justify your product as the priority</li>
</ul>
<p>April highlights how “customers really see our products within a context of alternatives&#8230; not in isolation”. In order to sell our products we must “step back and think about how we actually beat these different kinds of competitors”.</p>
<h3>The Hordes</h3>
<p>April defines “The Hordes”, the first of three challengers, as “a large number of competitors that look just like us&#8230; in these markets that are super super competitive”, Showing a map of competitors within the marketing technology space, April asks: “If I&#8217;m a potential customer, how do I actually narrow down a shortlist here, there&#8217;s like 7,000 of these things?&#8221;</p>
<p>The answer is positioning. Positioning defines how your product is the best in the world at providing some value that a well-defined set of customers cares a lot about, she says. She offers the following &gt;methodology to understand a product’s positioning:</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Identify your true competitors:</b> Question if a customer couldn&#8217;t use you, what would they use.</li>
<li><b>Evaluate your value:</b> Ask what the value is of all of those features to the customer and which of those features you have (and what else do you have to offer)</li>
<li><b>Segment your target market: </b>Ask who cares the most about this and why? Then look at the characteristics of the customer, see which market category they’re in and where you need to be so that your value is obvious to the people you’re trying to sell to.</li>
</ol>
<p>The answers to these questions give us market context and a consideration of how customers perceive us. They allow us to check who we’re fighting and how we can win.</p>
<h3>The Giant</h3>
<p>Every company has a Giant competitor, April explains, “there&#8217;s always a big one in your market, and sometimes they&#8217;re not even in your market”. In order to beat them, you should “use their strength against them to draw a line around their business and create your own space in the market.” Here are a few examples:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Strength:</strong> Established</li>
<li>Weakness: Legacy</li>
<li><strong>Strength:</strong> Market-leading</li>
<li>Weakness: Unspecialised</li>
<li><strong>Strength:</strong> Feature rich</li>
<li>Weakness: Complex</li>
<li><strong>Strength:</strong> Trusted by many</li>
<li>Weakness: Slow to innovate</li>
</ul>
<p>The second way to beat The Giant is to let them win: “I draw the picture and I give them a space.” You make concessions, saying they’re good for all of ABC but not for X.</p>
<h3>The Ghost</h3>
<p>Statistically the worst of the three competitors is The Ghost. Indecision, or more accurately, no decision, accounts for 20% of lost deals. April says: “To get the deal we have to beat &#8216;do nothing&#8217;.”</p>
<p>Positioning gets you on a shortlist, but to beat The Ghost “you need an answer for why I got you all the way on the one-yard line&#8230; why now?”, You need to align with the specific customer&#8217;s priorities to show why a decision needs to be a higher priority than anything else.</p>
<p>You need to capitalise on trends as well. “In every market, we&#8217;ve got stuff that&#8217;s going on, and things that are a priority”. April references examples such as GDPR or COVID to explain how trends have a huge impact on securing a sale.</p>
<p>At the end of her talk, April reiterates the need to position yourself in the context of competition, understanding your value and market segment, differentiate yourself from giants and answer that all-important question: Why now?</p>
<div class="g g-21"><div class="g-single a-73"><a class="gofollow" data-track="NzMsMjEsMSw2MA==" href="https://community.mindtheproduct.com/c/general/"><img decoding="async" src="https://mtp2017stg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Membership-Circle-banner-ad-scaled.jpg" /></a></div></div>

core/freeform

Product Management Conference

Build it right: digital governance for product managers by Lisa Welchman

Connecting to your customers in a remote world by Anna Lee Anda

The magic of thinking big by Lenny Rachitsky

Impossible outcomes by Bruce McCarthy

Hooked! Connect, engage and inspire with storytelling by Yamini Naidu

Product Discovery  — the secret sauce of great Agile

Designing for AI by Emily Sappington

The 3 stages of product development at a high growth tech company by Cameron Adams

The new cybernetics: systems thinking for the 21st century by Genevieve Bell

How to adapt to unforeseen circumstances that influence your product by Patryk Pawlikowski

Product Positioning by April Dunford

ProductTank Columbus

ProductTank Tauranga

ProductTank Edinburgh

Prioritised Member AMA - Perfecting product roadmaps

ProductTank San Diego

Navigating difficult relationships panel

ProductTank Philadelphia

ProductTank Bucharest

ProductTank NoVa

Remote Training Workshops

ProductTank London

ProductTank Birmingham

ProductTank Oslo

ProductTank Astana

ProductTank NoVA

ProductTank Zürich

ProductTank Perth

ProductTank Tokyo

ProductTank Chicago

ProductTank Auckland

ProductTank Richmond

ProductTank Charlotte

ProductTank Reston

ProductTank Washington

ProductTank Sofia

ProductTank Raleigh

ProductTank Ljubljana

ProductTank Kraków

ProductTank Athens

ProductTank Barcelona

ProductTank Dublin

ProductTank Montréal

ProductTank Seattle

ProductTank Madison

ProductTank Singapore

ProductTank Portland

ProductTank Budapest

ProductTank Valencia

ProductTank Porto

ProductTank Los Angeles

ProductTank Austin

ProductTank Norwich

ProductTank Des Moines

ProductTank San Francisco

ProductTank Helsinki

ProductTank Reading

ProductTank Brighton

ProductTank Buenos Aires

ProductTank Bielefeld

ProductTank Charleston

ProductTank Bogotá

ProductTank Newcastle Upon Tyne

ProductTank Dallas

ProductTank Malmö

ProductTank Canberra

ProductTank Paris

ProductTank Manchester

#mtpcon SF+Americas 2022 Conference

#mtpEngage Hamburg 2022 Leadership Forum

#mtpEngage Hamburg 2022 Workshops

#mtpEngage Hamburg 2022 Conference

#mtpcon London+EMEA 2022 Conference