The Marketing Expert: Sell Anything with this Trick

About this video

April Dunford is a globally recognised positioning expert and successful tech-industry executive turned consultant, founder of Ambient Strategy, and bestselling author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch, who has helped hundreds of B2B tech companies sharpen their market position and drive growth.

Most B2B companies think they have a sales problem. Often, they actually have a positioning problem. This conversation breaks down what positioning really means, why most companies get it wrong, and how dominating a small, well-defined segment can be more powerful than competing head-on with market leaders.

Full Video at the end of page

Key takeaways

Core Insight (Plain English)

Most companies think positioning is a tagline exercise or a branding refresh. It isn’t.

Positioning is the foundation that everything else sits on. It defines how your product is the best in the world at delivering a specific value to a specific group of customers. It’s the context that tells buyers what bucket to put you in.

Call the same product “cake” versus “muffin” and suddenly it competes differently, is priced differently, and is judged differently. The product hasn’t changed. The context has.

In B2B, this matters even more because buyers are not just comparing features. They are trying to avoid making a mistake. Between 40–60% of B2B buying processes end in no decision. Not because one option is better — but because buyers are unsure.

Great positioning reduces that uncertainty. Weak positioning creates confusion, miscomparison, or indifference. The practical path most successful tech companies take is not “compete head-on with the market leader.” It’s: dominate a small, undeserved segment first — then expand outward

7 Practical Operator Lessons
(For SME Leaders)

1. If you can’t clearly say “we are the best at X for Y,” you don’t have positioning.

Positioning isn’t “we’re innovative” or “AI-powered.” It’s:
We are the best at delivering this outcome, for this type of customer, compared to these alternatives.

In Southeast Asia, where markets are crowded and trust is fragile, vague positioning dies fast.

2. Don’t compete with the gorilla. Pick a corner.

If you position yourself directly against the category leader, you invite comparison you will lose.

Instead:

• Find a segment the big player doesn’t care about.

• Become the obvious choice there.

• Expand from strength.

This works well in ASEAN markets where niches (industry, geography, language, compliance requirements) are often overlooked by global players.

3. Features don’t sell. Value clarity sells.

Operators fall in love with features. Buyers ask: “Why would I pay for this?”

If your sales calls include:

• “Can’t I just do this in Excel?”

• “Why would I switch?”

You have a value articulation problem — not a lead generation problem.

4. In B2B, fear is the dominant emotion.

Consumer buyers might chase aspiration. B2B buyers avoid embarrassment.

They are thinking:

• “Will this get me in trouble?”

• “Will my boss question this?”

• “Is this a safe choice?”

Your positioning must make the buyer feel smart and defensible, not adventurous. This is especially relevant in Southeast Asia, where hierarchy and internal accountability matter heavily in enterprise decisions.

5. “No decision” is your biggest competitor.

40–60% of B2B deals end in no decision. Not lost to a competitor — lost to inaction.

If prospects:

• Seem confused,

• Ask you to “start again,”

• Compare you to the wrong category,

You likely have a positioning problem, not a sales problem.

6. Positioning is not a marketing department project.

Changing positioning changes:

• Target market

• Product roadmap

• Sales strategy

• Pricing

• Partnerships

This requires product, sales, CEO, customer success alignment — not just homepage edits. If sales doesn’t believe it, it won’t stick.

7. Don’t create a “new category” unless it truly is one.

Category creation sounds glamorous. Often it creates confusion.

If customers keep saying: “Aren’t you just a CRM?”

Then you probably are. And fighting that may be slowing you down. For most SMEs, sub-category dominance beats category invention.

Summary & Reflections

Positioning sounds strategic and abstract. In reality, it’s uncomfortable work.

It forces you to:

• Admit who you’re not for

• Acknowledge competitors directly

• Accept a smaller starting market

• Challenge your original founder story

It also exposes bad assumptions. The example of the “super-fast database” that nobody urgently needed is a reminder: innovation does not guarantee demand.

For Southeast Asian SME operators especially, where resources are tight and runway is limited, deliberate positioning may be one of the highest leverage strategic decisions — but it does not replace product-market fit, sales execution, or distribution.

It simply makes those efforts more efficient.

Who should watch the full video

1. B2B SaaS founders in ASEAN struggling with stalled deals

2. SME owners competing against larger incumbents

3. Heads of sales frustrated with “good meetings but no closes”

4. Marketing leads tasked with “refreshing the brand” without clarity on strategy

5. CEOs preparing for fundraising who need a sharper category narrative

If you are running a product-led or sales-led SME and feel like “we’re good, but the market isn’t getting it,” this is worth your time.

It will likely force uncomfortable but necessary questions.

Until next time,
The SME Signal editorial Team