April Dunford on Why B2B Positioning Fails — Even When You've Done the Work

When the framework isn't the problem

I just read April Dunford's new piece in Lenny's Newsletter on advanced B2B positioning, and I have to talk about it — because the trap she's describing is the same trap I see in almost every offer I look at, including some of my own.

Dunford has worked with 300+ B2B companies over 10 years. So when she sits down to write about what's actually breaking in teams that have already done the positioning basics, you should pay attention. These aren't beginner mistakes. These are the ones that ambush you when you think you're past beginner mistakes.

Her central insight: most positioning problems aren't framework problems. They're alignment problems — and the team is the one out of alignment, not the market.

The four roadblocks Dunford lays out

In the article, Dunford breaks down four spots where positioning falls apart:

1. Departments don't agree on who you compete with. Marketing tracks the loudest competitor. Product tracks tomorrow's threat. Sales tracks the deals they just lost. Founders are still defending a worldview from three years ago. Four different teams, four different definitions of "competition."

2. Product pessimism blinds the team to actual strengths. You're so close to the gaps that you forget you have real advantages. Dunford says this shows up as overly broad customer definitions and dismissing what sales is telling you about why deals close.

3. Differentiated value is poorly defined. Teams stop one step short — they describe a feature, but never tie it to a business outcome the prospect actually cares about (revenue, cost, time).

4. Unclear what to position. (This one's behind the paywall, but the setup makes it obvious — most teams try to position the whole company when they should be positioning the wedge.)

The stat that should rewire your strategy

The number from Dunford's piece I can't stop thinking about:

B2B vendors lose ~50% of their opportunities to the status quo — and some companies lose 80%.

Read that again. Half your lost deals aren't going to your competitor. They're going to nothing. The prospect just stayed where they were. That's the alternative Dunford says you should actually be positioning against.

This matches what I've seen in my own world building funnels. The people who say no to your offer aren't usually saying yes to a competitor's offer. They're saying yes to doing nothing. The status quo is the real enemy. Your competitor is mostly a distraction.

What I'd add to Dunford's piece

Dunford writes from a B2B SaaS lens, but the same principle hits in info products and online businesses. In my experience:

• The version of "product pessimism" I see most is creators undervaluing their transformation — they think their offer isn't unique because the topic isn't unique
• The version of "poorly defined value" I see most is people listing features (modules, hours, bonuses) instead of the specific business outcome the buyer is buying
• And the alignment problem? It shows up in every mastermind I've ever been in. Marketing is positioning the offer one way, the sales page is positioning it another way, the founder is on a podcast saying a third thing

If you fix the alignment, you fix three of the four roadblocks at once.

How to use this in your own offer this week

A practical sequence I'd run, inspired by Dunford:

1. Write down — separately, by team or by stakeholder — who you think you compete with
2. Compare the lists. They will not match. The gap is the size of your alignment problem.
3. Re-ask the question Dunford suggests: "If we didn't exist, what would prospects actually do?" — not who would they buy from, what would they do
4. Position against that

The Bottom Line

Dunford's piece is the rare strategy article that's actually about strategy — not tactics dressed up as strategy. The four roadblocks she lays out are real, the status quo stat is the kind of number that should change how you write your next sales page, and the underlying message is one most teams need to hear: if positioning isn't working, the framework probably isn't the problem. The team is.