Personas are people, sales reps who are the end-user, Eric the IT person, and Janet the sales rep, John the champion in the account (the most important).

Positioning and branding are different too. Positioning inputs into branding.

Segmentation versus personas: Confusion comes from B2b versus B2C. Consumer it is similar: segments are people so that is like a persona.

Capabilities comparison (features, capabilities of the company, capabilities of the product )is important. the differentiator value ones, in which there will be two or three themes.

status quo: 30% of deals are lost due to indecision. excel sheets, interns, pen and paper you have to position towards those too. win against alternatives.

The way it starts - the founder has an idea, the marketing is a little bit different. Sales a little bit different and product managers are a little bit different. Duh! Not aligned! it is a group work - positioning exercise. The majority of the issues are misalignments.

Steps of positioning: - scope competitive alternatives: status quo and shortlist - chart out differentiating capabilities- translate them into values: so what - theme/bucket the values 2 or 3 - chart the characteristics target account- what market category or context I am in

It is hard to get - people always do not understand or they say they get it and it is totally wrong.. like you are salesforce! no. Or worse - yeah I understand but why would we pay for that! sign of weak positioning.

how customers buy:1- somebody VP of sales get a CRM it sucks. 2- John is tasked to do it. 3- then he googles 90K companies 4- they figure out to make a shortlist, and have a justification. 5- you have to help the customer with step 4, if they can not they will go back to the status quo, the thing that sucks stays. that excel sheet stays.