This is what positioning for the biggest B2B market looks like...

(see image showing the homepage hero’s of Asana, Glean, Jira , monday.com, Notion, ClickUp)

The market of “people doing work”.

(ie. every company on the planet)

The B2C equivalent of this market would be: “people living life”.

(ie. every person on the planet)

What kills me is that some people (executives & VCs) actually think this type of positioning and messaging is good.

They love the big, abstract, world-dominating nature of it — it’s the ultimate ego stroke.

But when you stop to think about how this approach comes across to a prospect interacting with your marketing, it becomes clear how silly these strategies are.

To demonstrate, here’s what a conversation between a prospect and your marketing would look like if your marketing could have back and forth dialogue (like a sales person would).

Customer: “Hey! I’ve heard about your company, but I’m not quite sure what you do.  Can you tell me what I would use your product for?”

Your Marketing: “Of course!  You’d use us to DO WORK.”

Customer: “What do you mean “do work”?

Your Marketing: “I mean, you and your teams can use us to do anything!”

Customer: “Anything? So, like, if I wanted your product to go to work for me, I could stay home and spend time with my family”

Your Marketing: “Well, not exactly. But you could use us to find, create, and automate anything.”

Customer: “I’m not really sure what that means.  Perhaps you could give me an example of what someone is using your product to do?”

Your Marketing: “No problem. This one company uses us to better manage their sales pipeline by setting up automations on top of their CRM.”

Customer: “Ah okay, I think I’m starting to get it.  You’re like a sales automation tool.  That’s cool.  But I’m actually not in sales, I run the shipping department for a logistics company. It was nice chatting with you...”

Your Marketing: “Wait! Where are you going?  Our product is perfect for shipping departments.”

Customer: “But you just told me it was for sales?”

Your Marketing: “It’s for that too. We can do anything!”

Customer: “That’s cool, but I’m not sure there is a fit — we like to work with vendors that are 100% focused on our workflows and domain.

Now of course, any sales person worth their salt would not communicate this way.

They’d do their diligence, ask questions, and personalize the positioning and messaging for each prospect.

But therein lies the rub...Marketing doesn’t have the luxury of a back-and-forth dialogue.

———

The takeaway for founders and marketing leaders?

When you try to position for these big markets (aka: positioning on broad, high-level workflows like: “do work”)...

...you're likely to end up with vague messaging in your market programs that, at best, don’t resonate with anyone...

...and at worst, actively detract prospects from engaging with you.