There are dozens of positioning frameworks out there. The problem isn't finding one — it's knowing which one fits your situation. I've used most of these across 20 years of B2B tech marketing, and the honest truth is that no single framework works for every company at every stage. Here's the field guide I wish someone had given me when I started.
Most founders and marketing leads pick a positioning framework the way people pick a diet. Someone they respect swears by it, they read the book, they try to apply it wholesale. Then it doesn't quite fit, they get frustrated, and they either abandon the exercise or bodge through it and end up with positioning that sounds right on paper but doesn't change anything in the field.
The reality is that these frameworks solve different problems. Some are brilliant for category creation. Others are designed for crowded markets where you need to carve out space. Some work best in a sales deck. Others are meant for your website. Matching the framework to the problem — that's where the craft is.
The frameworks
1. April Dunford — Obviously Awesome (2019)
What it does: A five-component positioning model built specifically for tech products. Helps you define competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, target customers, and market category — in that order.
When to use it: You have a product that works and customers who love it, but your market doesn't get it yet. Series A through C. Especially good when you've been lumped into the wrong category.
My take: This is the framework I reach for most often. Dunford's insight that you should start with competitive alternatives — not your own features — is genuinely useful. It forces you to see your product the way buyers do. The limitation is that it's deliberately focused on positioning, not narrative. You'll know where you sit in the market but you'll still need to build the story around it.
2. Al Ries & Jack Trout — Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981)
What it does: The original positioning book. Argues that positioning happens in the prospect's mind, not in the product. You either own a category or you find an unoccupied one.
When to use it: When you need to understand the foundational principles. The mental models here — ladders, repositioning competitors, the power of being first — still hold up after 45 years.
My take: Essential reading, slightly dated in execution. The examples are all consumer brands and broadcast advertising. But the core idea — that you can't position yourself in a vacuum, only relative to what already occupies the buyer's mind — remains the most important concept in the entire discipline. Start here for the theory. Don't stop here for the practice.
3. Play Bigger — Ramadan, Peterson, Maney & Lochhead — Play Bigger (2016)
What it does: Category design. Instead of positioning within an existing market, you create and own a new category entirely. The argument: category kings take 76% of the value in their space.
When to use it: You're doing something genuinely new and the existing categories don't serve you. You have the resources and patience for a 2-3 year category creation effort. Think Gainsight defining "customer success" or HubSpot owning "inbound marketing."
My take: Powerful when it fits. Dangerous when it doesn't. Most companies that attempt category design don't have the budget, the patience, or — frankly — the genuine novelty to pull it off. If you're burning cash educating the market about your category before you can even start selling, you might be better off positioning against something buyers already understand. That said, when it works, nothing else comes close.
4. Andy Raskin — "The Greatest Sales Deck" (2016)
What it does: A narrative framework for sales decks. Five elements: name a big relevant shift, show there will be winners and losers, tease the promised land, introduce your product as the path, show proof.
When to use it: Your positioning is solid but your sales deck is a features tour. You need to turn your position into a story that a sales rep can deliver in 20 minutes and a champion can retell in five.
My take: Raskin's framework is the best thing I've seen for turning positioning into a sales narrative. The "name a big shift" opener is genuinely effective — it puts the prospect's world at the centre, not yours. I've used this structure at least a dozen times. The gap: it's a presentation framework, not a full positioning methodology. You need to have done the positioning work first, then pour it into this shape.
5. Gartner Magic Quadrant — analyst positioning as GTM strategy
What it does: It's not a positioning framework per se — it's the market's positioning framework. Gartner, Forrester, and IDC define categories and place vendors in them. Buyers use these as shortlists.
When to use it: You sell to enterprise buyers who rely on analyst reports to justify purchasing decisions. You're in an established category. You need to either move up in the quadrant or figure out how to compete if you're not in one.
My take: Ignoring analyst positioning is a mistake I see startups make constantly. If your buyer's procurement team is going to check the Gartner Magic Quadrant before signing your contract, then your positioning needs to account for where analysts place you — whether you like it or not. The trick is influencing the category definition, not just your placement within it. That's where the real positioning work happens. Not cheap, mind. Analyst relations programmes take time and serious budget.
6. Geoffrey Moore — Crossing the Chasm (1991)
What it does: The "bowling alley" positioning strategy. Pick one beachhead segment, dominate it completely, then expand to adjacent segments. Includes a specific positioning statement template: "For [target], who [need], our product is a [category] that [benefit]. Unlike [alternative], we [differentiator]."
When to use it: Pre-product-market fit through early scaling. You have early adopters but mainstream buyers aren't biting. You're trying to cross from the early market into the pragmatist majority.
My take: Moore's positioning template gets quoted everywhere and I find it both useful and limiting. Useful because it forces you to make choices — who, what, why, versus whom. Limiting because the format is so rigid it tends to produce statements that sound like every other positioning statement. The real value of Crossing the Chasm isn't the template. It's the bowling alley strategy: pick one niche, own it, use that as proof to move to the next. That insight has aged brilliantly.
7. Dave Gerhardt / Exit Five — brand positioning for B2B
What it does: Gerhardt's approach strips brand positioning back to basics for B2B. Who are you, what do you stand for, what do people feel when they interact with you. Less academic, more practitioner-led. His Exit Five community has become a hub for B2B marketers sharing what actually works.
When to use it: Your positioning is technically fine but your brand has no personality. You sound like every other B2B SaaS company. You want to build a brand that people remember and talk about.
My take: Gerhardt gets something right that most B2B positioning frameworks miss — emotion matters. Even in enterprise sales, people buy from companies they trust and like. His emphasis on founder-led content, strong opinions, and personality in B2B is spot on. Where it's less helpful: if you haven't done the strategic positioning work, brand personality alone won't save you. You can be distinctive and memorable and still lose deals because the buyer doesn't understand what problem you solve.
8. Flint McGlaughlin / MECLABS — value proposition testing
What it does: A research-driven approach to testing value propositions. MECLABS treats your value prop as a hypothesis and tests it systematically through experiments — landing pages, ad copy, email subject lines. Their conversion heuristic (C = 4m + 3v + 2(i-f) - 2a) is built for optimisation, not theory.
When to use it: You have enough traffic or leads to run experiments. You've done the positioning work but aren't sure which way of expressing it resonates most. You want to validate with data, not opinions.
My take: McGlaughlin's contribution is the insistence that positioning isn't done when the workshop ends — it's done when you've tested it in the market. Most teams skip this step entirely. They do a positioning exercise, update the website, and move on. MECLABS forces you to treat your value proposition as something you test and refine continuously. The limitation: it's heavy on digital optimisation and lighter on the strategic positioning decisions that feed into it.
9. Donald Miller — Building a StoryBrand (2017)
What it does: A narrative framework built on the hero's journey. Your customer is the hero. Your company is the guide. The framework gives you a seven-part structure: character, problem, guide, plan, call to action, success, failure.
When to use it: Your messaging is too company-centric. Everything on your website starts with "we" instead of "you." You need a simple framework to get your entire team telling the same story.
My take: StoryBrand is brilliant for one thing — it forces you to stop talking about yourself and start talking about the customer's problem. That shift alone is worth the price of the book. But it's a messaging framework dressed up as a positioning framework, and there's a meaningful difference. It'll help you communicate more clearly. It won't help you make the hard strategic choices about where you compete and who you're for. I've seen companies produce beautiful StoryBrand-aligned websites that still don't convert because the underlying positioning is muddled.
10. The Positioning Audit — my approach for the first 30 days
What it does: It's not a single framework — it's a diagnostic process. In the first 30 days of any engagement, I run a structured audit: competitive landscape, buyer interviews, win/loss analysis, internal alignment check, website/deck/sales call review. The output is a positioning brief that tells you what's working, what's broken, and which of the frameworks above to reach for.
When to use it: You've tried a framework and it didn't stick. Or you're not sure which problem you're actually solving. Or — most commonly — different people in your company are telling different stories about what you do.
My take: I built this process because I kept seeing the same pattern. A company would read Obviously Awesome or Crossing the Chasm, run a workshop, produce a positioning statement, and nothing would change. The problem wasn't the framework. It was the diagnosis. They were applying the right medicine to the wrong illness. The audit tells you which illness you've got before you pick the treatment. It's slower than jumping straight to a framework, but it sticks.
XTCC had built a carbon credit verification system that was technically strong but described in a way that made institutional investors shrug. Through a fractional engagement, a combination of Dunford's competitive alternatives approach and Raskin's narrative structure was used to reposition from "verification platform" to "climate finance instrument for sovereign wealth funds." The result: a $6B pipeline, a COP28 award, and Financial Times coverage. Same technology. Different story. Ninety days from brief to launch.
The one I'd start with
If you can only read one book and apply one framework, make it April Dunford's Obviously Awesome. Not because it's the most comprehensive — it's deliberately not. But because it solves the most common problem: your product is good and your buyers don't get it.
Dunford's approach works because it starts from the outside in. What are your buyers comparing you to? What's different about you in that context? Who cares most about that difference? It's practical, it's fast, and it produces something you can actually use in a sales conversation next week.
Then, once you've got the positioning nailed, use Raskin's narrative structure to turn it into a sales deck and StoryBrand to align your website. Layer in Gerhardt's brand thinking to give it personality. Test it with MECLABS' approach. That's the stack that works for most Series A-C tech companies.
And if none of that shifts the needle — or if you are not sure where to start — here is what the process looks like in practice.
Common questions
What's the difference between positioning and messaging?
Positioning is the strategic decision — who you're for, what category you compete in, and why you win. Messaging is how you express that position in words. Most companies skip straight to messaging (taglines, hero copy, pitch decks) without doing the positioning work first. The result is polished language that says nothing distinctive. Get the positioning right and the messaging almost writes itself.
How long does a positioning exercise take?
The core positioning work takes 2-4 weeks if you're focused. That includes customer research, competitive analysis, internal alignment workshops, and the actual positioning decisions. Rolling it out across your website, sales materials, and campaigns takes another 4-6 weeks. Most companies try to rush it into a single offsite — that produces a poster for the wall, not a strategy that changes how you sell.
Can I do positioning myself or do I need outside help?
You can absolutely start the diagnosis yourself — run the homepage test, pull win/loss data, sit in on sales calls. But the actual positioning decisions are hard to make from inside the building. You're too close to your own product. An outside perspective — whether that's a consultant, an advisory board member, or even a sharp customer — helps you see your company the way buyers see it, not the way you wish they did.