3 lessons I learned from a recent SaaS re-positioning project

Yesterday afternoon I handed over another repositioning project.

This time it was for a SaaS vendor in the Marketing Automation space. One that’s growing nicely, but aspiring to accelerated growth.

And handing over such intense projects is always a good moment to reflect and conclude on some key learnings. So I did.

The call was planned for 3 PM. A Google Meeting with the CEO, all the key people in the team, and one of their board members.

As I was going through my summary deck one more time – and as I did some critical moments were pictured in my mind…

… the conversations with customers about what matters most to them

…the brainstorming sessions with product marketing, sales, and product development

…the discussions I had with their CEO about his goals and aspirations

I questioned myself: ‘Next time I do such a project, what should change?’

And here are the three things that stood out to me:

👉 Do as many possible customer interviews as early as possible in the process.

Positioning is about creating an instant connection with a well-defined set of customers about what they deeply care about and what you solve best. So the earlier those foundational insights are clear, the easier the process gets.

👉 Simple and specific always wins over clever and generic.

There’s a reason why it’s hard to do a repositioning project within your own team. You’re inside a bubble i.e. the echo-chambre. Well-intended internal think-tanks and passionate opinions are OK, as long as it contributes to simplicity, clarity and more focus on the customer.

👉 Don’t mix how you want to win the mind of your ideal customer with how you want to win the mind of industry analysts.

These are two different domains. Mixing them rarely makes the end result better. Customers don’t care about the acronyms and jargon used within your category – they care about the outcome they get.

That leaves me with one question:

What valuable lesson have you recently learned from positioning your SaaS product?