what repositioning really means

(hint: it's a lot of work)

I’m not a fan of confusing websites. If it’s not clear what you do and who you do it for (ie.: me), the tab closes and I’m onto another page.

This isn’t a story about copywriting (though it’s part of it later) or how to capture a reader’s attention. It’s a story about spending 12 months trying to be something we are not and what comes next.

Until very recently, Accoil Analytics was a product analytics tool.

Our positioning as a product analytics tool was not working. Call yourself a product analytics tool on a sales call and you either hear “We already have one of those” or “Isn’t that what Amplitude does?”

Analytics is hard.

Accoil the product hasn’t changed much. And yet today Accoil is something different. We’re repositioning.

If you’ve read April Dunford or maybe seen the FletchPMM crew on LinkedIn, good positioning can be hard to come up with. There’s a lot of ideating and studying markets and listening to customers.

The idea of a product’s position is actually quite cheap. After plotting to reposition a product. That’s when the real work starts.

The impact of repositioning creates a massive crater. Every team and function and role is effected. It’s not just your home page that needs fresh copy, it’s your docs, your onboarding, your emails, you calendar links, and so on.

I understand why some companies hold on to their positioning for too long. There’s an attachment to the original position because that’s what you make your first bet on when founding a company. It’s an emotional thing to change.

There’s also this mountain of work to do once the decision is made. It’s scary and can feel like a step backwards. I mean, didn’t we just spend weeks obsessing over the H1 on our home page? And we’re doing it all again, but this time with some other market in mind?

• If it’s hard to convince people of your value, it may be time to reposition.

• If you constantly get compared to products and companies you don’t think are a real match, it may be time to reposition.

• If prospects and customers get excited about your product in ways you didn’t expect, it may be time to listen and reposition.

It’s not something to take lightly and I want you to know that it’s more than doing some Miro board brainstorming and writing down a new positioning statement.

The volume of work to change from one kind of product to another is big even when the product itself doesn’t change.

Repositioning is heavy. In a good way.

Peter

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