Positioning, Dunford's method
Fill Dunford's five components in order for the clinic scheduler, pick the alternative and category by win-rate arithmetic, and defend both.
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April Dunford's Obviously Awesome (2019) treats positioning as five components filled in a fixed order: competitive alternatives, unique attributes, value, the customers who care most, and the market category. Each is built from the one before, and each can carry a number. Worked for the clinic scheduler, the order lands on the same "no-show reduction" category that Ries and Trout's ladder found in the buyer's memory, and adds what the ladder could not: how many clinics the choice wins.
The mistake: starting from the category
The team's first homepage read "Simple scheduling for clinics": a category everyone knows and an adjective nobody can check. Dunford puts the category last, because it is the frame that tells a buyer what to compare the product with, and it should be chosen to make the product's strengths obvious. "Scheduling" picked the comparison before anyone checked who the scheduler beats.
1. Competitive alternatives: what prospects do today
The first component is what a buyer would do if the product did not exist. Last year's demo prospects, by what they used on arrival: 45% ran on paper and phone, 30% used a general booking tool at $29 a month, 25% a practice-management suite at $400 a month. The demo win rates against each were 55%, 35% and 10%.
An alternative's weight is its share of prospects times the win rate against it:
wins per 100 prospects = share × win rate
paper and phone 45 × 55% = 24.75
$29 booking tool 30 × 35% = 10.5
$400 suite 25 × 10% = 2.5
total 37.75
Two wins in three (24.75 of 37.75) come from clinics on paper and phone, so that is the alternative to position against. The total is the 38% close rate behind the $800 cost to win a clinic in the beachhead arithmetic: $300 a demo ÷ 0.3775 ≈ $795.
2. Unique attributes, and 3. their value
Dunford starts this step from the customers who love the product. In the 400 paying clinics' reviews, 60% cite one feature: the reminder sequence, which texts every patient before the appointment and lets them confirm, cancel or rebook by reply. Against paper and phone it is unique because it reaches every patient without anyone at the front desk picking up a phone. The $29 tool books appointments and sends nothing.
An attribute is what the product has; value is what the buyer gets, in the buyer's units. No-shows fall from 12% to 5%, so for a two-practitioner clinic booking 40 appointments a day at $80:
40 × (12% − 5%) = 2.8 fewer no-shows a day
2.8 × $80 × 22 working days ≈ $4,900 a month recovered, against $99
The proof is the clinic's own no-show rate before and after, which the product can show at day 30. "Saves time" is a claim; "your no-shows went from 12% to 5%" is proof.
4. Who cares most
Value scales with appointments, the no-show rate and the price of an appointment, so those define the best-fit customer. A one-practitioner clinic with 20 appointments a day recovers 20 × 7% × $80 × 22 ≈ $2,460 a month: half as much, still 25 times the price. A clinic whose front desk already phones every patient and runs at 6% recovers 40 × 1% × $80 × 22 ≈ $700: real money, but an owner who does not feel the problem skips the demo.
So the best-fit customer is criteria with numbers: one to five practitioners, no-shows above 10%, nobody whose job is phoning patients.
5. Market category: the frame that sets the comparison
Three candidates, each judged by the comparison it invites:
| Category | Puts the scheduler beside | What the buyer compares |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduling | the $29 tool | price: $99 is 3.4 times $29 |
| Practice management | the $400 suite | features: billing and notes the scheduler lacks |
| No-show reduction for small clinics | phoning patients the day before | $99 against $4,900 recovered |
Dunford names three ways to win with a category: head to head against the leader of an existing one, here the suite at a 10% win rate; create a new game, a category buyers must be taught; and big fish, small pond, a sub-segment of a category they already understand. "No-show reduction for small clinics" is the third: owners already count no-shows in money, so only the answer needs teaching.
Defending it against the two nearest alternatives
A positioning is tested against the alternatives a buyer raises in the demo. The two nearest are the two most prospects arrive with, paper and phone and the $29 tool: 75 of every 100 prospects and 35.25 of the 37.75 wins.
Against paper and phone, the buyer's case is "it costs nothing and we already phone". The answer is the value line: $99 against about $4,900 recovered, without the calls. Every point of win rate here is worth 0.45 wins per 100 prospects, the most of any alternative, so these lost-deal notes are the first to read.
Against the $29 tool, the buyer's case is price. The answer is the difference, not the total: $70 a month more for about $4,900 recovered, because the tool sends no reminders. Every point of win rate here is worth 0.30 wins per 100.
The positioning also changes who arrives. If copy and channels aimed at the paper-and-phone owner move the mix from 45/30/25 to an assumed 55/30/15, wins per 100 become 55 × 55% + 30 × 35% + 15 × 10% = 42.25, and the cost to win a clinic falls from $300 ÷ 0.3775 ≈ $795 to $300 ÷ 0.4225 ≈ $710.
What would reverse it is the $29 tool shipping a reminder sequence. The attribute would stop being unique against 30% of prospects, and if the win rate against the tool fell from 35% to 20%, wins per 100 would drop by 30 × 15% = 4.5: the whole of the mix gain. The claim would then have to move from "has reminders" to the measured 12% to 5%. The suite is left alone throughout: doubling a 10% win rate adds 25 × 10% = 2.5 wins per 100, bought with a feature race the scheduler cannot win.
The positioning, written down
For clinics with one to five practitioners that lose about one appointment in eight to no-shows, the scheduler is no-show reduction software. Its reminder sequence lets patients confirm, cancel or rebook by text, which cuts no-shows from 12% to 5%: about $4,900 a month for a two-practitioner clinic, for $99. Unlike phoning patients the day before, it needs nobody at the front desk.
It is a brief, not copy: every page and sales slide is checked against it. The product course fills the same five components for an AI feature in positioning, and the 4Ps and 7Ps check the rest of the business against it.
In practice
To sales: open every demo by asking the clinic's no-show rate, because that number is the buyer's own value line. To the board: report wins per 100 prospects by alternative each quarter, beside the mix. A falling total with steady win rates means the positioning is attracting the wrong prospects, not that sales got worse.
The mistake that costs money is choosing the category before the alternative. "Scheduling" sounds safe and hands every prospect the $29 comparison, where $99 loses on price by construction.
Check yourself
1. The $29 tool ships a two-message reminder sequence, and next quarter the win rate against it falls from 35% to 25%. Estimate the cost, then decide whether to change the category.
Wins per 100 fall by 30 × 10% = 3, from 37.75 to 34.75, and the cost to win a clinic rises from about $795 to $300 ÷ 0.3475 ≈ $865. Keep the category: paper and phone still supply 24.75 of the 34.75 wins. Change the proof against the tool, the measured 12% to 5% against two messages, and read the lost-deal notes.
2. Sales wants to go after suite users: "they already pay $400, so they will pay for us." Decide, with the arithmetic.
A suite user who switches pays $99, not $400. Doubling the suite win rate from 10% to 20% adds 2.5 wins per 100, and needs features the scheduler lacks. Raising the paper-and-phone win rate from 55% to 61% adds about as many, 6 × 0.45 = 2.7, in a comparison the scheduler already wins. Decline.
3. A clinic that phones every patient runs at 6% no-shows and asks for a demo. Best fit or not, and what do you tell them?
Not best fit: 40 × 1% × $80 × 22 ≈ $700 a month, real but not felt. Price the calls instead: at an assumed 2 minutes each, 40 calls is 80 minutes a day, roughly a working day a week. If the owner values that time, sell the time; if not, do not discount to win the deal.