"Grow faster." "Connect everything." "Transform your business."

These are real homepage headlines from some of the biggest names in B2B software. While these companies can get away with broad, aspirational messaging, this approach is costing most B2B companies real money.

The pattern is clear: As B2B companies grow, they tend to drift from clear, specific positioning toward vague, aspirational messaging. This drift is so common that many consider it inevitable. But does it have to be?

This article draws insights from three leading B2B positioning experts:

• April Dunford, author of "Obviously Awesome" and positioning consultant who has helped 200+ companies define their market position
• Anthony Pierri, co-founder of Fletch PMM, who has helped nearly 100 early-stage B2B startups nail their positioning
• Peep Laja, founder of Wynter, who has conducted extensive research on what messaging actually resonates with B2B buyers

We'll focus on practical insights about how companies can maintain clear, specific positioning even as they grow.

You'll learn:

• Why successful B2B companies tend to drift toward broader positioning over time
• The real costs of vague messaging (and the data that proves it)
• How leading companies like Stripe maintain clarity as they scale
• A practical framework for developing and maintaining specific positioning
• Actionable steps to avoid the "broad positioning" trap in your organization

In B2B positioning, it’s typically the bigger, the broader

There's a common assumption in B2B that enterprise buyers prefer high-level, aspirational messaging.

And if you look at the homepages of some of the top companies in B2B right now, you’ll see that trend play out over and over again.

Just by reading this, you’d have no idea what the companies in question actually do. 

And while this might work for well-known, incredibly successful companies with pretty solid brand awareness – it’s going to do more harm than good for most B2B companies.

Why Companies Go Broad

But many of these same companies started with much more specific positioning focused on the concrete solutions they offered:

This drift toward broader positioning has real consequences.

According to Peep Laja's research with B2B buyers, vague messaging often leads to delayed or lost deals. "If you leave it to the visitor to figure out how one company is different or better than the other, you're going to lose."

April Dunford's research supports this: "40 to 60% of B2B purchase processes end in no decision." Often, this isn't because customers chose a competitor - they simply couldn't confidently make a decision based on unclear positioning.

But why does this happen? There’s a few reasons driving broader positioning:

Multiple Stakeholders

"If you're trying to satisfy various stakeholders - CEO wants to say this, sales believes that, marketing whatever - then it's like, how can we say something that makes everybody happy? And then it's vague bullshit," explains Anthony Pierri.

Market Expansion

As April Dunford notes, companies often feel pressure to expand their addressable market: "The investors were like, 'Well, hang on. We don't want you to be CRM for investment banks. That's too small. How are we gonna make any money?'"

Product Evolution

As products add features and capabilities, companies often try to communicate everything. Peep Laja observes this leads to websites "where the designer designs something nice and big minds. Oh, we allocated this space for words. So like, can you just put some words in there?"

The Enterprise Myth 

There's a persistent belief that enterprise buyers prefer high-level messaging. But as Pierri points out, "It's insulting to think they're going to buy a 10,000-person company solution because it sounds fancy."

How Successful Companies Stay Specific

As Emily Kramer from MKT1 says, with positioning exercises, “We aren’t seeing the forest through the trees. We are getting lost in the sauce.” And the result is vague, broad, and let’s face it, pretty useless positioning.

Here’s a few ways you can stay specific:

Start With a Narrow Focus

April Dunford shares a success story: "We narrowed the positioning down to 'we're CRM for investment banks' because we knew we could sell there, we knew we could beat the great big incumbent there." Only after dominating that space did they expand to retail banking, then financial services.

Use Real Examples

Peep Laja points to Stripe's homepage as a model of clarity: "Their H2 underneath the main headline says 'Millions of companies of all sizes use Stripe online and in person to accept payments, send payouts, and automate financial processes.' That right there is three example use cases."

Focus on Capability

Anthony Pierri emphasizes focusing on what people actually do with your product: "The capability is essentially answering the question, what do I do with the product? The feature is like the technical aspect... but capabilities are what you actually do with it."

A Framework for Clear B2B Positioning

Based on insights and advice from experts we’ve interviewed, here’s a simple framework for keeping your positioning clear and avoiding the “too broad” trap.

Step One: Define Your Category and Audience

Start by explicitly stating:

• What broad category you're in (e.g., "email marketing platform," "customer service software")
• Your specific sub-category or focus (e.g., "for B2B SaaS companies," "for online retailers")
• Key use case (e.g., "to automate sales outreach," "to manage customer support tickets")

Example format: "[Product] is a [category] for [specific audience] to [key use case]"

Step Two: Map Your Competitive Landscape

Don't try to position against every possible competitor. Instead:

• List the 2-3 alternatives that actually show up in sales conversations
• Document how customers currently solve the problem (including manual solutions)
• Identify what specific capabilities make you different from these alternatives
• Focus on current capabilities, not future promises

Step Three: Build Your Value Story

Instead of broad claims, focus on specific, measurable outcomes:

• Replace abstract benefits ("improve efficiency") with concrete results ("reduce response time by 50%")
• Include specific numbers from customer results
• Structure outcomes as "from → to" statements
• Lead with your strongest differentiated value proposition

Real example from AppCues: Instead of: "Get users to their aha moment faster" Use: "Customers see 30% faster product adoption in the first 30 days"

Step Four: Test and Iterate

Before finalizing your positioning:

• Run it by 5-10 target customers
• Ask specific questions like:some text
  • What type of company is this product for?
  • What specific problem does it solve?
  • Why would you choose this over alternatives?
  • What questions are still unanswered?
• Look for patterns in the feedback
• Revise based on what's unclear or missing

Step Five: Maintain Consistency

Once you've established clear positioning:

• Create a one-page positioning guide for your team
• Include specific examples of how to talk about your product
• Document what you're NOT (just as important as what you are)
• Review and update quarterly based on market changes and customer feedback

The key is being ruthlessly specific. Every time you're tempted to broaden your positioning, ask yourself:

"Will this make it easier or harder for our ideal customer to understand our value?"

Tips for getting the most out of a positioning exercise

1. Use Data to Drive Decisions: Test messaging with actual target customers before going live. Tools like Wynter can help gather feedback quickly.
2. Build Cross-Functional Alignment: April Dunford emphasizes that "positioning sticks better when sales and product and the CEO have been involved in building it."
3. Create a Growth Plan: Plan how you'll expand while maintaining clarity. As April Dunford explains with the CRM example: "We drew the bowling pins out... We're gonna knock off the lead pin. That's gonna lead us to three more pins, that's gonna lead us to four more pins."

Your Next Steps

Review your current positioning:

• Could you be more specific about who it's for?
• Are you clearly stating what category you're in?
• Do you name specific use cases?
• Can you replace any broad claims with specific outcomes?

If the answer is “no” to any of those questions – it’s probably time for a refresh.

Remember Anthony Pierri's core insight: "Clear is usually better than clever." Your prospects will thank you for it.

More Exit Five Resources on B2B Positioning

• April Dunford on Marketing Strategy and Positioning Yourself to Win
• B2B Positioning and Understanding How People Buy with Peep Laja, CEO at Wynter
• Story is Strategy: The Power of Product Positioning with Amrita Mathur
• Creating a Value Prop, Fixing Your Website Messaging, and Positioning Lessons from 100 B2B SaaS Startups with Anthony Pierri, Fletch PMM

Community Exclusive Templates

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• DG’s 5-Step Positioning Framework
• Positioning and messaging brief template
• Product Positioning & Messaging template
• Message positioning template

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