Everyone Hates Marketers | No-BS Marketing & Brand Strategy Podcast · Louis Grenier | Marketing & Branding

How April Dunford Built a 7-Figure Solo Consulting Biz

·51 min·5 clips

April Dunford left a terrible CEO job that broke promises, pushing her to build a seven-figure solo business.

Louis Grenier opens by reading a recommendation email from a mutual contact who described Dunford as having a unique mix of saucy wit and laser-sharp insight, which Grenier calls the best description he has ever received for a guest pitch. Dunford's background is executive-level B2B technology marketing: she served as VP of Marketing at multiple companies over two decades, where she repeatedly encountered the same problem. Companies had technically strong products that were marketed in ways that made them invisible to their most likely buyers. She developed a systematic method for repositioning products, which eventually became the subject of Obviously Awesome. The consulting practice grew from the book: companies read it and hired her. She has stayed intentionally solo because the economics of a boutique agency, where revenue scales with headcount, are less attractive than the economics of a solo specialist where revenue scales with reputation and demand. She charges premium rates and takes on a limited number of engagements per year. Dunford describes the shape of a typical engagement: a condensed workshop of two to three days with the founding and product team to work through the positioning methodology, followed by a deliverable that becomes the brief for all downstream marketing work. She argues that most marketing problems are really positioning problems in disguise: companies struggle with lead quality, sales cycle length, and churn because prospects do not understand why the product is the right choice for them, not because the ads or content are poorly made. Louis connects this to the show's theme of differentiation: the first step in standing out is identifying what you are uniquely capable of doing, and most marketing jobs are broad enough that any practitioner can develop deep expertise in a narrow area quickly by choosing to focus. The tone is candid and practical. The audience is consultants, freelancers, and marketing practitioners building independent practices.

As heard by us

Blunt positioning advice built around real pain and whether a business has something worth fixing.

The episode sets three struggling freelancers inside a 17th century cottage in rural Ireland and uses that setup to ask a plain question: does the business actually have a problem worth fixing?

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

See how April Dunford calls bullshit on fake business problems.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Everyone Hates Marketers | No-BS Marketing & Brand Strategy Podcast