Here’s a question every salesperson should consider:

How well do you know your competitors?

When we speak to sales teams, we tend to hear 2 answers:

A1: I know who our 1-3 competitors are.

A2: I know who our 1-3 competitors are and exactly how to handle conversations with their users.

That’s a big difference.

People who answer along the lines of A2 tend to have a deep understanding of the subtle differences between their company and their competitors, like:

• What their competitors’ users are still frustrated with.
• Their competitive advantages.
• Their competitive weaknesses.
• Their users’ dealbreakers.
• Their users’ green flags.
• (Most importantly) What will get the prospect to happily choose you over them.

The more of these you know, the better you’ll be able to think on your feet during a conversation and the better you’ll be able to actually help your prospect.

Here’s the tough part - many companies expect their teams to just work all of this out on their own.

There’s a much better way to do this, though.

We like encouraging sales teams to use battle cards.

The aim is to create a one-page doc that’ll organize your competitor research and give you and your team a visual tool to use on calls (or while writing emails and messages).

Here’s what our battle card template looks like:

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Get a copy

If you’d like to use this template, feel free to click the link above. It’s a view-only doc, so just hit “File → Make a Copy” to get your own editable version.

Here’s how battle cards can help your sales:

• They’ll help you think faster.
• They’ll help you have better conversations.
• They’ll help you have more specific conversations.
• They’ll help you know exactly what to follow up with.
• They’ll help you have a better understanding of the market.
• They'll help you get everyone on your team to use the best messaging.

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We’re excited for you to start working with this template, because it makes your comparison to your competitors easier to understand, leading to a well-built and thorough plan of action.

Step #1: Steal this template directly by opening the link and making a copy for you to use.

Step #2: Fill it out for your top competitors.

Step #3: Begin working with it to understand where you stand amongst your competition.

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