Build an actionable competitor battle card

Business Benefits

Set your sales reps up for success.


Identify 3-5 competitors who most frequently come up in sales conversations and prospects’ evaluation, and would be useful additions to your battle card deck.

Talk with your sales team & your marketing team and do competitive research to pick these competitors.

Since battle cards are for sales reps, prioritize competitors your sales team hears about frequently above other research.

Populate your battle cards with quick sound bite information on aspects of your competitors like pricing, common issues, stories, and pricing.

Battle cards should contain:

  • Company profile: basic facts about your competitor
  • Quick dismiss: common ways that help you disqualify your competitors in your prospect’s mind
  • Win/Loss stories: a mini case study about a time you’ve won (or lost) a deal against this competitor and why
  • Landmines: statements that allow you to place doubt about your competitors in your prospect’s mind
  • Pricing: comparison pricing against your own pricing that’s easy to understand

Speak with your sales reps to customize your battle cards to your company’s situation and industry.

Practice having your sales team use the battle cards with role play.

After you produce a battle card, test it in a meeting with your sales team. Ask: what doesn’t make sense? What could be rephrased to be more powerful or natural? What’s missing?

Doing this also allows you to get your reps familiar with battle cards.

Place battle cards where they’re easily accessible - both physical and digital.

If battle cards aren’t easily accessible, they won’t be used. Get creative: print them out, turn them into a card deck. Add to multiple locations like company wiki, CRM system, and pinned to Slack channels.

Update cards and add to your battle card deck regularly as new competitors emerge, new features are built, and pricing changes.

Last edited by @hesh_fekry 2023-11-14T15:30:47Z