Understanding Sales Battlecards: What are they?
On average, 28% of your pipeline is lost to competitors. In that, elite sales performers win competitive deals 33% more often and make up a mere <10% of your sales team. If you could convert all your sales team into elite performers, you’d be able to significantly increase company revenue without bringing on more salespeople and improve sales team happiness and retention (because who doesn’t want a bigger commission check?
Winning against competitors isn’t natural skill alone – you can learn from the approach the top performers are using and give the entire sales team the ability to win against competition just as consistently.
Sales battlecards enable your entire sales force to win when faced with a competitive deal.
Pick Your Categories
When building out your battlecards, it’s important to know what information you should have readily available. You should select categories that will give the sales team an edge of their competition and help them react quickly to client questions or concerns, or comparisons to competitors.
The categories should be considered for each specific meeting you book and the battlecards should be tailored to the client or company you are meeting with. It’s good to ask yourself:
- What information will be essential in this meeting?
- What is the nature of the meeting?
- How will this information prepare sales reps for potential questions that could come up?
Below are a few of the categories you might want to consider for your battlecards:
- Competitor Overview
- Differentiators
- Value Matrix
- Strengths & Weaknesses
- Key Takeaways
- Fast-Facts
Know Your Competitors
Battlecards will not be particularly useful if you don’t have a strong grasp on what your competitors are up to. You need to know how their product works, what they have to offer, and the differentiators between your product and theirs.
It’s important to include competitor analysis in your sales battlecards. When your sales reps are pitching to prospective clients, they need to be able to tell the difference between your product and the competitor products and share where your product has advantages over your competitor’s products.
A good resource to utilize for competitor analysis and find the pain points within their products are review sites like G2Crowd and Capterra. These websites let customers leave reviews and share information about those pain points.
Keep the Sales Battlecards Short
Don’t overload your sales reps with information and make it difficult to find what they are looking for. Keep it short and be selective with the information you include on the battlecards.
Choose your categories wisely, and tailor the battlecards to the specific meeting and client you are meeting with. Only the most relevant information is needed, and your sales reps should be prepared for the rest of the meeting.
Battlecards are meant to assist sales reps in meetings, not be a script to read from. They should act as a reference sheet when sales reps feel stuck or need additional information, rather than host all the information that a sales rep should already know about the product.
Winning Information
Don’t just input information on your battlecards, you should input the information in a way that makes sense to your sales reps. Your information should equip them to win, not just to have a good meeting with a customer.
Make sure to do your research on your customer and the competitors competing for their business. Information about your product doesn’t win deals, information about your product compared to your competitors and why a customer should choose you over others will win your more deals.
It’s also important to not focus too much on the competitors or why a prospect shouldn’t choose their product. Instead focus on the value your product brings and how you can help solve their problem better.
Final Thoughts
Sales battlecards are a great tool to use to help close and win more deals. They equip your sales reps with readily available information about the customer, competitors, and the products. It helps close the gap of information and gives sales reps more time to prepare for their meetings without having to remember every detail about the customer or competitors.
