Best Battlecard Framework

Avoid the mistakes I made early in my career

Author

Andy McCotter-Bicknell
September 20, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Back when I was a jr. product marketer, I’d stuff as much info as possible into my competitive battlecards.

Long AF feature comparisons.

Every possible data point you could think of.

Multiple scripts in case a prospect brought the competitor up.

For context, I’m a bit of a day dreamer. And every time I added more to the battlecard, I pictured my CEO at the time discovering it and then glorifying it in front of the company.

But the sad reality was 90% of the info I added in the battlecard was useless.

Sales didn’t care about most of the in-depth details. And to make matters worse, those details acted as noise that just obscured the info that was actually valuable.

Looking back, it’s easy to spot my mistake. I stayed in my lane and assumed I knew what was valuable for sales without collaborating with them. This realization hit hard when I was having a conversation with a seller and they bluntly told me, “I’m not gonna read all that.”

I laughed about this a while back on the Competitive Enablement Show, which you can catch a clip of on the right.

Hey, you live and your learn.

@healthycompetition

Call me Ralphie 🤠

Anyway, after that experience, I vowed to never silo myself off like that again. And to seek feedback early and consistently from my target audience (which in this case was sales).

But at the end of the day, I know templates can be helpful. So if you’re ever tasked with creating net new battlecards, here’s what I start with:

If you’re feeling passionate about adding or removing sections to this template, be my guest. But the goal here is to remove guesswork and get something written down for your sales team to react to.

Once you have the first draft done, find 3 - 5 top sellers that are open to weighing in on what you wrote. This serves two purposes:

  1. Ensures your battlecards have relevant info

  2. Endorses your work so that when it comes time to share the final drafts, you have the top sellers backing you up

Remember: the best battlecards aren’t the ones with the most info about a competitor. They’re the ones with the most relevant info that are actually used by your sales team.

💚Andy

P.S. If you liked this, consider listening to the Healthy Competition podcast or joining the community!