<aside> 💡 Product Marketing Tip: figure out what their pain points are and better understand what the prospects care about. Then you can find out if there’s a competitive battle at all.
Format by Andrew McCotter-Bicknell.
We’ll follow along with the HR Talent Acquisition Platform, ACME, perspective as we try to sell our product to a prospect.
| Explained | Talk Track |
|---|---|
| What’s their current state? Try to understand how familiar they are with products/ services you are providing. | ACME: “Have you worked with other HR providers previously?” Prospect: “We’ve worked with others in the past!” |
| Who else are they looking at? See if they are also chatting with competitors. If so, we should find out who! | ACME: “What’s that experience been like?” Prospect: ”Some have been hit or miss, but we’ve heard good things about you and ACME, which is why we responded to your outreach.” |
| What do you care about in those solutions? Asking this gives you the opportunity to educate the prospect on what matters and expands their criteria. | ACME: ”That’s great - I’m glad our customers have been evangelists for us! I’m curious, as you’re evaluating providers, what are the top few things that are most important to you?” |
| The Skinny - What sets ‘[Your product]’ apart? | Landmines to lay 💣 Questions that sow seeds of doubt concerning your competitor |
|---|---|
| 1. Ease to use, modern platform for collaborative hiring |
Stability - Are you okay with periodic network outages? Stability is a ‘must have’ for everyone. ACME B has a surprising amount of outages compare to other top-tier players.
[Theme 2] - How important is reporting to your business? ACME B data quality is sporadic. Their data becomes inconsistent when building customized hiring reports. |
| The Deets Where we win 😁
Your key differentiators. Top reasons why you win deals against this competitor. Steer the conversation towards these. | Where we lose 😒
Your key weaknesses. Top reasons why you lose deals against this competitor. Reinforce your value statements to pivot the conversation. Elevate the conversation to refocus back to core strengths. | Quick dismiss - ACME vs Competitor X
Bring the focus back to your solution |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Weakness: automation is key and ACME B is weak in this area.
**Example: our customers have told us that automating key actions is key. ACME B does not offer what clients in our industry are looking for.W | • Necessary details for sales to know. Make sure they don’t run into this call blind.
Competitor strength: if user requires advanced feature set for inclusive hiring.
Counter: our platform provides the most extensive marketplace. Greenhouse may provide too many features, that will confuse the team. | 1. Not ideal for Enterprise customers. Reporting and analytics poor. [URL to external review] 2. Lacking features to mitigate unconscious bias throughout the hiring process. [URL to external review] Acknowledge and praise competitor: “[Competitor is great if you’re looking for a comprehensive [relevant benefit].” — State their limitations: “Unfortunately, a lot of customers have said they have struggled to implement [Competitor], often taking over 90 days to launch. A customer that switched from [Competitor] said it required 10+ hours of their time per week.” — Highlight your value: “Unlike [Competitor] we offer starting templates and a 90-days kick-off plan, with a dedicated services team. How important is for you to get up and running efficiently?”. |
Don’t make this overly complicated. Just 3-4 landmines to be housed in your battlecards for easy access.
1️⃣ Pick a sentence structure
“How important is your strength/ competitor’s weakness to your evaluation?”
“How would you work around competitor’s weakness?”
2️⃣ Select your strength/ their weakness
| Price | Quality | Security | Training |
|---|---|---|---|
| Features | Quantity | Location | User satisfaction |
| Support | Depth | Flexibility | Integrations |
| Privacy | Breadth | Performance | Stability |
3️⃣ Lay your landmine & leave-behind