Competitive Battlecard

Competitive Battlecard

What this does

Builds the card you use to win a competitive deal against a named alternative. It lays out where you genuinely win, the traps built into their approach, the landmines you set on this call that surface on the next one, the reframes for when they attack you, and the proof behind every claim. It does all of this without trashing the competitor, because trashing them makes you look scared and makes the buyer defend them.

What you'll need

You do not need to connect anything to get value today. Bring what you know about the deal and the competitor and the skill runs now. Connect the tools below and it grounds the card in what this buyer actually cares about.

• Works today with: the named competitor or category, the buyer's stated priorities, and where you know you are strong. Paste them and the skill builds the win plan.
• More powerful connected to a meeting or transcription tool: it pulls the buyer's own words and any objections already raised, so the reframes answer what they actually said.
• Sharper connected to a CRM: it reads the decision criteria and stage on the deal, so the card is aimed at the criteria that will decide it.

How this runs at your connection level

This skill is never reliant on a connector. It runs on what you know today and gets sharper as you connect tools. It never fabricates a competitor weakness or a proof point you cannot stand behind. A claim with no proof is a liability the card flags, not a line you say out loud.

• Bring your data: paste the competitor, the buyer's priorities, and your strengths. The skill returns the win themes, the traps, the landmines, the reframes, and the proof list today. No connection required.
• Connect your tools: the same skill pulls the buyer's stated criteria and objections, so the card answers this deal, not a generic one. Same card, aimed better.
• Just exploring: no live deal? Get the battlecard structure, the landmine logic, and a worked example on a sample competitor, so you can see the shape before you use one.

Every run ends with the one claim on the card that you cannot yet prove, so you go find the proof before you need it.

Customize this for yourself

This was built for a B2B SaaS org in a competitive category. Set these to your stack:

Aim the card at the criteria this buyer stated, not at a generic feature war. The skill keeps every claim tied to proof and keeps you from trashing the competitor.

The method

Where you win, provably

List only the places you genuinely win on the criteria this buyer cares about, each tied to a proof point. A win theme with no proof behind it comes off as a boast and gets tested. If you cannot prove it, it does not go on the card as a strength, it goes on the list of proof to go find.

The traps in their approach

Name the structural weaknesses in the competitor's approach, the trade-offs their design forces, not insults. "Their model requires X, which means Y downstream" is a trap. "They are bad" is noise. Traps are honest and they hold up when the buyer repeats them.

Landmines to set

The landmines are the questions you plant on this call that go off on the next one, when the buyer talks to the competitor. Each is a fair question the buyer should ask anyone, phrased so the honest answer favors you. You are teaching the buyer to evaluate well, not to distrust.

Reframes, not defenses

For each attack the competitor makes on you, write the reframe: acknowledge the point, then move the ground to the criterion that matters more. You do not deny, you reframe. A denied objection grows. A reframed one shrinks.

Never trash the competitor

The whole card runs on one rule: you never disparage them. Trashing a competitor signals fear, makes the buyer defend their own shortlist, and cheapens you. You win by being the clearer, more useful guide to the decision, backed by proof, not by being the loudest critic.

Quality gates

• Every win theme is tied to a proof point, or it moves to the proof-to-find list.
• Traps are structural trade-offs, never insults. Nothing you would be embarrassed to have repeated.
• Landmines are fair questions any buyer should ask, phrased honestly.
• No line disparages the competitor. The unprovable claim is flagged before you say it.

Output (example)

BATTLECARD · illustrative competitive deal · vs. the incumbent category

Where we win (on their stated criteria)
  - Faster time to value.   Proof: onboarding in days, reference available.
  - Fits the existing CRM.  Proof: native integration, live in the demo.

Traps in their approach (trade-offs, not insults)
  - Their model requires heavy config up front, which delays value for the team.
  - Their pricing scales per seat, which punishes the buyer as they grow.

Landmines to set (ask this call, answered next call)
  - "How long until your team is live and seeing value?"
  - "How does the price change as you add the whole team?"

Reframes (when they attack us)
  - "They say we lack feature X." Acknowledge, then move to time-to-value,
    the criterion the buyer said matters most.

Proof to go find: our time-to-value claim needs one named reference. Get it.

Where the inputs come from

The proof-per-claim rule, the traps-not-insults line, and the never-trash discipline are the defaults that let you win competitive deals without looking scared. The competitor set, the win themes, and the reframes are yours. If the alternative is build-it-yourself, the traps change but the discipline does not: every claim proved, every attack reframed, the competitor never trashed. The card is yours.

Example chat

Here is the skill running on a real competitive deal.

You: We're in a bake-off with Rival A at Acme. Build me a card, they run per-seat pricing and heavy config.

Claude: Card's built. The strongest line isn't a feature fight, it's their pricing structure.

Trap: their pricing scales per seat, which punishes the buyer as
the team grows past the pilot.
Landmine: "How does the price change once you roll this out to
the whole team, not just the pilot group?"

That question is fair to ask any vendor, and the honest answer favors you because your pricing doesn't punish growth. It also plants a seed the buyer carries into their next call with Rival A. One sharpener: connect your meeting tool so the reframes answer the actual objections the buyer raised on the call, not the ones we're guessing they'll raise.

You: They'll probably say we lack their advanced reporting. What's the reframe?

Claude: Acknowledge it, then move the ground to the criterion the buyer actually said mattered.

"They say we lack advanced reporting." Acknowledge: fair, they
have more report types out of the box. Reframe: move to time-to-
value, since the buyer named "live before end of quarter" as the
deciding factor, and reporting depth doesn't get them there faster.

Never deny it, since a denied claim just makes the buyer dig for proof it's true. One sharpener: flag "advanced reporting" as a proof-to-find item if you want to close that gap for the next deal instead of reframing around it every time.

Go further

The read is step one. Here's where an operator takes it once the manual version proves out.

• Keep the card current without a rebuild each deal. Point a scheduled Claude task at Gong or Chorus weekly and update the landmines with the objections reps are actually hearing.
• Put it where reps already are. Post the latest card version to a dedicated Slack channel per competitor, so it's one click away before a call, not buried in a doc.
• Feed it from the loss data. Wire this to closed-lost-analysis so every fresh COMPETITOR loss automatically updates the traps and reframes with what really happened.

You built the read once; now it runs itself.

Make it yours

Fork it. Change the competitors, the win themes, the reframes. The point is not to run someone else's talk track. It is to win this deal on the buyer's criteria, backed by proof, without ever giving them a reason to defend the other side. Built by an operator. Customize it, break it, make it better.