We鈥檙e in Week five of our Competitive Battlecard 101 series and this week鈥檚 featured battlecard template is the When to Engage/Not Engage battlecard. If you haven鈥檛 yet,  and we鈥檒l send you a new battlecard straight to your inbox each week. If you want to go through all of the cards we鈥檝e built to date, you can find a running log of all of these battlecard articles on our intro post to the series.

Competitive Battlecards 101: When to Engage Battlecard Template.

About This Battlecard Template

This battlecard template goes by many names. 鈥淲hen to Engage/ Not Engage鈥�, 鈥淕o/ No Go鈥�, 鈥淲hy We Win/ Why We Lose鈥�. You鈥檒l have your own take on it. The purpose of the card is to identify where your product/solution is well positioned in a deal, and what situations you鈥檒l want to avoid.

A battlecard template like this becomes most effective when it ties in positioning messages and pivots. For example, rather than simply stating what conversations to avoid, you need to follow-up with techniques on how to change the conversation.

Competitive Battlecards 101: When to Engage Battlecard Template. Domo example to use as a template of a sales battlecard, sales playbook or sales strategy.

Here鈥檚 an example in practice. Under 鈥淲hen Not To Engage鈥� you might identify that feature battles are a no-go zone. That鈥檚 common. Beyond stating that it鈥檚 not productive to get into a war of features, provide suggested responses. Reinforce the value statements to pivot the conversation. Elevate the conversation to refocus back to core strengths. Prove ROI with supporting case study and other sales collateral.

On the other side of this coin, building the 鈥淲hen to Engage鈥� or 鈥淲hy We Win鈥� portion of this card requires an understanding of what wins deals at your company, and what clients are most likely to close. Give suggestions on what strengths to reinforce, what use-cases and feature sets are best to focus on. Again, provide advice to sales on what has proven to push deals to close.

Want more tips and templates for your battlecards? Check out

How to Build this Battlecard

Putting together content for why you win and why you lose requires a deep understanding of your sales process. Conducting a thorough win/loss analysis of every opportunity would be the best way to surface themes about where you win and lose deals. We鈥檝e put together a few resources on this topic:

  1. [Article]  Win/Loss Interviews Part 1: 5 uncomfortable questions product marketers must start asking in win-loss interviews today
  2. [Article] Win/Loss Interviews Part 2: There鈥檚 only one reason to do win-loss interviews
  3. [Article] 31 questions you should ask in every win-loss interview
  4. [Resource] Win/Loss Checklist

After pulling out themes where you win and lose, it鈥檚 down to developing your sales strategies and pivots. Provide sales with suggestions on conversational pivots, identify positioning messages to reinforce and always make sure to backup your arguments with proof. Your sales team will need case studies and other sales collateral to prove value and build trust.

Next Battlecard Template in the Competitive Battlecards 101 Series:

This card is part of our Overview Battlecard Template (click the image below to expand), which is a set of eight of the most commonly used cards we鈥檝e seen across hundreds of battlecards. We鈥檙e covering each of these cards one by one in our series Competitive Battlecards 101.

Complete Competitive Battlecard - Overview Template

If you鈥檝e come this far and you鈥檙e still looking for more on battlecards, download our