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It is not in the Stars to hold our Destiny but in ourselves.
Julius Caesar

Everyone has competitors. Few know them well. Yet knowing your competitors products, features, clients, hires, sales and marketing helps win business, avoid surprises and sustain competitive advantage. The challenge is collecting, curating and consuming relevant intel. You don’t have time to dig through raw data, competitors sites, social channels or third-party review pages to uncover intel. Your team has no easy way to share what they discover. It all gets lost in the noise unless you have a process in place to catch, measure and release it all efficiently.

My pride fell with my fortunes.
As You Like It

More apt, perhaps, to reverse the order. We spend so much time climbing to the top, we often forget what comes after us: the contenders setting their sights on our success. And so, our fortunes fall with our pride.

Brevity is the soul of wit.
Hamlet

Your battlecards are too long. Trust me. Battlecards are one-page (two-sided if you must) summaries of key competitive points that your sales reps need to pitch against a specific competing product. Winning battlecards are framed by customer needs. They are current, accessible and they are concise.

Strong reasons make strong actions.
King John

You know that feeling of being fully and completely on? The power of being in control? That’s how your sales teams should feel in a pitch. They’ve got to believe in the product, sure, but even more importantly, they have to believe they are prepared for anything. Your job is to make them feel like f*cking superheroes and their superpower is a winning battlecard.

We know what we are but know not what we may be.
Hamlet

You can’t predict curveballs, but you can prepare for them. An integrated CI process positions you for strategic adjustments that may be required when a competitor makes a move in your direction. Reliable, customer-focused intel arms your sales reps with everything they need to defeat a competitor in the field.

There is no darkness but ignorance.
Twelfth Night

When you know what your competitors are up to, you can outmaneuver them before they even make a move. That kind of intelligence comes not just from tuning in to the prolific amounts of data available both inside and outside your organization, but from having the wherewithal to curate and share it. It has to be relevant and it has to be available. If you’re responsible for making sure everyone has what they need to make the right decisions and win more business, not having a finely-tuned CI process in place is willfully ignorant and irresponsible. Don’t be that guy.