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The biggest challenge for any startup founder lies in a rather poorly solved challenge – To make sales people pitch their ideas efficiently. Most clients don't have 30 seconds to be interrupted. Even with the advent of communication tools, time is a valued commodity, and those few minutes is what a SDR gets to speak with the client. No wonder, at times a select few have 30 minutes to hear a great story. When you ask for time, you don't get it. You end up stealing. Hello, Click-baits!  

But, if you are able to convince your client for a 5 minute appointment, call/F2F. Here's a tried and tested solution – Sales Battle Cards. Its no denial every company uses one. Sales battle cards are basics for B2B sales teams, serving one purpose: Leverage field sales pitch their prospects why they should pick your product over the competition. SDRs gain great insights from such sales battlecards, most often used internally and most often so confidentially given limited access.

Most clients prefer a comprehensive overview of a product’s position like key features, target market and client's business benefits. Sales battlecards provide information that on-the-fly for every possible important questions your client might ask. To any on-demand growth hacker or field sales representative, every bit of data from a sales battlecard would help them know where to begin their next sales pitch and how to engage with their leads/prospects/customers and have an edge over their conversation.

A sales battlecard saves your SDR the pain of scrambling for product specs, vantage points, counter questions, frequent feature requests, competitor analysis at the last minute, and basically anything a client-facing pre-sales represpentative goes through to make a SAIL! As a product manager, you equip your foot soliders with the right tool to make an effective pitch.

Most SDRs miss a lot mentioning the client about your the company's latest offerings, and revised pricing. Imagine the odds of connecting with prospect who happens to look for ProductX in RegionY, and SDR winning a deal with a fore-hand knowhow of a massive discount your company is willing to provide in RegionY. Doesn't this battlecard throw a detailed insight on-the-fly?

A sales battlecard helps one stay well-informed to handle situations that require SDRs to contextualize the pitch.  What are the odds a client would not turn your service down when your sales team throws a new launch promotions, or offering discounts, few days before his annual maintaince policy is expiring, and you are at the right time to provide that insight?

No rest for the wicked

If you are into sales, you track competition all the time. Keep your know-how abreast with your competitor's market prescence. Let your sales representatives know what they are upto, if that sparks your eye. Old clients testimonials, new feature launches, pricing drops, discounts, you name it -- Your competitor matters a lot in a war of sales. To draw a parllel, In 300 B.C, Sun Tzu wrote "The Art of War" for the king of Wu Chinese state. The book is one of the oldest documentation of principles in warfare and military strategy.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Keep researching your competitors.

Don't deny the fact there's always someone better than you out there, perhaps spying your work, with a market valuation 10x better than you or winning more deals than you! Know your market competition so well, that you can outbeat them with prior knowledge what they are upto. War is the ultimate competition, and so is winning a SALE! For the mordern world, this quote seems fit right, and inorder to survive competition, strive to make your product/service 10X more better than the biggest market leader. Miracles can happen. Keep faith, and go gentle.

Also, a customized perona based sales battlecard helps to prepare your SDR well-ahead of a sales pitch. We wrote a little about design thinking and customer personas in our last post, didn't we? Equip your SDRs with sales-ready responses. A sales battlecard is not just a marketing message, but important differentiator in your product/use-case's positioning and detailed competitive intelligence when used strategically, can help you turn your client's doubts to commitments. Handle situational pitches. Differentiate yourselves. Stand apart from the rest of the crowd. Engage with facts. Give UILO a spin when you have a moment, and we're sure it will be time well spent!