AMA: Cisco Meraki Head of Product Marketing, Grant Shirk on Competitive Positioning

This is going to sound like a product management (not marketing) answer, but if things are truly moving that quickly -- new competitors, new use cases, new feature requirements -- the best way to stay on top of competitors is listen to your customers first. Many times, companies are too focused on what the competition is doing and forget what's most important: solving your customers' problems as effectively as possible. We had this problem at Box early on. On the surface, the market we were in had a very low barrier to entry. It seemed like we uncovered a new "free storage" service every week. At one point I had a list of 400+ of these would-be competitors. That's an impossible list, so we simplified the problem. We trained everyone in the field on our core strengths and gave them a framework to identify how best to help customers based on that. Competition became a secondary consideration, and we really only focused on the top 5-6 threats in the market. If you know what you're great at, and what situations you tend to win most frequently, focus your attention there. It's also a lot more fun to drive marketing around your strengths than others' perceived weaknesses.

This is a fun one. An aphorism we could coin here is that "Competitive battlecards are just like datasheets. Every salesperson desperately wants a new one, but nobody ever uses them." The challenge is that most competitive intel and content is boring, too detailed to use in the moment, hard to find, and usually out of date. What that means is that great competitive intel is a content marketing problem at heart. It has to be relevant, it has to be interesting, and it has to be easy to consume. The most dependable way to figure out what works is to try a number of different things early, get feedback from sales, and then when you pick a path, measure utilization as best as you can. And then only update the docs that get used. I've personally found that there are three kinds of competitive content that have real impact: 1. Announcement responses 2. Onboarding / Sales Ramp materials 3. Negotiation tools / "CompHot" squads Announcement responses are my favorite because they're real-time, lightweight, and truly advance your and the org's understanding of what a competitor is actually doing. The scenario is: Tier 1 competitor X launches a new product or drops some PR. You digest it, read between the lines, and provide sales and customer success (yes, CS desperately needs compete info too) with a quick precis of the announcement: - What the competitor announced (headline and a few details, incl. claims) - What it means for your product or GTM (interpretation and implication) - Reactive messaging (when asked, how do we address this problem or use case, better) - If applicable, what call to action you offer customers and prospects Build these over time, and you'll quickly have relevant, interesting, and well-read libraries of content on your most active competitors. And you don't have to work that hard to build them. The other two times that sales is most likely to truly digest and internalize your competitive intel is in their first month on the job (the firehose phase) and when they're deep in a competitive negotiation. This is where you can both teach the most and have the biggest leverage. Invest everything you can in framing the market and competition in customer-facing employee onboarding sessions. The "competitive breakdown" in Sales Boot Camp is the highest-value investment you can make in compete. Especially if they're graded on it as part of their certification. The other is when commission is truly on the line. Set up a "CompHot" squad or special ops team that can drop into late-stage sales cycles with that last push over the line. You'll not only make a lot more money (and advocates for life from your top AEs) but you'll also learn what your competitors are really saying about you.

There are a number of templates available online. My first recommendation is to confirm your CMO's expecation - it's rare for a CMO to *not* have a favorite format for this. However, if they are truly asking you to build something up from scratch, there are a few basic elements you need: * Target audience. Who you are trying to reach. This is both persona (multiple) and firmographic * Problem and solution. What the customer's core problem is, and how your product/solution addresses it, uniquely * Positioning statement. This is the core of the document. Two sentences. One that that describes the problem and solution, and for whom (per the above). And a second that starts with "Unlike," that defines your unique selling proposition (USP) * A message house or framework that identifies the 3-5 key pillars of how you want to deliver the message to this specific audience. This normally looks like a table with a column for each pillar and detail for each. That's it. If pressed, you should be able to fit the entire thing on a single slide. You're not defining copy, you're not going deep on features or capabilities. What's the simplest, most differentiating way you can talk about your solution to a specific audience. More on that Positioning Statement There are a number of different models for a positioning statement, but the one I like best is based on Geoffrey Moore's classic "Crossing the Chasm." For (target customer) who (statement of the need or opportunity), (product name) is a (product category) that (statement of key benefit — that is, compelling reason to buy). Unlike (primary competitive alternative), our product (statement of primary differentiation). It's a little bit like marketing haiku. It's intentionally rigid and short to really focus your attention on what matters. And it doesn't have to be perfect. You'll iterate on this continuously over the life of your product.

It's great to see companies putting more emphasis on measuring this. It's definitely a challenge, but if competitive investments aren't measured, it's less likely they'll be appreciated or incorporated into key processes. The ideal measure of competitive intelligence is win rate. Measured on a quarterly basis (and at the close of a quarter) it can indicate if the organization is competing more effectively in qualified opportunities. It's important to note that like most PMM metrics, win rate is complex and can be influenced by many factors: sales training, market factors, product delivery, etc. But, when measured consistently you can see lift over time. The counterbalance to this is that it's directly connected to the company's top line. Higher win rates drives more revenue drives more investment in sales, marketing, and product. Also, by tying this to opporunities, it gives you any necessary leverage to get competitor data directly into CRM. "Oh, you want to know if we're improving our win rate against Competitor X? Well, there are only 5 opportunities tagged with that data out of 1,000 open opps. I need every opportunity tagged with competition by the time we get to Stage 3 to know how to prioritize this." Depending on your market and stage, you can get more specific. Win rates in a given segement, or versus a specific competitor or tier of competitor. 

Answer one: Iterate, iterate, iterate. Answer two: Yes, brand positioning and product positioning are inextricably tied. A statement that sounds bold but shouldn't be: Product marketing should drive brand positioning. It's the why of what we do, it stems from the problems we're solving, and builds on the uniquie approach you're taking to solving the problem. Brand positoining also resonates down and drives how we build what we build, how we interact with customers, and how our product (and our experience overall!) makes our customers feel. So, the best messaging comes from trial, error, more error, and even more error. You cannot magically create great messaging and positioning in a vacuum. And the only person who can tell you if it's good is your customer. So write, listen, rewrite, and never assume you're done. Effective isn't perfect, effective is effective.

I'll start with the assumption that this isn't a product you can personally go out and procure on your own. Hands-on is always great. Review sites are good, and can often generate a list of targets to call for more qualitative research. My biggest piece of advice here is to always do compete research above board. Don't hide who you are or who you work for. Tell them you want to learn more, and be open about your goals. Honesty is truly the best policy. The other thing that can work (though it takes longer) is to employ the field. Give them discovery questions that can uncover users of the product and then ask them to drill in a little bit. How do you use it today? What problems does it solve for you? How effective is it? 

This is the job within the job. You're always balancing two macro audiences: External (prospects and customers) and Internal (well, all your coworkers). I'll reiterate what I've said elsewhere today. This is all about repetition, repetition, repetition. Put your messaging and positioning frameworks in a very visible place and refer to them constantly. Have a single slide that reinforces the pillars whenever you talk to other teams. One of my favorites - for a launch brief and planning kickoff, make the positioning framework the first and primary gating asset. Drive it, get feedback on it, and don't move forward until everyone understands. Then, use it as a rubric to assess the downstream content. 

This is a great one! It's also something few people do well in an interview setting. It's a bit challenging to do verbally, but if you think it through in advance, you can be prepared when the opportunity presents itself. The first thing - the success of your positioning in an interview setting is best shown through anecdotes and specific details. Just like in real life, it's very hard to say "my positioning increased our pipeline by 15%." That's a complex calculus, and not easily justifiable. Instead, tie it to a story. For example, "we made this adjustment to the message for this audience, and it really helped these kinds of deals move forward." My favorite example to talk about (related to another answer here) is about the competitive positioning framework we built for a sales boot camp. It lived for years after I left that role and left a lasting impact on the field there. That's impact that resonates in an interview. Back the the interview, though. At the core of every PMM interview, every person you meet with in a PM or PMM function really wants to know how you break down a value prop and translate it into scalable positioning. So, use bridging techniques. One of the most common intro questions you'll get (or you should get, if the interview is well designed) is, "Tell me about your current product or solution." Repeat after me: THIS IS NOT A QUESTION ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT. This is a question about your POSITIONING. Talking about the product, features, capabilities is how you fail this question. Instead: talk about who the product is for, what problem it solves for them, and how you do it uniquely. Then talk through each of the core pillars you created. Bonus points: relate it to a time when you had to dial up or dial down the focus on one of those pillars for an audience or in response to a market shift. If you do that, particularly with a hiring manager, you will ace that conversation. The second chance you have to showcase messaging and positioning is in the launch scenario. "Tell me about your most recent product launch." Again, DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE PRODUCT. Talk about the goal of the launch, who you were trying to reach, how the launch reinforced or changed your messaging... and then bridge to the positioning you put together and why it was effective/different/compelling. 

Join the conversation. As a PMM, you should have a seat at the table in any customer conversation. You bring a different perspective to the discussion and can often ask different questions than your account exec can. One thing that's important is to separate these customer conversations from "market research." Due to their in-depth nature, sales and customer conversations are more qualitative than quantitative. Listen, ask questions, understand their existing conditions and frustrations, and lean into what's not working for them. You'll also hear the traps any competitors have set for you if they're leading the account. These qualitative conversations will give you more context than any quantitative research can, and you can use sales listening tools (Gong, Chorus, etc.) to audit more conversations at scale, once you know what to listen for. Once you're in the conversations and have a relationship with a few prospects, you'll earn the chance to follow up later, too. It's much easier to do a loss review with a customer you were helpful towards than flying in as a new person later. 

My primary philosophy around competitors is a little different than most: focus 80% of your energy on what makes you great as a product or service, and the rest on what anyone else is doing. I've worked in duopoly markets (speech IVR in the contact center), highly fragmented markets (enterprise content and collaboration), and mature markets (enterprise networking). This approach works in all of them, because no matter how many competitors you have, you'll never have enough resources to properly track every move your competition is making. And that's a good thing, because if you spend all your time looking over your shoulder at what others are doing, you'll miss the opportunity to see what you customers need most now, and what they'll need next. To your second question, a competitor is any product, solution, or priority that delays or affects your customer's buying decision. In many cases, this is the status quo - how they're solving the problem today. The good news is that if a prospect is comparing your solution against another new solution, you've already won the hardest part of the battle, convincing them to make a change. This might be a question in its own right, but competitive analysis can have multiple goals: * Understanding a new capability or announcement a competitor is making * Understanding an orthogonal threat in the market (an unexpected solution to a customer problem) * Learning which segments of the market are choosing competitors over you * Equipping the field with effective lead with / defend against talking points for negotiation

Pricing and packaging are positioning. They're the most concrete way you are defining the value and TCO of your solution relative to the pain a customer is feeling. But it's important to remember that they're only one tool in your toolbox. Pricing relative to competition can signal a premium product in a commoditized market. Or it can indicate a value-driven sale as a disruptor. Certainly free or freemium is the most aggressive disruptor approach (though not always the most successful). Packaging is a layer deeper and is a great way to demonstrate that you understand how your customer wants or needs to buy and can be closely tied to brand positioning. You can communicate "we're easy to work with," or "we give you ultimate flexibility" through how you package your product. For many enterprise buyers, though, the price is the last piece that they'll consider. Yes, you'll be asked about it up front, but your ultimate goal is to prove that you'll provide them the most value or the best solution to their specific problem, not just the best price. Your pricing and packaging should be an extension of your overall positioning, not the lede. A great example of this is what we built at Tellme Networks. One of the first SaaS platforms (before SaaS was a thing, and really before "cloud" was a common term for a software delivery model, we were disrupting the toll-free/IVR market with a cloud-based speech platform. Remember 1-800-Fandango? Yeah, that ran on Tellme. One of the most fun apps I've ever had the pleasure to design. But our pricing: overall, our value prop to our customers was "a better customer service experience drives higher automation," and millions of dollars of ROI annually. Part of the position of "why cloud?" related to port efficiency - instead of managing dedicated port capacity in a call center that went unused 70% of the time, we could perfectly flex to load. Our pricing and packaging reflected this. It was utility-based pricing, and companies only paid for the minutes they used. This was completely different than any other model, but it was how we made that pillar of flexibility and capacity concrete.

The answer here is in the question. My approach to differentiation starts with understanding why the product or service you're responsible is uniquely suited to a specific customer. And then focus on what makes you great, not what makes others less good. Too many companies (including a few I've worked with) focus too much on the question of "how do we compete against X competitor?" This creates a backwards-looking mentality and you're always in reactive mode. I will say it's my favorite thing to compete against someone who's more concerned about me than I am about them... they can chase my message all day, and all I have to do is worry about making customers wildly successful. Way more fun. How do you know if it's working? If sales are up, win rates are strong, average deal size is up, and the competition is starting to talk about you more? It's working. 

Yes, these are definitely different, but related. Product positioning: Durable, consistent framework for positioning a product or solution over the long run. Needs to account for current and future positioning. Launch positioning: Unless it's a completely new product, this is derivative of the overall product/solution positioning. Ideally, it magnifies or highlights a subset of the overarching product positioning through the new capabilities you're introducing. A launch is an opportunity to remind the market of why you exist, why you're an ideal solution, and what about your solution makes you worthy of their consideration. As a result, this activity should amplify and focus the market on the new differentiators you're adding. Teaching them something completely new is inefficient - it's more effective to really magnify what you're great at and showcase why you're now even better. As an example, say you're a data pipeline or ELT company that has built product and brand positioning around three pillars: simplicity, data quality, and connector ecosystem. Any new product launch (or partnership) should amplify 1-2 of those at most. * A new partnership or connector should amplify the value of the connector ecosystem (and why your ecosystem is better/bigger/faster growing * New transformation tools could focus on the simplicity of the solution. Pre-built templates, better ways to manage SFDC data, etc. * Customer stories or customer announcements can highlight the data quality problems you're solving for them.

I feel like every organization struggles with this. Everyone (and every function) brings their own definitions and biases with them. Here is my definition of this: * Positioning: This is the combination of audience definition, problem statement, product/category definition, and unique differentiation. Ideally can be summarized in a single statement (1-2 sentences) * Messaging: A structured breakdown of the key pillars of your message, focused on an audience or launch. This is a framework that is used to develop copy, content, and sometimes targeting strategy. What messaging is not: copy. Both messaging and positioning are internal documents and frameworks. Yes, they provide the common language, but the most effective ones are structural, brass tacks, and designed to give other marketing teams the foundation they need to write great, creative, effective copy. The "Three R's" come in to play here when it comes to stakeholder alignment. Repetition, repetitionn, and repetition. Reinforce it at every opportunity, and politely challenge and correct people who go off on their own. (By the way, broadly this is the same problem that marketing teams have aligning on Campaign - Program - Tactic definitions.)

Your best bet is always "talk to customers." You'll learn more in 10 conversations with prospects and customers than you will with $10K or $20K in market analysis. To keep it fresh, participate in weekly customer calls and prospecting. You'll hear where the threats are coming from immediately, and you'll know when the conversation changes. 

Oof, tough situation. It's very hard to navigate these situations, and tougher to give advice without context into why that group might be protective. Often, if you take an open mind in and ask, you'll learn that there are good reasons for this. Then you'll have to adapt what you want to learn. (If you want, DM me with some more context and I'll try and answer 1:1). But, I'd say if you're not getting access, the first thing to work on is that internal trust across teams. They may have been burned before. It might be a very sensitive topic to customers. That context will help you navigate the conversation. Or, if you're really blocked, look to external sources. Where can you find lookalike customers? Can you hire a firm to speak with them on your behalf? 

This requires a few different tactics depending on the size of your sales team. YMMV based on culture, sales leadership, enablement structure, but it's a good place to start. One thing that's constant, though. Establish a one-stop shop for all competitive materials (Folder in sales portal, intranet page, doc, etc.) and relentlessly point people to it. Publicly, privately, etc. Wear out your Cmd-C/Cmd-V keys to paste this everywhere. Ultimately, you're building trust in your team that you know what's up, what's changing, and they should trust YOU before they trust the internet. 1. Small, focused teams (early stage startup, vertical overlay, etc.) In the early days (say 1-10 closing reps), or when working with highly focused vertical or segment teams, it's critical to work directly with the reps. Set a twice-monthly meeting to answer questions, discuss intel, share new information, and ASK QUESTIONS. You'll be learning as much as they are, and the trust you'll build in this is key. 2. Medium-to-large, or fast-growing sales team When you get above a few dozen reps, and up to a few hundred, your tactics need to change. That central location for intel becomes richer and more of a source of truth/system of record. Your challenge now becomes establishing the baseline for every new field employee (sales, cs, marketing) who comes through the door. Onboarding and sales boot camp is your most effective way of doing this. Make sure you have a full, dedicated session on compete in the first week. If you don't have it, agitate unti you get it. And yes, this means you'll have to be the one delivering the session. Your last slide: Go here for more (point to your one-stop shop). And then make sure the enablement team includes critical compete info in the checkout/certification process at the end of rep ramp. 3. Large, established or channel-driven sales Here's where it gets a little more complex and you'll need to partner with your enablement and channel enablement teams to make it effective. You're now in a distribution game. You likely have all the content you need - the challenge is getting it to people and reminding them where the content is. Find those sales newsletters, partner webinars, and more that drive awareness. Insert yourself into them and again, promote that link to the repository. Also, highlight those competitive wins and get those winning AEs to call out the competitive tools they used. Nothing like a little word of mouth marketing. 

I think this one just dropped in. Let's do it live! My gut reaction is: If you're being asked to do "extensive competitive research," something is broken. And you should say no, gracefully. It's very difficult, if not impossible to learn how to win in a market by looking at a competitive product from your (biased) POV. If your CEO/founder/prouct team doesn't understand what problem they're solving for a customer and where they have a unique differentiator, you're not going to get that answer from a teardown. If you want, hit me up with a DM here or on Linkedin. Would be happy to dig in deeper. Why are you "missing the mark?" My guess is they don't know what they're looking for either. Reframe the problem internally and offer another approach: - Use sales to identify and discover current users of the product in question. What are their real problems? - Reassess the customers who are buying -> are you targeting the wrong ICP or use case?

This is highly requested, so I'll take a shot at it. But first, an acknowlegement of bias: I don't really like competitive tools that much. I find they put more emphasis on collection than utilization and understanding. Kind of like how we all can't remember anyone's phone number any more because we carry smartphones around. Best practices and tools for determining positioning in a competitive market: 1. Understand your Tier 1 competitors' lead message and how it overlaps (or not) with yours. That's 75% of the battle 2. Talk to customers directly on a weekly basis. Hear what they hear. Understand what they fear, broadly or with your product. Build empathy with their core problem. 3. Adopt a standard framework for discussing and documenting competitive positioning. I like "Lead with / Defend against" because it aligns with how sales operates in two modes: proactive and reactive. 4. Iterate, iterate, iterate. Only the market can tell you if you're "right." And it will change in 6 months.