AMA: Norm Ai Head of Marketing, Osman Javed on Competitive Positioning

Here are a few of my favorite channels for sourcing competitive intel: Prospect Calls Jumping on sales calls or listening to Gong recordings is the best way to uncover common objections, alternatives they're considering, and vectors for competition (e.g., price, quality, ease of use, etc.) Win/Loss Win/Loss excellent if your team can support it. It can sometimes be difficult to prioritize a Win/Loss program at an early-stage startup where resources are limited, but the information that comes fro ...Read More

In my experience, there are a few key differences between positioning for developers vs. business buyers. While the following aren't hard and fast rules, they are generally good rules of thumb. Please take them with a grain of salt! The Product is the pitch for Developers Developers don’t want a sales pitch, they want to see what your product can do. I’ve found that if they can’t try it quickly or see it in action, they move on fast. With business buyers, the product still matters, but it's in s ...Read More

I love this question! Competitive insights are one of the fastest ways for PMM to earn a seat at the strategy-table and influence the roadmap table. In theory, competitive insights should be a key input to product decisions, but in practice, they often fall by the wayside due to limited resources and competing priorities on the product team. As the competitive pulse of the company, PMMs are well-positioned to deliver insights that other functions don’t have the time or perspective to uncover. Id ...Read More

You can do the analysis once, but use different formats for different teams. 1. For Sales and GTM teams: Battlecards and Enablement Focus on what you can say to win against CompetitorX Create 1-pagers or slide decks with the following: Competitor strengths and your rebuttals Competitor weaknesses and proof points Past wins/losses against said competitor Landmine questions Objection handling Competitive proof points (logos, quotes, benchmarks) Links to good Gong calls or good reference articles N ...Read More