AMA: Postscript Vice President Of Product Marketing, Sam Melnick on Competitive Positioning

Let's be clear. CI is a team effort and its very hard to be THE end-all-be-all source for this information. While that can work for a time, a small team cannot be everywhere at all times, so communicating that to the rest of the organization is paramount. There are two tactics I suggest using. 1. Tie your efforts to Revenue (yes this is a common theme with me :) ): You must clearly articulate how competitive intelligence contributes to winning deals and ties directly to company-level revenue numbers. This helps emphasize its importance and impact on business outcomes and gets you buy-in across the organization that they can help make an impact. 2. Flattery and Empathy: Show appreciation and empathy towards customer-facing teams. Acknowledge the challenges they face and how their input and insights are crucial for effective competitive intelligence. Respect their expertise and experience in dealing with customers daily. Also, a little flattery when they handle something well or provide important input goes a long way! But the biggest thing is to ask for help and acknowledge that a successful competitive program takes a village.

This is a fun, but challenging question. If there's no Wave or Magic Quadrant (MQ) for your category, long-term and strategic thinking becomes incredibly important. Here are some approaches to consider: * Play the Long Game: Understand that establishing recognition in a category is a journey that typically spans 2-4 years. Be ready to commit to a firm and analyst practice for an extended period, getting placed doesn't happen in a single cycle. * Explore Adjacent Categories: Look for existing reports/categories where you can position your company as a part. Being included, even if it's not as a top-ranking company, can pay dividends if you're called out as exceptional in a specific niche. This can add to your competitive positioning and visibility in the market. * Cultivate Analyst Relationships: Build strong relationships with industry analysts. Provide them with valuable insights, learn from their perspectives, and engage in meaningful discussions. Analysts play a crucial role in shaping market perceptions and can be valuable allies in gaining recognition. They are human as well, they want to work with interesting and smart people! * Start Small, Aim High: Begin by aiming to be included in reports or analyses that may not carry the same weight as a Wave or MQ but still contribute to your visibility and competitive standing. Every inclusion adds credibility and opens doors for future recognition. There really aren't shortcuts here, you need to take a patient approach, but it can pay off in the long run, particularly in the enterprise space!

Staying on top of competitive intel requires a structured approach since a lot happens in any given week and you can get requests from all over the business. Here's how my teams try to manage it: * Prioritize Top Competitors: Focus on the top competitors and their key market activities, like webinars or blog posts, to ensure you're monitoring the most impactful information. You can't be everywhere, so prioritization on what will make the biggest impact is key. * Centralize Requests: Use a central place, such as a dedicated Slack channel or Google form, to triage and manage incoming requests efficiently. You want to keep the flow of information consistent. Nothing good happens when a majority of CI is done in DMs or private conversations. * Competitive Intel Roadmap: Create a competitive intel roadmap and get buy-in from GTM leadership to ensure everyone is on the same page and priorities are clear. This helps you avoid (some) fire drills or worse unmet expectations. * Democratize Answers: Empower others in the company to respond to requests. Often, field teams have valuable insights since they deal with questions about competitors directly every day. The key here is to stay organized, keep your intel up-to-date, and ensure people know where and how to get information.

Competitive positioning is worthless if you can't explain and train your sales and customer success teams. That's why partnering closely with your enablement team and front-line managers is essential to getting the right information to the team AND for them to retain the information. Here's how I've done it (with significant help from my enablement partners): * Trainings: Provide live and recorded training sessions to ensure everyone understands the competitive landscape. Live sessions allow for real-time Q&A, while recorded sessions (often with quizzes) offer flexibility for reps to learn at their own pace. * Slide Deck: Create specific slide decks for specific competitors. Each should have a "how to use" section at the start, competitive differentiators, and strategic insights. This deck should be easy to update and accessible for quick refreshers before important calls or meetings. You will be updating these quarterly. * Wiki Card: Develop a detailed wiki card with talk tracks, objection handling, and expected FUD. Ensure it's easily accessible through your sales enablement platform so reps can reference it during sales calls. Additionally, work closely with sales or customer success managers to refine the message, so they can effectively train their front-line teams. This collaboration ensures the competitive positioning is consistently communicated and reinforced when you aren't in the room.

Rule #1 of Competitive Intelligence is to tie it directly to revenue. By doing that you uplevel it from being seen as a research project to something that drives specific impact for the business. Here are three revenue metrics I try to focus on: * Win Rates: Track win rates against your top 2-4 competitors. Keeping the number of competitors limited helps maintain focus and provides clearer insights. * Deal Involvement: Monitor specific deals where CI/MI has been involved. You could track content used through certain sales enablement platforms, or better yet track where you and your team have directly supported competitive deals or saves! * Competitive Plays: (This one is my favorite) Work with Demand Gen, BDRs, and Sales on competitive plays, then track the pipeline and revenue generated from these efforts. By tying CI to revenue in more than just one way you'll quickly make these efforts something the exec team is very aware of!