What strategy do you use to ensure everyone internally agrees on what differentiates you from competition?

You’ll need to do two things: To gain internal alignment, identify who your stakeholders are and how you want to bring them along in your process. Do you need to involve them in workshops and brainstorming? Or brief them at regular intervals to get their feedback before you finalize your recommendations? I’d recommend, at a minimum, collecting their input on what ‘good’ looks like to them. This could be competitors' positioning, prior examples of work that they think hits the mark. Lead an exerc ...Read More

Whenever I'm working a project that involves many people's opinions, I look for ways to bring objective data and a variety of stakeholder viewpoints into the conversation through win-loss interviews, x-functional brainstorms, and digging into differentiated value. Win-loss interviews: This is the objective data that tell us exactly what the market views as our differentiators. It's hard to argue with! At Seismic, we interview approximately 25 recent buyers or would-be-buyers per quarter and ask ...Read More

There is a difference between having alignment on "what's different" between you and your competition and "what differentiates" you from your competition. The latter is really about getting strategic alignment on 1) what your ideal customer profile (ICP) is, 2) who your real competitive threats are, and 3) which value props / feature sets are the ones you'll lean into developing and messaging to the market. Because this work is all about making sure your ICP chooses you. And they will choose you ...Read More

In order to ensure alignment (not total agreement but alignment), leading with facts to identify the differences is the most important. The facts are usually gathered via Competitive Intelligence and Audience understanding of their needs. The product should have a clear, fact-based perspective of the value propositions that differentiate from the competition and solve the audience's need. The easiest facts to differentiate are on price, and capabilities/specifications. The harder differentiators ...Read More

Our strategy begins with product marketing conducting a thorough competitive analysis to establish a clear point of view on how we differentiate in the market. From there, we collaborate closely with key stakeholders—such as product teams and competitive intelligence (if applicable)—to ensure alignment. If possible, it's also valuable to validate these differentiators with key accounts and sales leaders. By facilitating cross-functional discussions and securing buy-in from leadership, we create ...Read More

For a high-level strategic initiative like Storytelling or Narrative development, I've found that creating a consistent touchpoint with a small cross functional team is foundational to the success of the project. I've typically included stakeholders from Product, GTM and the exec team, and set the expectation up front that while we will take feedback from others throughout this process, this core team are the final drivers and approvers of the story we tell. Initially, I collect inputs on compet ...Read More

I think about my strategy in three steps: Objective Facts Product: Collaborate closely with the product team to conduct feature-by-feature comparisons. Dive into the technology to identify what’s truly unique. Sometimes, depending on the product area or space, you might be lucky enough to be able to test out your competitor's product yourself through freemium accounts or trials to gain firsthand experience! Sales Insights: If you work in a space with a meaningful sales motion, leverage win/loss ...Read More

The key is developing a shared narrative that everyone can champion. Start by facilitating workshops with cross-functional teams—Sales, Product, Engineering, and Customer Success—to gather perspectives on what truly differentiates the product. Use real-world examples from customers to ground the discussion. Once you identify the core differentiators, document them in a clear, concise, and easily repeatable format. Regular check-ins and reinforcement through internal communications are crucial to ...Read More

To make sure everyone internally agrees on what sets you apart from the competition, I like to break it down into layers. First, there's the one-liner: a simple, clear statement about how your approach to solving the problem is different. Everyone in the company should know this—it usually comes from leadership and ties into the company’s overall strategy. To keep it fresh and top of mind, it needs to be repeated regularly in all-hands meetings, internal communications, and whenever leadership s ...Read More

I think the best way to gain consensus and alignment on how you’re differentiated from the competition is to first start by soliciting input from all stakeholders (sales, product, customer success, marketing, engineering if a technical product). From there, I typically look for customer stories, calls or interviews that mention competitors (we’ve been using Fathom to flag these during calls and alert in real-time). Once you have raw internal and external notes, it’s also good to fill in your kno ...Read More

There are two components to get alignment on here — the playing field, and the scores. With both, the first step is creating a feature/functionality matrix for your company and its key competitors. The choice of competitive set is important — these should be alternatives that you're actually encountering as direct competitors. Along the rows, detail out all the relevant features and functionality, ideally in categories (infrastructure, product lines, support/service, etc.). The columns should be ...Read More

First, you need to become an expert in your competitive landscape. Do the research, do the analysis, then do the storytelling and debate with your team. Involve stakeholders from other disciplines in your research projects if possible so they are invested from the beginning, and will champion your conclusions. Bring your team along for the journey. This works much better than waiting til the end to bring people in. There are many research approaches you can use here. I find it helpful to use mul ...Read More

Typically, the best strategy to align the organization is to lean into data. When defining -- and agreeing on -- what makes you different from the competition, here are a few tactics to deploy: Identify key value drivers: Often done via survey research, identifying and aligning on features and capabilities that create value for buyers and users is incredibly helpful. You can use this insight to align product and sales teams on the "must have" features, including requirements to meet or exceed cu ...Read More

This is a great one. First, try not to differentiate on features alone. Most features can be copied, they aren't defensible enough from a long-term perspective. Your overall approach to building products - your unique point of view on the market -- that should be the source of your differentiation. Features can, on the other hand, be great proof points of your differentiation. For example, Third Love is a bra and underwear brand that tried to differentiate from Victorias secret by being more inc ...Read More

Strong external messaging starts with clear internal alignment on positioning. Internal positioning should focus on the internal narrative of how your products are clearly and measurably differentiated.  I’d begin this exercise by gathering a core cross-functional group of decision-makers from product, sales, marketing, customer success, and executive teams for input and influence across the org. Align on the core persona(s) you want to focus on for the positioning - the fewer, the better. Defin ...Read More

Shana, Eve, and Robin have all pointed to the right starting inputs. What I'd add is a structural observation about why alignment on differentiation breaks down even when the process looks right. Most companies confuse "everyone agrees we're differentiated" with "everyone agrees on what the differentiation is." The first is easy to get. The second is the hard one. At Tableau, we had the classic problem: sales had their version of the story, product had theirs, and executive communications had a ...Read More