I watched a PMM spend three weeks building the most beautiful battlecard I'd ever seen. Forty-two slides. Detailed competitive analysis. Feature comparison matrices. SWOT analysis. Market positioning maps. Pricing breakdowns. Customer testimonials. It was a masterpiece.
She presented it to the sales team with pride. They nodded. They said "great work." They bookmarked the Sharepoint link.
Six weeks later, I sat in on a competitive deal. The rep was getting destroyed by the competitor. I asked after the call: "Did you use the battlecard?"
He looked confused. "What battlecard?"
I've built battlecards that sat unused for months. I've watched PMMs treat battlecard creation like academic research projects—comprehensive, thorough, and completely disconnected from how sales actually competes.
Then I learned the difference between battlecards that get built and battlecards that get used. The difference isn't quality or comprehensiveness. It's speed and relevance.
The battlecards that work are the ones you can build in two hours and update in ten minutes. Everything else is documentation theater.
The Brutal Truth About Competitive Battles
Most battlecards fail because PMMs optimize for the wrong outcome. They want to create the definitive competitive reference document. They want to be thorough. They want to cover every scenario.
So they spend weeks researching. They analyze every feature. They map every positioning angle. They interview customers. They read analyst reports. They compile everything into a comprehensive document.
And sales ignores it because:
It's too long. Sales reps won't read 42 slides before a call. They need answers in 60 seconds, not 60 minutes.
It's too generic. A comprehensive battlecard tries to cover every competitive scenario. But sales needs answers for the specific objection happening right now in this specific deal.
It's too slow to update. By the time the battlecard is done, the competitor has changed their pricing or launched a new feature. The battlecard is outdated before launch.
I learned this the hard way on my first battlecard project. I spent four weeks building a comprehensive competitive analysis of our top competitor. I covered everything—features, pricing, positioning, customer sentiment, market trends, analyst opinions.
I presented it to sales. They loved it. They thanked me. They never used it.
Two weeks later, we lost three deals to that competitor. I asked the reps: "Why didn't you use the battlecard?"
One rep was honest: "I did open it. But I was on a call and the prospect asked how we compare on feature X. I couldn't find the answer in your 40-slide deck in the middle of a live conversation. So I guessed."
That's when I realized: battlecards aren't reference documents. They're cheat sheets for live combat.
What Actually Happens in Competitive Deals
Before I built my next battlecard, I did something I should have done first: I sat in on ten competitive deals and watched what actually happens.
Here's what I learned:
Competitive objections happen live, not in advance. Sales doesn't know they need battlecard info until a prospect says "We're also looking at [competitor]." At that moment, they have 10 seconds to respond confidently or lose credibility.
Reps need one thing: the trap. In every competitive deal, there's one question you can ask that exposes the competitor's weakness and positions your strength. Sales doesn't need comprehensive analysis—they need that one trap question.
The objection is always the same five things. Competitors don't have infinite angles of attack. They have five messages they hammer repeatedly: price, features, market position, customer base, or risk. Sales needs responses to those five, not responses to 50 hypothetical scenarios.
Updates matter more than comprehensiveness. Competitors change pricing, launch features, and shift messaging constantly. A battlecard that's 80% complete but updated weekly beats a comprehensive battlecard that's six months stale.
I watched one rep win a competitive deal against a stronger competitor using a single sentence from our battlecard. The competitor was positioning on their enterprise customer base. The rep asked: "How many of their enterprise customers actually use the advanced features you're evaluating, versus just using it as a basic tool?"
The prospect didn't know. They went back to the competitor to ask. The competitor gave a vague answer. The prospect lost confidence. We won the deal.
That one trap question—delivered at the right moment—was worth more than my entire 40-slide battlecard.
The Two-Hour Battlecard Framework
After watching those deals, I built my next battlecard in two hours. Not because I rushed—because I only included what mattered.
Here's exactly what I did:
Hour One: Find the Trap (60 minutes)
I called three sales reps who recently beat this competitor and asked one question: "What made the prospect choose us instead of them?"
I listened for patterns. In those three conversations, I heard the same story three times: prospects chose us because our competitor's product required custom development for their use case, while ours worked out of the box.
That's the trap. The competitor sells on flexibility and customization. But that "flexibility" means implementation takes 6-12 months and costs $200K in professional services.
Our trap question: "Ask the competitor how long implementation takes for your specific use case, and what the professional services cost will be."
That one question exposes their weakness (slow, expensive implementation) and positions our strength (fast time-to-value).
I spent the remaining 40 minutes documenting exactly how to set this trap:
When to use it: When the competitor positions on flexibility, customization, or enterprise-grade capabilities.
How to phrase it: "That's interesting they mentioned flexibility. In your conversations with them, have they walked through the implementation timeline for your specific use case? We find that's where the real cost comparison happens."
What happens next: The prospect will ask the competitor. The competitor will either give a vague answer (red flag) or reveal the 6-12 month timeline. Both outcomes help us.
How to follow up: "Our customers in [similar industry] typically go live in 6-8 weeks. Here's a case study of [customer] who switched from [competitor] after their implementation stalled at month 9."
That's it. One trap. Fully scripted. Ready to use in a live call.
Hour Two: Build the Objection Response Guide (60 minutes)
The second hour is for the five objections every rep will face. Not 50 hypothetical objections—the five that actually happen.
I pulled transcripts from our last 20 competitive deals (Gong makes this easy) and looked for patterns. What did prospects actually ask when comparing us to this competitor?
Five objections came up in 90% of deals:
"They're cheaper." (Appeared in 18 of 20 deals)
"They have more features." (Appeared in 16 of 20 deals)
"They have bigger customers than you." (Appeared in 12 of 20 deals)
"They've been around longer." (Appeared in 9 of 20 deals)
"They integrate with our existing stack." (Appeared in 8 of 20 deals)
For each objection, I wrote a three-part response that takes 30 seconds to deliver:
Acknowledge: "You're right, their list price is lower."
Reframe: "What we've seen with customers who switched from them is that the list price doesn't include implementation, training, and ongoing support. When you factor in total cost of ownership over 12 months, our customers typically spend 20-30% less."
Evidence: "Here's a case study from [customer] who switched from them. They were paying $50K/year in licensing but spending $120K/year in total costs. With us, their all-in cost is $85K/year."
Each response took 10 minutes to write. Five responses took 50 minutes. I spent the last 10 minutes formatting it into a single-page cheat sheet.
That's the battlecard. One trap question. Five objection responses. One page. Built in two hours.
Why This Works When Comprehensive Battlecards Don't
I rolled out this two-hour battlecard to the sales team differently than my previous attempts. Instead of presenting it in a meeting, I Slacked it to three reps who had competitive deals happening that week.
"Try the trap question on your next call. Let me know what happens."
Two days later, one rep reported back: "Used the trap. Prospect went silent. Came back three days later and said the competitor quoted six months and $150K for professional services. Competitor is out of the deal."
The next week, four more reps asked for the battlecard. The week after that, it was in our deal review template. Within a month, 80% of reps were using it.
That battlecard worked when my comprehensive one didn't because:
It's findable in combat. One page means reps can scan it in 30 seconds during a live call. They don't need to dig through slides.
It's immediately usable. The responses are scripted and ready to deliver verbatim. Reps don't need to interpret analysis—they just need to read the response.
It's built from what works. I didn't hypothesize what might work. I documented what already worked in deals we won.
It's easy to update. When the competitor changes pricing or launches a feature, I update the relevant objection response in five minutes. The battlecard stays current.
It focuses on the moment of truth. Sales doesn't need to understand the competitor's entire strategy. They need to know what to say when the competitor comes up in a deal.
The Mistake Most PMMs Make With Battlecards
The reason PMMs build comprehensive battlecards instead of useful ones comes down to audience confusion.
We build battlecards for ourselves, not for sales.
We want to demonstrate our competitive intelligence. We want to show we've done thorough research. We want to prove we understand the market. So we build comprehensive documents that showcase our knowledge.
But sales doesn't need our knowledge. They need our answers.
When a prospect says "Competitor X is cheaper," the rep doesn't need to understand pricing strategy analysis. They need a 30-second response that reframes the objection and provides evidence.
When a competitor comes up in a deal, the rep doesn't need to read 10 slides about market positioning. They need one trap question that exposes weakness.
The shift that changed how I build battlecards: I stopped treating them as research documents and started treating them as scripts for live combat.
A research document optimizes for comprehensiveness. A combat script optimizes for speed and confidence.
Sales needs combat scripts.
How to Build Your First Battlecard in Two Hours
If you've never built a battlecard before, or you've built comprehensive ones that didn't get used, here's exactly what to do:
Step 1: Pick your top competitor (the one you lose to most often)
Step 2: Call three reps who beat them recently and ask: "What made the prospect choose us?" Listen for the pattern—that's your trap.
Step 3: Pull transcripts from 10-20 competitive deals (or if you don't have Gong, interview reps) and identify the five objections that actually come up.
Step 4: Write three-part responses (acknowledge, reframe, evidence) for each objection. Keep each response under 100 words.
Step 5: Format it as a one-page cheat sheet. Trap at the top, objections below. Make it scannable in 30 seconds.
Step 6: Slack it to three reps with active competitive deals. Ask them to try it and report back.
Step 7: Update it based on what works. If a response doesn't land, rewrite it. If a new objection emerges, add it.
That's it. Two hours. One page. Actually useful.
The Real Test of a Battlecard
The way you know if a battlecard works: sales uses it without being asked.
I don't measure battlecard success by downloads or views. I measure it by unprompted usage in deals.
When reps start Slacking each other the battlecard without me prompting them, I know it's working. When new reps ask for it in onboarding, I know it's valuable. When reps quote responses verbatim in competitive deals, I know it's effective.
My comprehensive battlecard got 47 downloads and zero usage. My two-hour battlecard got shared organically across the team and became the standard competitive reference.
The difference wasn't quality. It was usefulness.
What to Do After the First Battlecard
Once you've built one battlecard this way, the pattern becomes repeatable.
I now build a two-hour battlecard for every major competitor. Not because I have endless time—because once you know the pattern, two hours is enough.
The battlecards that take weeks are the ones where PMMs don't know what to look for. Once you know you're looking for one trap and five objections, you can find them in two hours.
I also update battlecards continuously instead of in big revisions. When a competitor changes pricing, I update the pricing objection response immediately. When a competitor launches a feature, I add a new objection if needed. Each update takes 5-10 minutes.
This keeps battlecards current and useful. The comprehensive battlecard I built in four weeks was outdated in six weeks. The two-hour battlecard I built is 18 months old and still effective because I update it continuously.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Most PMMs resist building battlecards this way because it feels too simple. We want to demonstrate our competitive intelligence sophistication. We want to show we've done deep research.
But sales doesn't pay us to be sophisticated. They pay us to help them win deals.
A one-page battlecard with one trap and five responses wins more deals than a 40-slide competitive analysis. I've tested both. The simple version wins every time.
The question isn't whether you can build a comprehensive battlecard. The question is whether sales will use it when a prospect asks about your competitor.
If the answer is no, you're building the wrong thing.
Build the battlecard sales will actually use. You can do it in two hours. And those two hours might change your win rate more than months of comprehensive competitive research.