When it comes to strategic planning and problem-solving, having a toolbox full of techniques and methods can be immensely helpful. One such tool is battle cards, which are an organized and structured approach to planning, preparing, and tracking tactics to achieve success. Battle cards have been around for decades, but the rise of the digital age has enabled them to become more sophisticated and powerful than ever before. Battle cards are incredibly versatile and can be used to tackle almost any challenge or problem you may face in business. They can be used to develop and implement strategies for product launches, marketing campaigns, customer service efforts, and much more. Battle cards are an incredibly effective tool for visualizing success and taking action. Whether you’re a seasoned professional or a rookie entrepreneur, battle cards can provide you with the framework to take your successes from conception to reality. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the basics of battle cards, how they can be used to your advantage, and the benefits they can offer
Steve Jackson’s Battle Cards, SCRATCH OFF Collectible Card Game, 1993 Dead CCG
Why are battle cards important?
Overall, battle cards can make salespeople—even newcomers—achieve their objectives more quickly. Salespeople can present a thorough strategy during pitches, calls, and presentations by having access to key product information, competitor information, and strategies that anticipate customer needs. Battle cards are crucial because they can lead to better sales outcomes, so in general. Keeping this general idea in mind, the following are a few examples of the particular advantages businesses may experience by including battle cards in their sales strategy:
Selling against competitors
Battle cards can aid salespeople in comprehending a competitive market, their company’s position, the characteristics that distinguish their brand, and more. This is particularly crucial in the modern market where highly educated consumers research products on their own Professionals can better manage selling against direct competitors by having a deeper understanding of competitors and what makes the brand they’re selling stand out from the rest.
Understanding target audience
When using battle cards, professionals may have access to crucial data about their target audience, such as consumer purchasing trends and the information that most interests them about a product. Sales representatives can use this to better understand potential clients’ needs and build rapport with them. From here, salespeople can have greater success turning leads into clients.
Maintaining consistent messaging
A brand’s marketing and sales departments can use battle cards to better coordinate their messaging. When speaking with potential customers, sales professionals can make sure they’re saying the right things and giving accurate information because messaging is easily accessible. Customers seeking to interact with brands they can trust may find this kind of consistency particularly appealing.
Training novice team members
Battle cards can be a useful training tool because they may contain crucial information about goods and services, such as specifications, justifications for pricing, and comparisons to rival products. Battle cards are a tool that businesses can use to teach new hires the skills they need to succeed in the workplace. Battle cards could help new hires make more sales and free up resources that would have been used for training.
Anticipating objections and questions
When customers raise objections or press salespeople with questions they don’t know the answers to, closing deals can be difficult. Battle cards can reduce pressure in these circumstances and give team members strategies for overcoming customer objections, allowing salespeople to concentrate on providing solutions rather than handling objections.
What are battle cards?
Battle cards are internal sales tools that compile pertinent data and scripts about particular goods and services, the markets where they are sold, brand rivals, and target markets. When making calls or giving presentations, salespeople can quickly refer to battle cards to find pertinent facts, figures, product specifications, clips, and other information that might support their case. Battle cards may also contain strategies for overcoming objections from customers, competitor comparisons, and other sales roadblocks.
With this information readily available, salespeople can speak authoritatively about the goods and services they’re selling, respond to any objections, and give potential customers clear explanations. Battle cards can then be used as a helpful tool to help salespeople improve their ability to close deals. In order to effectively handle competitive markets and other industry- or brand-specific challenges, battle cards have become a common tool used throughout the sales field.
How to use battle cards
A company’s use of battle cards may be influenced by contextual elements such as its particular industry, market, target audience, and competitors. But keeping these things in mind, there are a few crucial steps you can take to use battle cards to increase sales and accomplish objectives within your company. The following seven steps will help you effectively use battle cards:
1. Set your goals
When incorporating battle cards into your team’s sales strategies, start by establishing a clear, quantifiable objective that battle cards can aid in achieving. For instance, perhaps your company wants to improve upsell rates by 10% or lose 20% fewer deals to a certain market competitor You can create your battle cards more skillfully if you have a specific objective in mind.
2. Gather necessary product or service information
Together with your sales, marketing, customer service, and operations departments, you should assemble the data that appears on battle cards. This enables you to create your battle cards using a thorough methodology. Any information that could aid salespeople in closing a deal, such as product specifics, frequently asked questions, value propositions, particular offerings, pain points, and customer profiles.
3. Conduct research about your competitors
Gathering data on your brand’s rivals is crucial to producing powerful battle cards, especially for businesses that are losing sales to specific industry rivals. As a result, you should carry out in-depth research on the goods and services, prices, guarantees, and other factors of your competitors. From here, you can examine this data, spot gaps in their offerings, and devise strategies for your team to promote their products as superior choices.
4. Design a template and messaging
Create a template and write the messaging that will appear on the battle cards once you have gathered all the information that will be on them. Using a condensed format that sales professionals can quickly read and refer to on the spot is a good idea. Once more, the sales and marketing teams should work together on this. Fostering consistency and alignment between these two divisions will enable increased brand recognition, consumer trust, and purchasing confidence.
5. Train your sales team using battle cards
Once your battle cards are complete, you can start using them as part of your strategy by teaching your sales team members how to use them during pitches, calls, and presentations. Through this kind of instruction, team members can become more at ease using battle cards. Your team may find it beneficial to practice using battle cards during simulated sales calls. This will enable you to assess the usability of the card’s design and the team’s proficiency with it. You can also ask team members for suggestions on how to make the use of the cards better during training.
6. Make battle cards convenient and update them frequently
You can fully introduce the cards as a component of your sales strategy once you’ve trained your team and modified the design of the battle cards to suit your team’s needs. Battle cards should be kept in a place where team members can easily access them, such as shared folders or customer relationship management (CRM) systems that are frequently used by the team. Maintain the battle cards from here by regularly updating their details for relevance.
7. Measure the usage of battle cards and make adjustments
To achieve their objectives with great success, your team must adhere to the rules for using battle cards. Try to gauge your team’s usage of the battle cards as they become more accustomed to using them as a component of their sales strategy so that you can better understand their value to your team. If they aren’t being used by your team, there might be a reason. From here, you can get feedback and make any necessary changes to maximize their use.
FAQ
What is in a good battle card?
Battle cards are visual tools for contrasting the goods, services, features, and/or costs of your business with those of one or more rivals. A battle card, which is typically a one-pager, is a quick way to give an overview of your rivals and to compare your performance and value to theirs in key areas.
What are competitive battle cards?
- Competitor overview information.
- Competitive sales tactics.
- Win/loss insights.
- Go-to-market information.
