When to use it
Use this when a specific competitor keeps showing up in deals and your reps need a credible, repeatable way to position against them. It earns its keep when you have real win/loss patterns to feed it, the battlecard is only as trustworthy as your honesty about where you lose. Run it with a browsing-enabled model to pull current positioning, or paste the competitor's site, pricing, and reviews yourself.
Do NOT use it to generate a hype sheet that lists ten reasons you're better and zero reasons anyone chooses them, reps won't trust it, won't use it, and will get caught flat-footed when a buyer names a real strength you 'forgot' to mention. And do NOT circulate the output without a subject-matter expert verifying the claims; outdated or fabricated competitor intel loses deals and credibility faster than having no battlecard at all.
The principle: a battlecard reps actually trust is honest about where you lose. The 'where they win' section is the credibility test, if a rep can't trust you there, they won't trust a word of the 'where we win' section either. Position by setting traps with discovery questions that expose the competitor's weaknesses, never by bashing them; disparaging a competitor a buyer already likes reads as insecurity and makes them defend the incumbent.
The prompt
Prompt, paste into Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity
You are a competitive enablement lead. You build battlecards reps actually trust, which means being honest about where we lose, never claiming things we can't defend, and giving reps language they can say with a straight face to a buyer who already likes the competitor. You never fabricate features, pricing, or weaknesses.
CONTEXT
Us (what we do + real strengths): {{OUR_PRODUCT}}
Competitor: {{COMPETITOR}}
What we know about them: {{COMPETITOR_NOTES}}
Who we sell to (ICP): {{ICP}}
Where we tend to win vs them / lose to them: {{WIN_LOSS_NOTES}}
TASK
Build a one-screen battlecard for selling against {{COMPETITOR}}.
METHOD
1. If you have web access, verify their positioning from their site, pricing, and recent reviews; cite source domains in brackets and mark anything you couldn't verify as (unconfirmed). If no web access, say so and work only from my notes.
2. Frame our positioning relative to them in one honest sentence.
3. List where we genuinely win, with the proof behind each, no claim without backing.
4. List where THEY genuinely win or where we have real gaps. Be honest; this section earns the rep's trust.
5. Write landmines (what NOT to say) and traps (discovery questions that surface their weaknesses without bashing).
6. Handle the 'we already use/like them' objection honestly.
OUTPUT FORMAT
1. ONE-LINE POSITIONING
2. WHERE WE WIN (3-4): advantage + the proof behind it
3. WHERE THEY WIN / OUR GAPS (3-4): honest, specific
4. LANDMINES (3): claims or attacks that backfire
5. TRAPS TO SET (3-4): discovery questions that expose their weaknesses without disparaging them
6. OBJECTION, 'WE ALREADY USE/LIKE {{COMPETITOR}}': a short, honest response
7. TL;DR FOR A REP (3 bullets to remember walking into a competitive deal)
CONSTRAINTS
- Never fabricate features, pricing, or weaknesses. Cite sources where you can; mark the rest (unconfirmed).
- The 'where they win' section must be genuinely honest, not a humble-brag in disguise.
- No disparagement; traps are questions, not attacks. No hype words.
- Keep it tight enough to fit on one screen, a battlecard nobody can scan mid-deal is useless.
- If WIN_LOSS_NOTES is thin, say the battlecard will be generic and ask me for one real win and one real loss before finalizing.Run it from the terminal
$# use Perplexity's sonar-pro so it pulls current pricing and reviews
$grep COMPETITOR: prompts/battlecard.md
Competitor: RouteMax
$# build a battlecard with current intel via a browsing model
$cat prompts/battlecard.md | llm -m sonar-pro
1. ONE-LINE POSITIONING
We deliver route savings in weeks, not the multi-month enterprise rollout RouteMax
requires, built for regional carriers, not Fortune 500 fleets.
2. WHERE WE WIN
- Speed to value: live in weeks vs months; wins cite this as the deciding factor.
- Price fit for mid-market: no enterprise premium mid-size carriers can't justify.
- Hands-on onboarding (a recurring theme in why buyers leave RouteMax, [g2]).
3. WHERE THEY WIN / OUR GAPS
- Deep WMS/ERP integrations, they're genuinely stronger; we lose these deals.
- Broader enterprise feature depth (unconfirmed, verify scope).
4. LANDMINES
- Don't call them 'bloated', buyers who chose them dig in.
- Don't claim parity on enterprise integrations; we'll get caught.
5. TRAPS TO SET
- 'How long are you willing to wait to see ROI?'
- 'Do you need deep WMS integration on day one, or fast routing wins first?'
7. TL;DR FOR A REP
- Sell speed and fit, not feature count.
- Qualify on integration depth early, that's the deal we lose.
$# treat everything (unconfirmed) until an SME verifies before circulating
$
Variables to swap
| Variable | What to put there |
|---|---|
{{OUR_PRODUCT}} | What you do and your core, real strengths |
{{COMPETITOR}} | The competitor's name |
{{COMPETITOR_NOTES}} | What you know about them, positioning, pricing, known gaps |
{{ICP}} | Who you sell to |
{{WIN_LOSS_NOTES}} | Real patterns in deals you win vs them and lose to them |
Worked example
Input
Filled-in example
OUR_PRODUCT: AI route optimization built for regional last-mile carriers; fast setup, hands-on support
COMPETITOR: RouteMax
COMPETITOR_NOTES: Enterprise-focused, powerful but complex, multi-month implementations, premium pricing
ICP: Regional carriers, 100-500 employees
WIN_LOSS_NOTES: We win on speed-to-value and price; we lose when buyers need deep WMS/ERP integrationsOutput
What the model returns
1. ONE-LINE POSITIONING
We deliver route savings in weeks, not the multi-month enterprise rollout RouteMax requires, built for regional carriers, not Fortune 500 fleets.
2. WHERE WE WIN
- Speed to value: live in weeks vs months; our wins consistently cite this as the deciding factor.
- Price fit for mid-market: no enterprise premium that mid-size carriers can't justify.
- Hands-on onboarding: a dedicated person, not a ticket queue (a recurring theme in why buyers leave RouteMax, unconfirmed, verify with reviews [g2]).
3. WHERE THEY WIN / OUR GAPS
- Deep WMS/ERP integrations for complex enterprise stacks, they're genuinely stronger here; we lose these deals.
- Broader enterprise feature depth and configurability (unconfirmed, verify scope).
- Stronger brand recognition with large national shippers.
4. LANDMINES
- Don't call them 'bloated', buyers who chose them feel judged and dig in.
- Don't claim parity on enterprise integrations; we'll get caught.
- Don't get pulled into a custom-build RFP we can't staff.
5. TRAPS TO SET
- 'How long are you willing to wait to see ROI?'
- 'How much internal IT time can you commit to a routing rollout?'
- 'Do you need deep WMS integration on day one, or fast routing wins first?'
- 'What's the actual cost of waiting six months to go live?'
6. OBJECTION, 'WE ALREADY LIKE ROUTEMAX'
"That makes sense, they're strong for big enterprise rollouts. For a team your size, the real question is whether you want results in weeks without a heavy IT lift. Worth a quick side-by-side so you can compare honestly?"
7. TL;DR FOR A REP
- Sell speed and fit, not feature count.
- Qualify on integration depth early, that's the deal we lose.
- Never bash; set traps with questions.Tips to get more out of it
- The 'where they win' section is the whole credibility test. If a rep reads it and thinks 'this is honest,' they'll trust the rest; if it's a thinly disguised brag, they'll ignore the entire card.
- Verify every claim with a subject-matter expert before circulating. Outdated competitor intel, a 'weakness' they fixed two releases ago, gets a rep embarrassed in front of a buyer and costs the deal.
- Coach reps to set traps with questions, never to bash. A discovery question that exposes a weakness ('how much IT time can you commit?') is far more persuasive than 'their implementation is slow.'
- Refresh battlecards quarterly. Competitors reposition, fix gaps, and change pricing; an old gap may now be a strength, and stale traps backfire.
- Keep it to one screen. A 6-page battlecard never gets opened mid-deal, the TL;DR is what a rep actually glances at before a competitive call.
- Run it in a browsing model (Perplexity or browsing-on ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude) to pull current pricing and reviews, but treat everything as (unconfirmed) until a human verifies, models will confidently 'source' plausible competitor facts.
- Pair with the objection-handling prompt for the specific competitor objections you hear most, so the reframes and the battlecard tell the same story.