git:20260729.4a3a4d0 to git:20260729.8dd5ad0

---

name: competitive-battlecard

description: "Create sales-ready competitive battlecards comparing your product against a specific competitor — positioning, feature comparison, objection handling, and win/loss patterns. Use when preparing sales teams, creating competitive materials, or responding to 'why not competitor X?'"

---

## Codex host binding

- Treat references to Claude slash workflows as the equivalently named Codex skill.

- Before delegating to any specialist, read the `great-pm-runtime` skill and the selected packaged role file.

- Treat "invoke", "assign", "delegate", "spawn", and source Agent-tool instructions as a required Codex `spawn_agent` call with that role and a bounded assignment.

- Store every returned agent identifier. Never call a wait tool until a spawn has returned an identifier, and wait only on identifiers returned by successful spawns.

- If `spawn_agent` is unavailable or a spawn fails, report BLOCKED; do not impersonate the specialist or wait on an empty agent set.

- Resolve bundled paths from the installed GreatPM plugin root.

- Ignore Claude-only model aliases, colors, turn limits, and tool allowlists.

- Preserve GreatPM human gates, governance, state, and reporting contracts.

> **Provenance.** Vendored from `phuryn$pm-skills@competitive-battlecard` (MIT, Paweł Huryn / Product Compass — github.com/phuryn$pm-skills). Adapted into great-pm 2026-05-29 with attribution. Host agent: market-analyst.

## Competitive Battlecard

Create a concise, sales-ready battlecard for use against a specific competitor.

### Context

You are creating a competitive battlecard for **$ARGUMENTS**.

Use web search to research the competitor's current product, pricing, positioning, and recent changes. If the user provides files (feature lists, win/loss data, sales call notes), read them first.

### Instructions

1. **Research the competitor** (use web search):

- Current product offerings and features

- Pricing tiers and model

- Target market and positioning

- Recent product launches or changes

- Known strengths and weaknesses

- Customer reviews and sentiment (G2, Capterra, Reddit)

2. **Create the battlecard** with these sections:

### Company Overview

- Founded, HQ, funding/revenue (if public)

- Target market and ICP

- Positioning in one sentence

### Quick Comparison

| Capability | Us | Them | Winner |

|---|---|---|---|

| [Feature area 1] | [Our approach] | [Their approach] | [Us/Them/Tie] |

| [Feature area 2] | ... | ... | ... |

| Pricing | ... | ... | ... |

| Support | ... | ... | ... |

### Where We Win

- [Advantage 1]: [Proof point or customer quote]

- [Advantage 2]: [Specific capability they lack]

- [Advantage 3]: [Better approach with reasoning]

### Where They Win

- [Their strength 1]: [Our counter-positioning]

- [Their strength 2]: [How we mitigate this gap]

### Common Objections & Responses

| Prospect Says | Respond With |

|---|---|

| "Competitor X has [feature]" | "[Our alternative approach and why it's better for them]" |

| "They're cheaper" | "[Value framing: total cost of ownership, ROI, hidden costs]" |

| "They're more established" | "[Our advantages: speed, innovation, focus, support]" |

### Landmines to Plant

Questions to ask the prospect that highlight competitor weaknesses:

- "How important is [area where we excel] to your team?"

- "Have you evaluated [specific capability they lack]?"

### Win/Loss Patterns

- We tend to win when: [pattern]

- We tend to lose when: [pattern]

- Key differentiator in competitive deals: [what tips the scale]

3. **Keep it scannable**: Sales reps need to reference this during calls. Use tables, bold text, and short bullets.

4. **Date-stamp the card.** Put `Last verified: YYYY-MM-DD` at the top and a

`Sources` line under each competitor claim. A battlecard with no date is a

liability (see pitfall 1).

Save as markdown. Format for easy printing or sharing in Notion/Confluence.

### Pitfalls / failure modes

1. **Battlecard rot (date-staleness).** Competitors re-price, ship the feature

you said they lacked, and rebrand — fast. A card claiming "they have no mobile

app" six months after they launched one doesn't just miss; it *destroys rep

credibility* the moment a prospect corrects them. Every card carries a

`Last verified` date; treat anything older than the refresh cadence (below) as

unverified and flag it in-line rather than letting reps quote it as fact.

2. **False feature-parity claim.** Two traps, opposite directions: (a) claiming

"we have that too" when your version is a UX disaster a demo will expose, and

(b) claiming a competitor "lacks X" when they have a rough version. Both blow

up live on a call. Rule: a "Winner" verdict must rest on a *verified* capability

gap, not a marketing-page bullet. If parity is real but your execution is

worse, say so internally and counter-position on a different axis — don't send

reps into a demo they'll lose.

3. **Crossing the ethical line on landmines / FUD.** "Landmines to Plant" is

legitimate *only* when the question points at a real, verifiable weakness the

prospect should genuinely care about ("How are you handling X compliance?").

It becomes unethical FUD when it (a) implies a weakness you can't substantiate,

(b) spreads a claim you know is false or outdated, or (c) disparages rather than

informs. The test: would you stand behind the question if the competitor's PM

were in the room? Every landmine must trace to a sourced, current fact — never

invent a weakness, and never repeat an unverified rumor.

### Cross-links

- **Upstream → `competitive-analysis`.** This battlecard is the *sales-ready

output*; `competitive-analysis` is the *fact-gathering layer* that feeds it —

TAM/SAM/SOM, the source checklist (G2, Reddit, filings, hiring posts, call

transcripts), and the "we have no competitors = no market" discipline. Don't

hand-source facts in the battlecard; pull verified inputs from a

`competitive-analysis` pass and cite them.

- **Positioning frame → `obviously-awesome`.** A battlecard's "Where We Win"

section is only as sharp as your positioning. Use `obviously-awesome` (April

Dunford) to establish the competitive alternative, your unique attributes, and

the value those attributes enable — then the battlecard's win/loss patterns

fall out of a positioning you can defend, not ad-hoc bullet points.

- For market-structure depth (rivalry, switching costs, substitutes) defer to

`porters-five-forces`.

### Refresh cadence

Battlecards are perishable. Maintain on a **90-day refresh cycle** as the floor,

plus event-triggered refreshes:

- **Every 90 days:** re-verify pricing, feature claims, positioning, and the

win/loss patterns against current evidence. Re-stamp `Last verified`. Archive

claims you can no longer source.

- **On a competitor launch / major release:** refresh immediately — a new feature

can invalidate your central "Where We Win" claim overnight.

- **On a competitor funding round, acquisition, pricing change, or leadership

shift:** refresh the Company Overview and re-test positioning.

- **On a lost deal to this competitor:** capture the real loss reason and update

Win/Loss Patterns — field losses are the highest-signal refresh input there is.

A card past 90 days with no refresh should be marked stale, not quietly trusted.

---

### Further Reading

- [How to Design a Value Proposition Customers Can't Resist?](https://www.productcompass.pm/p/how-to-design-value-proposition-template)