Freshworks Director of Competitive Intelligence/Comms, Tracy Berry | CE Show on the Road

Tracy Berry is the Director of Competitive Intelligence and Communications at Freshworks. She’s also the unofficial Queen of Compete. She joined Adam for this episode of the Competitive Enablement Show. Here are three takeaways from their chat.

1️⃣ Get to know your C-suite and tailor your compete efforts to them 1️⃣

Detail lovers and high-level heroes. The members of your exec team will be one or the other.

Their preferences should dictate your compete team’s priorities, as well as how you communicate progress.

“You need to learn about your C-suite, through your management and your own leadership up the line, then start interacting with them and learn what their needs are.”

In her career Tracy has used personality frameworks (e.g. Myers-Briggs) to understand what makes her leadership team tick.

Through her 30-in-30 interviews — a key component of her 90 day framework for launching a compete program — she gets to know her leadership team.

Like all relationship building, it takes time. So today is as good a time as any to start doing it.

Download our ultimate 9 step guide to launching your competitive enablement program with quotes and takeaways from pros like Tracy Berry.

2️⃣ Start enabling your CSMs now 2️⃣

Understanding why customers are renewing or churning is paramount to increasing retention.

(If you’re not already running an internal churn analysis program, here’s a template to get you started.)

Diving into post-mortems around churn and renewals is part of the diligence Tracy recommends as a first step in enabling your CS team.

“Do some due diligence to understand what they’re experiencing when it comes to objection handling or quick dismisses and tailor compete content towards their needs.”

CSMs have to overcome objections that sellers don’t. For instance, getting mired in a feature-function standoff in the sales cycle, can be a nightmare.

But customers who’ve used your product for several months will have more detailed and specific questions about your features and functions. These questions or objections need to be addressed head-on.

Understand how CSMs’ needs differ from the other teams you enable, and tailor your content accordingly.

Watch two of Klue’s top CSMs break down the five thing the best compete programs all do

3️⃣ Deal support is more important than ever 3️⃣

Once your compete program starts to get noticed like Tracy’s has, you’ll start getting pulled into deals — big ones too.

This support looks a lot different than it does on a battlecard. Because when Tracy gets pulled in, it’s at a later stage in the deal cycle and requires more specific, in-the-weeds, support.

“Whereas a battlecard might be a little more generic, we get a lot more down and dirty into addressing customer needs and the competitive differentiation.”

Tracy’s team rarely goes customer-facing when it comes to deal support. Because for her and team, it’s about enabling her go-to-market teams to be self-sufficient to differentiate against competitors.

Customer-facing or not, you’ll have to get your hands dirty. And frankly, that’s the fun part.