Paul · Dec 12, 2021

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Putting Competitive Intel into Action

“It was an email from my boss saying, ‘Hey, can you give me a quick call’. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of those ones.”

Ah yes, the dreaded “can you give me a quick call?” from the boss.

If you’re like Alex McDonnell, that’s the sort of email you get when you jump the gun on sending out your first piece of — what you think is — killer competitive intel. 

Mistakes happen to everyone. They happen a lot more when you’re building something from scratch, like Alex was when he spearheaded the competitive program at InVision.

Now the Market and Competitive Intelligence lead at Airtable, Alex popped into the Competitive Enablement Show to share advice about building a competitive program from the ground up, enabling sales, and so much more. 

Key Takeaways

• Prioritize building relationships with key stakeholders, starting with customer-facing teams and expanding outwards
• It’s better to do it right than do it fast at the beginning; be resilient in the face of pressure to move quickly
• Be responsive to ad-hoc requests to help you build trust in your competitive program and help build your central source of truth

Catch the full conversation on Apple and Spotify.

Win, Win-Win, No Matter What

 But you also lose sometimes
 

And that’s okay! As my old baseball coach used to say, the important thing is to learn from your losses. 

He also used to say, “Ben, I’m going to have to bench you.” and “Ben, we don’t have space for you on the roster this year.” But I digress. 

Your business definitely wants to stay off the bench in your ever-increasing competitive landscape. That’s why top companies invest their time and energy in win-loss programs. And all the best programs contain these 7 components:

1. Setting clear objectives
2. Establishing clear hypotheses
3. Narrowing the scope of work
4. Getting leadership buy-in
5. Asking thought-provoking questions
6. Organizing results into broad themes
7. Distributing findings effectively

If you’re looking to up your win-loss analysis game, check out our newly published article called Competitive Win-Loss Analysis 101: Your Guide to Win-Loss Best Practices. 

It features quotes from industry experts like Natasha Narayan and Ryan Sorley, the best win-loss interview questions to ask, and much more. 

Dive into the world of win-loss here.

From the Vault: Impossible Burger vs Beyond Meats  

  ‘Moooo’ve over beef, it’s veggie time

Remember when it felt like meat substitutes were taking over the world? Good times. 

They might not be ready to outcompete Big Beef just yet, but if there are two meatless brands that seem to grab the most headlines, it’s Impossible and Beyond. 

Beyond took an early lead in the race for meatless supremacy, but Impossible wasn’t going to let them win that easy. And ultimately, through fierce competitive positioning, both brands opened the door to a plethora of meatless competitors. 

Read more about these dueling meat substitutes in this article from 2020, written by our fearless content manager Adam McQueen. 

If you’re not already, make sure you subscribe to our newsletter and keep your eyes on your inbox for the next installment of our ‘Versus’ series.

This week, I dive into the battle for electric vehicle supremacy: Tesla vs. Volkswagen vs. Lucid vs. GM vs. and pretty much every other carmaker on the planet.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition of Coffee & Compete Newsletter. As always, please reach out to me and the rest of the team with your thoughts and feedback. 

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