The problem: features don’t win deals (but you keep positioning on them anyway)
Competitive positioning isn’t about having the best feature set. I’ve watched sales teams at companies I’ve worked for lose deals to competitors with objectively weaker products, simply because the buyer never understood why our solution was better. The real problem isn’t that we lack differentiation. It’s that we position on the wrong things.
Most competitive positioning fails because it’s built from the inside out. Product leaders list what we built. Marketing translates features into benefits. Sales memorizes talking points. But none of it answers what buyers actually care about: “Why should I choose you over the alternative I’m already considering?”
That’s where I start every competitive positioning conversation at a company. Not with our roadmap. Not with our customer wins. With the buyer’s decision criteria.
Why competitive positioning matters now more than ever
When I join a company as a PMM lead, one of the first things I audit is how sales talks about the competition. Most of the time, I find battle cards that haven’t been touched in months, messaging frameworks that sound generic, and sales reps who default to “we’re just better because X feature” conversations.
The stakes have gotten higher. Buyers evaluate multiple solutions simultaneously. They’ve already read the analyst reports. They know the feature parity game is over. What they’re actually buying is the approach, the proof, and the confidence that you’ve solved this specific problem before.
That’s what strong competitive positioning does. It doesn’t just list why you’re different. It shows buyers why different matters for their situation.
The competitive positioning framework I use
At every company I’ve led PMM for, I’ve implemented a three-layer framework that actually sticks with sales teams and drives deal velocity.
Layer 1: Category positioning
This answers the foundational question: “What category are we competing in, and is that the category the buyer is shopping for?” I’ve seen companies lose deals not because they were weak competitors in the category they thought they were in, but because the buyer was evaluating a completely different category.
When I worked on repositioning an enterprise digital workplace platform, the company was positioned as a traditional intranet solution competing against static knowledge management vendors. But the real buying decision was about employee engagement and organizational agility. The category shift from “intranet” to “digital workplace” immediately clarified which competitors mattered and which didn’t.
I start by researching how your buyers actually describe the problem. Not how you describe it. How they do. Then I look at what alternatives they’re considering. Often, the competitive set in your buyer’s mind is completely different from the competitive set you’ve been obsessing over.
Layer 2: Differentiation positioning
Once the category is clear, I identify three core differentiators that map directly to buyer decision criteria. Not seven differentiators. Not “best-in-class at everything.” Three things you genuinely do differently that matter for how your buyer approaches the problem.
These differentiators should be:
- Defensible. Not something a competitor can match in six months. I’ve led companies where the real differentiator was GTM approach (land-and-expand strategy with specific proof) rather than product features, precisely because that’s harder to copy.
- Relevant to the buying process. Does the buyer actually care about this during evaluation? If you’re different on something they’ll never notice or measure, it doesn’t matter.
- Provable. Can you back this up with third-party validation, customer outcomes, or analyst positioning? Without proof, it’s just a claim.
Layer 3: Proof positioning
This is where I focus most teams’ energy because it’s where competitive positioning actually wins deals. Proof positioning means having specific evidence that matters for competitive comparisons: analyst recognition, customer outcomes from the exact buyer segment you’re selling to, win-loss data that shows why your buyers chose you.
When I implemented competitive positioning for an enterprise web governance SaaS expansion into a new region, the strongest proof points weren’t features. They were case studies showing how companies in that specific region had adopted the solution for similar use cases, combined with third-party analyst validation that positioned the company as a leader in their specific category.
How to build battle cards that sales will actually use
I’ve seen plenty of beautiful battle card decks sitting in SharePoint, never opened. The difference between those and battle cards that hit 80%+ adoption is if they’re built for how salespeople actually sell.
Here’s what works:
Start with your competitive win-loss data. Not your opinions about competitors. Actual data about why you won deals against specific competitors and why you lost. I run quarterly win-loss analysis and directly feed those insights into battle cards. If data shows that sales loses to a competitor 40% of the time on “speed of implementation,” that becomes the lead section of that competitor’s battle card.
Structure them for objection handling, not feature comparison. Sales doesn’t need a table of features versus competitors. They need clarity on how to respond when a buyer says: “The other solution is cheaper.” “They’ve been in the market longer.” “They integrate with our existing tools better.” Each battle card should directly address the top objections your sales team encounters.
Make them short and visual. I’ve had the most success with one-page battle cards that include the competitive win rate, the top two differentiators that matter in competitive deals, a response to the main objection, and proof points (analyst mention or customer outcome). That’s it. No novels. Sales actually uses them.
And critically: don’t build battle cards once and forget them. I update ours quarterly based on competitive win-loss data and market changes. When I was building out sales enablement for the digital workplace platform, we hit 86% adoption across EMEA, APAC, and US because sales knew the battle cards got updated as market reality changed.
A real example: when category repositioning drives the revenue
When I took on competitive positioning for an enterprise digital workplace platform, the company had seven different product lines under the umbrella of “workplace solutions.” Buyers were confused. Sales couldn’t articulate why choose us over the three different competitors each customer was evaluating.
The competitive analysis revealed something critical: the company wasn’t actually winning on any single feature. It was winning on a specific GTM approach. The buyer adopted the core platform for a specific use case, then expanded to related use cases over 18-24 months. The competitor they lost to was usually the one that positioned as “one product does everything,” which sounded better in the initial conversation but required larger upfront commitments.
I simplified the portfolio to three core products (versus seven). Then I repositioned the category from “intranet” to “digital workplace that scales with adoption.” The differentiation points became clear: modular deployment, adoption-first design, and flexible pricing for land-and-expand.
We built battle cards that directly showed competitive win rate for this specific approach and included customer case studies where the buyer had started with one module and expanded to three over a 20-month period. Sales immediately understood why this mattered because it mapped to their actual selling pattern.
Within the next two quarters, competitive win rate improved measurably. We also achieved first-time inclusion in two major analyst reports (Gartner MQ and IDC MarketScape) because the category repositioning was based on how the market actually evaluated solutions, not how we thought it should.
The pipeline velocity increased, but more importantly, the conversation shift happened. Sales stopped defending feature lists and started positioning on buyer outcomes.
Measuring if your competitive positioning actually works
I track three metrics to know if competitive positioning is landing:
- First, win rate against specific competitors. If I’ve repositioned against competitor X, I should see win rate against them increase within two quarters. If it doesn’t, either the positioning isn’t resonating or it’s not accurate.
- Second, battle card adoption. Are sales teams actually using the resources? I use analytics on our enablement platform and qualitative feedback from sales managers. Anything below 70% adoption tells me the battle cards either aren’t credible or aren’t structured for how sales actually sells.
- Third, competitive win attribution. In my pipeline reports, I track which deals called out competitive positioning as a deciding factor. If my strongest competitors aren’t getting mentioned in win summaries after I’ve built positioning against them, the positioning might be missing the mark.
I set a baseline before implementing any competitive positioning work, then check these metrics monthly.
The mistake that kills competitive positioning
The biggest mistake I see is building competitive positioning in isolation from sales. PMM teams create gorgeous messaging frameworks, but sales never adopted them because they didn’t solve the objection the buyer was actually raising.
The second biggest mistake is positioning on features instead of outcomes. Competitors can match features. They can’t as easily match the proof that you’ve delivered specific outcomes for buyers like them.
Avoid these two traps and your competitive positioning will immediately become a revenue tool instead of just marketing collateral.
FAQ
What if we don’t have a dedicated win-loss analysis process?
Start with interviews. Schedule 10-15 calls with sales reps and recently closed deals (both wins and losses). Ask simple questions: Why did we win this deal? What was the main competitive objection? What made us credible against the alternative they were considering? You’ll get enough data to build initial battle cards. Then formalize the process as you scale. I’ve never worked at a company that regretted starting win-loss analysis early.
How often should we update competitive positioning?
At minimum, quarterly. I review competitive positioning every 90 days based on win-loss data, new competitor moves, and market changes. If a competitor launches a major feature or changes their positioning, that’s an immediate trigger for a positioning refresh. In fast-moving categories, I’ve updated monthly. The key is tying updates to actual data, instead of feeling like something’s shifted.
How do we handle positioning when we’re smaller than the market leader?
Don’t position on scale or market presence. Instead, position on what you do differently because you’re smaller: faster iteration, deeper specialization, fresher perspective on the category. I’ve positioned against larger competitors by highlighting that we were built for a specific buyer problem that the market leader has to compromise on because they serve a broader audience. This works because it’s true and because it maps to how smaller companies actually win deals.
Questions about building your competitive positioning? Let’s connect, there’s always ways to collaborate.
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Meta Description: Learn how to build competitive positioning that actually wins B2B SaaS deals. Framework, battle cards, and case studies from a PMM lead who uses this approach at every company.
Primary Keywords: competitive positioning, competitive analysis B2B SaaS, battle cards, competitive strategy, sales battle cards
Secondary Keywords: competitive intelligence, positioning framework, competitive messaging, competitive differentiation, win loss analysis, competitive win rate, positioning strategy
