This post offers an overview of sales battle cards and explains how effective use of them may benefit sales teams. It discusses what they are, their significance, how to make them, and the various kinds of combat cards that are out there.
What Are Battle Cards?
These are reference materials made to improve salespeople’s performance. Consider them to be cheat sheets. Important details about your business, like competitors, product attributes, and clientele, are included in the visual aids. A battle card provides sales personnel with vital information that enables them to close deals on goods and services.
The sales crew is always prepared to respond to inquiries and adequately resolve problems because of these cheat sheets. Salespeople gain confidence when they use battle cards correctly and skillfully. The equipment encourages readiness.
When a customer confronts a salesperson, they don’t have to make assumptions. Sales professionals know what to say to connect with buyers and close deals by using the information on the cards.
Battle cards offer your staff a competitive advantage that makes handling opposition easier. As you will see later in this tutorial, the tools are not limited to selling against specific competitors; in fact, they can be used to achieve a wide range of other objectives.
Why Should Your Sales Team Use Battle Cards?
Sales battle cards appear to be essential for your company, and for good reason. Regardless of skill level, these technologies simplify the work for salespeople. Battle cards can have a significant impact on how your team members handle their responsibilities, regardless of whether they are seasoned pros or new hires searching for development chances.
Provide Competitive Advantage
It is common to find a competitor category in a sales battlecard template, which includes information on a certain competitor. When sales professionals are out there attempting to get clients, they have to compete with other businesses that provide comparable services. When making a pitch to possible customers, your team will have an advantage thanks to vital information about these rivals.
Professionals, however, do not always have the time to keep up with the activities of multiple opponents. Your salesmen will be able to respond to inquiries about competing goods and services with a well-designed battle card that outlines the advantages and disadvantages of the competition.
Boost Efficiency
Sales representatives find that using battle cards during contacts makes their work easier. All they have to do is consult the guide to determine how to answer inquiries from clients or prospects. By providing essential information to salespeople during customer interactions, it saves time. A salesman does not have to waste time looking up the right information if a potential buyer has specific questions about a product.
Make Better Pitches
Sales staff need to make their pitches convincing enough to get potential clients to part with their money. Battle cards allow for this. Salespeople can convince customers with the information at their disposal. By making sure your staff is well-prepared before meeting with clients, you offer them a competitive advantage over rivals.
Because sales battle cards may be personalized, you can give the team information about various buyer profiles, enabling them to contact each prospect as needed.
Improve Customer Engagement
Sales representatives’ success is influenced by their interactions with clients. Consumers of today seek out meaningful dialogues rather than merely promotional messaging. If sales staff know what clients need, they can deliver it to them.
A combat card, for instance, can include information about the product being used and the difficulties it is now facing. With the use of this information, a salesman can engage a consumer in meaningful conversation and obtain important feedback that will enable your brand to undergo the necessary modifications.
Reduce Training Time
Using sales battle cards during the onboarding process is another approach to maximize their value. The resources are ideal for providing fresh recruits with an understanding of the work of the current team. Take a look at a battle card template that allows you to fill in the blanks to see how your salesmen operate.
When new hires possess this, they are aware of the strategies employed to interact with clients and other businesses. Onboarding new professionals is faster with the roadmap in place than it would be with a blank canvas.
Your sales team’s performance is integral to the bottom line
Effective salespeople contribute to increased revenue. But given the competition your company faces, it’s not always easy to attain this success. To stay ahead of competitors, your sales staff need to multitask.
Among the duties of the sales team are responding to inquiries from customers, keeping abreast of features offered by rival companies, and making sales presentations to potential customers. Effective sales tools are crucial for achieving success. They assist your representatives by serving as mentors as they perform different duties.
When your salesmen use battle cards correctly, they can differentiate themselves from the competition. If you’re thinking about using battle cards in your sales plan for the first time, familiarize yourself with the basics of how the tools operate. Sales battle cards, like any other tool in your business management armory, are only useful if you know how to use it.
How to Create the Perfect Sales Battle Card Template?
You are aware of the potential impact that sales battle cards might have on your company. But how does one make one? With so many different battle card templates available, it’s important to know what works and what doesn’t when choosing the best one for your company. Regardless of the industry you are in, one way to offer your salesmen a competitive edge is with the Gong fight card template.
You have to be careful to select a fill-in-the-blank battle card template that provides the relevant talking points and company information. Keep in mind that the data offered ought to be beneficial. When designing or modifying a battle card template for your squad, keep the following things in mind.
Define Your Needs
Every sales team is unique. various specialists within the same organization will approach clients and rivals in various ways. Thus, knowing the unique requirements of a certain sales team helps you choose what should be included in the templates.
Speak with your staff to find out about the difficulties they face on the job. By using templates, you may save the headache of creating a sales battle card from start.
Set Goals
Why are your sales representatives receiving combat cards? Is your goal to boost sales? Boost interaction with customers? Shorten the duration of trainee onboarding? Your goal-setting process will be guided by the concerns raised by your sales representatives.
For instance, the objective of your most recent combat card can be to increase new product sales by 10%. The tool’s objectives indicate whether it is operating as it should.
Choose Categories
The way you segment a combat card depends on the information you plan to have on it. These subjects ought to cover, among other things, the problems that customers have, the advantages of the product, and competitive information. Depending on the use case, categories may differ between cards.
Update Content Regularly
Only current information is useful when it comes to sales combat cards. Your goods or services evolve with time. Likewise, your competitors. In order to guarantee that everyone on the team is using the most recent version of the cards, you must update the battle cards frequently.
Clear and succinct sales battle cards are effective. They provide simple-to-follow details even in cases where they are detailed. The guidelines should be straightforward because your team will need to access the cards frequently, if only momentarily. Battle cards can be more engaging with images. They shouldn’t, however, be so obtrusive as to negate the main purpose of the instrument.
Which Battle Cards Does Your Team Require?
Battle cards vary, even though there are a few commonalities. They are reliant on necessity. As a result, a competitor’s battle card template differs from a product’s. You need to be prepared to make the necessary tool investments if you want to fully utilize the potential of sales combat cards. The primary sales team combat cards listed below are ones you may want to purchase for your company.
Competitor Battle Cards
It should come as no surprise that the competitor fight card is the most popular since every brand aspires to outperform its competitors. It may include information about one or more rivals. This cheat sheet contains information about products, prices, and client profiles, among other things.
The idea is to give salespeople vital competitor information so they can utilize it to persuade clients that your product is superior. To make a battle card that works, you need to investigate and analyze your competitors.
Product Battle Cards
When sales representatives are knowledgeable, they perform well. Your salesmen are likely to fail if they are unable to provide basic information about your product or service. Product battle cards include information about the characteristics, cost, and advantages of a specific product.
A card may include one or more products. The problem that the solution solves will also be explained in detail on a battle card. Why should a buyer purchase that product? Use cases support the main idea. Inform customers of the ways in which your product outlives the competition.
Service Cancellation Battle Cards
If you provide subscription services, then you must invest in these tools. You should know why a customer decided to do away with your offerings. A service cancellation battle card can get feedback on a customer’s experience.
Find the pain points in your service and the solutions customers recommend. Salespeople can use the information they have to convince subscribers to renew their contracts, or at least, not cancel.
Objection-Handling Battle Cards
If you provide subscription services, then you must invest in these tools. You should know why a customer decided to do away with your offerings. A service cancellation battle card can get feedback on a customer’s experience.
Find the pain points in your service and the solutions customers recommend. Salespeople can use the information they have to convince subscribers to renew their contracts, or at least, not cancel.