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Prep for a Competitive Deal coaching session

Updated June 2026

You'll learn how to: Pull together what you know about a competitor in a live deal. Build your positioning, spot your advantage, and prepare battle-card responses.

Time: 25 minutes per session, end-to-end.

Prereqs: You have an active opportunity where a competitor is also bidding. Coaching enabled on your plan.

When to use

  • The day a prospect tells you another vendor is in the deal. Use this to build your strategy fast.
  • Before you counter-bid or sharpen your proposal against a known competitor.
  • When you want to understand your differentiation. The coach forces you to articulate it.
  • After losing to a competitor. Use it to understand what they did and how to beat them next time.

The session takes 25 minutes and produces positioning strategy and battle-card thinking.

Steps

  1. At the bottom-left of the sidebar, toggle to Strategy mode.
  2. Click Coaching.
  3. The Coaching hub shows canvases grouped by category.
  4. Click Competitive Situation Room (under Deals & Proposals).
  1. A setup screen appears. You're prompted to:
    • Pick the opportunity where the competitive deal is happening.
    • Name the competitor(s) you're up against (if known).
  2. Click Start.
  3. The coach opens with a brief: what this session is for and what data it sees.
  4. The structured session begins. Typical flow:
    • The AI summarises the deal: buyer, use case, your relationship, the competitive landscape you operate in.
    • It surfaces what it knows about the competitor (if any): their typical positioning, strengths, weaknesses based on market data.
    • It asks you 2-3 focused questions: what's your edge against this competitor, where do they win, where do you win, what matters most to this buyer.
    • It generates a battle card: your positioning vs the competitor, three to five sharp differentiators, three likely objections they'll raise and how to counter them, and a strategy for the next conversation.
  5. Save or export the battle card. Suggested actions:
    • Share it with your team before the next meeting.
    • Use it to brief a colleague who'll join the deal.
    • Pin it to the deal canvas so the team stays aligned.

What's in a typical battle card

  • Competitor profile. Their positioning, strengths, typical pricing and terms.
  • Your differentiation vs them. Three to five concrete ways you're different or better.
  • Buyer fit analysis. Where your solution fits this buyer better than theirs.
  • Three likely objections they'll raise. Each with a sharp counter-argument or pivot.
  • Your conversation strategy. What to emphasise, what to let them talk about, when to ask questions.
  • Your edge. The one thing that matters most to this buyer where you win.

After the session

Use the battle card in your next call or meeting. Update the deal with any new information you learn about the competitor so the next session (another Competitive Situation Room or Proposal Teardown) has the latest intel.

If something goes wrong

  • Symptom: "Competitive Situation Room canvas isn't in the Coaching hub." → Fix: Your plan doesn't include Coaching. Check avatar > Settings > Account.
  • Symptom: "Setup screen can't find the opportunity." → Fix: You haven't added the deal to your pipeline. Create or update the opportunity first via Opportunities, then retry.
  • Symptom: "The coach says it doesn't know the competitor." → Fix: That's fine. Paste or describe what you know about them in the chat: their price, their feature set, their positioning. The coach will work with what you provide.
  • Symptom: "The battle card feels thin or generic." → Fix: Two likely causes:
    • Your opportunity notes lack detail about the buyer's use case or priorities. Add more context, then re-run.
    • Your authority claim in Strategy mode is thin. Update your Manifesto with your top service and how you're different, then re-run.
  • Symptom: "Session ended without a full battle card." → Fix: The coach needs you to answer its discovery questions. If you skipped them, restart and engage.
  • Symptom: "I want to re-run against a different competitor." → Fix: Open the Competitive Situation Room again with the same opportunity. You'll be asked to "Resume" or "Start fresh". Pick "Start fresh" to scope a different competitor.

Related

AI coaching canvases | Run a Meeting Prep coaching session | Run a Proposal Teardown coaching session | Run a Win/Loss Review coaching session.