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You Lost the Deal.
Your Buyers Know ‘Why’.

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Compete Week 2024: Day One Recap
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Compete Week 2024: Day One Recap

When the compete community connects, it’s typically across Zoom calls, Slack channels, and LinkedIn DMs.

That’s why it was WILD to see 120+ product marketers and compete pros all under one roof in Vancouver, trading insights and swapping stories face-to-face. 

What made it even better? Another 1,500 joined us online, creating a hybrid experience that exceeded every expectation we had for bringing the community together. 

Now, if you’re reading this, you might be worried you missed out on some Day One content.

Don’t stress. We captured notes on every talk.

(shouts out Mara Konrad, our resident note-taking wizard.)

Let’s dive in.

The Competitive Blindspot That’s Costing You Millions

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Jason kicked off the day with a hard truth: you don’t know the real reasons you lose deals – only your buyers do. And this disconnect? It could be quietly draining millions from your bottom line.

This reality check set the stage for a surprise product announcement – Klue 360° Win-Loss, which you can learn more about here.

Jason also dove into predictions about the future of competitive enablement, discussing how AI-powered platforms like Klue will soon be able to transform raw competitive data into hyper-personalized insights and custom assets. 

🌶️ Pipin Hot Takeaways:

  1. The gap between seller perception and buyer reality is costing companies millions
  2. Klue 360 Win-Loss marks a major step forward in bringing objective buyer feedback into compete programs
  3. AI will transform competitive enablement, but only if it’s built on diverse and high-quality compete data

🎤 Mic Drop Moments:

  • On the Buyer-Seller Gap: “Companies doing win-loss see an 18% increase in win rate. That’s cold, hard truth.”
  • On Data Quality: “Any AI that’s used, it’s all about the data that you feed it. It’s like an Olympic athlete, you have to feed it good food, not junk food.”
  • On The Future: “Sellers don’t wake up thinking about competitors. They wake up thinking about closing deals. That’s why we need to deliver competitive insights in their language, in their workflow.”

How Market Leaders Combine Win-Loss and Competitive Enablement

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In this candid conversation hosted by Jason Smith, these two compete leaders broke down how they’ve turned win-loss data into rocket fuel for their compete programs. Dylan shared how his team serves hundreds of sellers while still making win-loss insights valuable to product and strategic leaders. Meanwhile, Claire revealed how SurveyMonkey’s product teams have become some of her biggest win-loss champions.

🌶️ Pipin’ Hot Takeaways:

  1. Your reputation as a compete pro is built on transparency – trust comes from sharing unvarnished truths
  2. Win-loss isn’t just for sales; it shapes decisions across the entire organization
  3. Know your audience: insights that work in the boardroom need different packaging in your sales channels

🎤 Mic Drop Moments: 

  • On Integration: “With win-loss, you’re able to not just support the sellers on their individual deals, but now you’re providing something of value to product leadership, customer success leadership, strategic leaders, marketing…” – Dylan 
  • On Product Impact: “Our product team is really bought in… it’s really difficult to ask a customer what they don’t like about a product they haven’t bought yet. Win-loss gives us that insight.” – Claire 
  • On Delivering Win-Loss Insights: “I bundle it so there’s not a lot of noise. That way I can really have the biggest impact… it’s about meeting folks where they’re at in the channels that they live in.” – Claire 

From Data to Decisions: Bringing Competitive, Market, and Buyer Insights to the Executive Table

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Great competitive intelligence is worthless if it dies in a slide deck. That was the theme of Clara Smyth and Dustin Ray’s session on turning compete insights into executive action. Through a mix of hard-earned lessons and practical frameworks, they broke down how to get executive buy-in for competitive intelligence. The key? Start with quality data, and be honest about what you know and don’t know.

🌶️ Pipin’ Hot Takeaways:

  1. As compete pros, we live in the data trenches daily. The real skill? Cutting through the noise to find signal. 
  2. CI reports without action are just pretty PDFs – lead with prescriptive insights that align with objectives
  3. Be your executive team’s early warning system. Show them what they don’t know with courage and humility

🎤 Mic Drop Moments: 

  • On Impact: “Is an insights report that isn’t actioned on worth making? – Clara 
  • On Visibility: “Nobody really understands what we do outside of CI and product marketing. So if we don’t say it, who will? You have to be your best champion and your best critic.” –Dustin 

From Zero to Hero: Launching Your Win-Loss Initiative with ReadyGo

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Ryan Sorely introduced ReadyGo, a new 17-question assessment model designed to help teams launch successful win-loss programs. Jose Gonzalez then shared his experience as an early adopter, showing how the framework helped SentinelOne build a program from scratch and prepare for launch.

🌶️ Hot Takeaways:

  1. Program readiness is crucial. Program owners often lack clear guidance, programs aren’t one-size-fits-all (but we try to treat them that way), and diagnosing issues is challenging. The key? Start with an honest assessment of where you stand.
  2. Win-loss program owners fall into four archetypes: Rising Stars (eager newcomers), Changemakers (research geeks), Easy Buttoners (hands-off managers), and Sales Enablers (sales-focused drivers).
  3. The best programs start with seller buy-in, so you can train them to position win-loss interviews during deals

🎤 Mic Drop Moments: 

  • On Getting Started: “It’s like your first kiss, right? You go in there, you’re not quite sure what you’re doing, but you just hope for the best.” – Ryan
  • On Getting Seller Buy-In: “For some reason, sellers tend to think that if I bring up a win-loss interview, it’s an indication that they’re going to lose the deal. But it’s not.” – Jose Gonzalez

Transforming Your Competitive Data Into Deal-Winning Insights

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Getting into the nitty-gritty details of competitive enablement, this power panel shared their playbooks for driving wins with competitive intel. From structuring battle cards and building sales plays to implementing tools like Highspot and Slack channels, this panel dug deep into the tactical how-tos of getting competitive intel into the hands of sellers.

🌶️ Pipin’ Hot Takeaways:

  1. Start with what moves deals – focus only on insights that drive action, and use win-loss data as your foundation
  2. Master the 10/90 rule for your competitive content. For example, the best battle cards lead with quick-hit insights (10%) while keeping the deeper talk tracks (90%) easily accessible for those interested.  
  3. Insight distribution deserves its own strategy – plan how you’ll get insights into workflows before you build them

🎤 Mic Drop Moments: 

  • On Focus: “Focus only on the insights that are connected to something that can have an action. If you’re getting a lot of information – focus on win/loss. It should be the anchor to the rest.” – Caroline 
  • On Strategy: “Start with your key objections, make those front and center – take your key differentiators and position yourself against those objections.” – Sarah 

Differentiate your Tech with Buyer-Centric Messaging 

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After a decade of helping B2B tech companies differentiate, Emma shared why traditional differentiation is getting harder (saturated markets, copycats, minimal technical differences) and offered a fresh perspective for standing out: stop obsessing over being different, and start obsessing over getting closer to your buyer.

🌶️ Hot Takeaways:

  1. True technical differentiation is increasingly difficult to achieve, but buyer-centric messaging that shows deep customer understanding can be a powerful differentiator
  2. Translate features by contrasting “life before” and “life after” your product—instead of saying “actionable forecasting,” try “track weekly forecast changes without manual calculations”
  3. Stop sanitizing your message. B2B buyers are humans who worry, stress, and want life to be easier—reflecting this reality builds trust and drives action

🎤 Mic Drop Moments: 

  • On Tech Messaging: “Messaging’s job is to cross that divide. It’s about helping someone see how your product might fit in their life and make it a bit better.” – Emma
  • On Being Real: “Why are we afraid of touching emotion in B2B messaging? I’ve interviewed over a thousand buyers—none of them talk like robots, yet we insist on writing like this.” – Emma
  • On Jargon: “Jargon and buzzwords are like refined sugar in our industry. It’s secretly added to everything, even if you think it’s not there. Look again—it’s there.” – Emma

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