Enabling Veteran Sellers with Competitive Intelligence | Gong & Chorus Hacks

If compete is in your job description, you probably spend at least some of your time onboarding new reps. 

It’s one of the most crucial areas of the business you can lend your enablement skills to.

In fact, CoachHub’s Global Head of Sales Enablement Anthony Fritsch credits sales onboarding as a key factor in building an org-wide culture of compete.

But a shaky economy likely means you don’t have as many sellers to onboard today as you did last year. 

It also means those big enterprise and strategic deals your veteran reps are trying to close are more important than ever. 

So how do you enable THOSE Reps with the competitive intel they need? 

We asked ClickUp’s Andy McCotter-Bicknell and Klue’s Qayam Noorani that very question (and a few others) on this week’s episode of the Competitive Enablement Show. 

And I am very pleased to be bringing you three big takeaways from that conversation in today’s edition of Coffee & Compete. 

Ben 🌺

☝️ Prioritize one-to-one connections and individualized deal support ☝️

Start with high-level talk tracks and work your way towards more granular enablement.

It’s the natural progression for sellers and compete pros alike.

You can expedite the progression by getting in the habit of spending 1:1 time with your sellers — especially the veterans.

As Andy puts it, “My approach has been to do the one-to-one work, to make sure that sellers understand the value of the work and the assets that the program is building out. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”

On the seller side, knowing their compete pro can be tagged in for competitive deal support is a boon to confidence.

Here’s a look at what deal support looks like for Qayam when he needs an assist from Klue’s Competitive Enablement Manager:

1) The first demo involves leveraging the high-level talk tracks laid out by the compete team. If that demo succeeds, a second one gets scheduled. 

2) Brandon gets looped in for the second demo, which inevitably included more granular questions from the prospect.

3) Seller sends a calendar invite to Brandon that includes:

• Prospect name and company
• The problems they’ve already shared
• Competitors they’re looking at
• What they like and don’t like about all available solutions

“That way Brandon can walk into the conversation and not ask repetitive questions shows that he understands the buyer, and can be very prescriptive about the differentiators that are going to be most valuable,” says Qayam. 

Over at ClickUp, Andy’s deal support gets requested through a Salesforce form.

He makes all the important and necessary details (such as the ones above) required fields.

And can then provide the kind of one-to-one support that veteran sellers crave.

🤝  Build a reputation with veterans sellers through your competitive intel digest 🤝

“It’s something our sellers have come to expect every Thursday. It’s something I personally get a lot of value from.”

The number one tip in our 7 Tips for Your Competitive Intelligence Newsletter blog is to set a regular cadence and stick to it.

That’s part of the reason why sellers at Klue love the competitive intel digest.

Every Thursday morning, they know to expect some of the most critical pieces of intel from the week that was.

Naturally, the content matters more than the cadence. And for veteran sellers, the intel digest helps them understand what truly is the most valuable intel of the week.

As Qayam puts it:

“As a more experienced seller, it’s not often I’m looking at a battlecard before every call. But if you tell me there’s something new on the battlecard in the newsletter, I’ll go back and look at it,”

Calling out a battlecard or other recently updated collateral helps drive engagement with, and adoption of, that piece of content.

Veteran sellers already know the basic talk tracks and differentiators.

So use your competitive intelligence newsletter to grab their attention.

🍞 Breadcrumb information between battlecards to let your veteran sellers dig deeper 🍞

One doc to rule them all.

“It’s like a one-stop shop of everything that you might need for a competitive play.”

Andy and Klue believe in the power of breadcrumbing intel via battlecards or other documents.

Breadcrumbing is the concept of including one piece of intel that links to another and another, getting progressively deeper and more detailed along the way.

“On the top level, you have top three differentiators. But then as you dive deeper into the asset, you get into some of the more technical details about what we have versus what the competitor doesn’t have and why it’s important,” said Andy, describing his master ClickUp Doc. 

Letting sales reps choose their own adventure allows them to dig as deep or as shallow as they wish.

For initial demo calls and prospecting, high-level differentiators might be enough.

But when it’s time to get in the weeds, reps can get the specific details they need to influence the deal.

An asset like this does require an initial time investment up front.

But Andy says he’s seen a ton of usage from enterprise and strategic reps who need help at the bottom of the funnel.

If your goal is to enable veteran sellers, competitive collateral like this might be exactly what you need.

🎉 Compete Week 2022 Full Lineup 🎉

Internally, we’re unofficially calling Compete Week 2022 Kluechella.

This poster really drives the point home. 

You won’t want to miss out on this epic event. So 👇

Head to the Compete Week registration page to save your spot today.

👬 Coffee & Compete Community Corner 👭

He’s not just a great podcast guest, podcast host, and one of the best compete pros you’ll ever meet, his LinkedIn posts are 🔥 as well. 

If you aren’t following Andy on LinkedIn, there’s no time like the present.

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