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Acuity Insights’ Tara Scott and CureMint’s Eric Holland joined guest host Brandon Bedford for this month’s edition of the Competitive Enablement Show LIVE on how to use competitive intelligence and enablement to tip winnable deals in your favour.

Get out of the weeds of features and function; focus on problem solving instead

Going from a high competitive win rate to battling tooth-and-nail for each deal is a market reality many companies face today.

Those tooth-and-nail deals, unfortunately, almost always devolve into a feature-function standoff. But the way you tip winnable deals is by focusing on the prospect’s desired outcomes and problem they’re solving.

“We know we do something different and there’s a specific problem that we solve. So let’s not get into a feature-function boxing match with whoever the competitor is.”

Through discovery questions that revealed which competitors were in the deal, Eric and his team were able to cut right through the empty talk about features and functions. That’s because they were able to uncover the actual problem the prospect was trying to solve.

Coupled with their team’s unique selling proposition and excellent differentiation, they gave that prospect a straight path to success and tipped that deal in their favour.

Customer testimonials can be a silver bullet for tipping deals

No two clients or prospects are exactly alike. But you can be sure that there are common pain points they’re looking to solve.

A well-timed testimonial from a customer who’s experienced and overcome the same point of friction as your prospect can make a big difference. Especially if that customer shares why they chose you over the competition.

But beyond winning new business, customer testimonials can be a tool to retain existing business as well.

“I think testimonials are something we often forget on the customer success side. Use those success stories from existing customers experiencing a similar point of friction, and show them how it can be solved.”

As deals become more competitive and limiting customer churn more important, it’s crucial that businesses think about more than just tipping net new deals in their favour.

Today you have to think about how to defend existing revenue and expand within existing accounts. Customer testimonials are a powerful way to tip those deals in your favour as well.

Watch and learn how ClickUp’s Andy McCotter-Bicknell enables veteran sellers with competitive intel

Get involved in the deals that matter most and leave the ones that don’t

Direct deal support is one of the most impactful ways you can tip winnable deals. We’re not talking about referring your reps to a battlecard — we’re talking about being on the calls and enabling your reps.

But you can’t be everywhere at once and your calendar can only handle so many back-to-back calls. So how do you choose which deals to support?

“It’s worth building a rubric to figure out what big deals you should get pulled into. Work with sales leadership and determine the triggers, the right times to be pulled in”

Both Tara and Eric recommend putting guardrails in place to ensure you’re in the right deals. Consider the impact of winning that deal (deal size, logo) but also try to assess how winnable that deal is.

If it’s a huge deal with a sexy logo, but the chances of winning as slim, odds are that’s not a deal you’d want to support.

But if it’s a neck-and-neck deal that needs just a little bit of support to push it over the edge, then you’re the exact right person for the job.