Find companies unhappy with a competitor

Read competitors’ bad reviews and public complaints, keep only the problems you really fix, and write about that problem, not the competitor.

By Angelo Natale1 hourEvery month

What it does

A company that’s unhappy with its current tool has already decided the problem is worth paying to fix. What it needs is a reason to believe switching is worth the pain. Their complaints are often public: review sites, Reddit threads, LinkedIn posts, and job posts that ask for experience moving off a tool. Read them, and you know exactly what to say.

What you need

  • Your main competitors
  • Review sites like G2, plus Reddit, LinkedIn and X
  • An honest answer to: which of their complaints do we actually fix?

How it works

  1. Read the bad reviews

    One to three stars, newest first. Many reviews hide the company name, so you’re reading for patterns first.

    Prompt for Claude or ChatGPT, with the reviews pasted in
    Here are [NUMBER] recent negative reviews of [COMPETITOR]:
[PASTE THE REVIEWS]

Group the complaints into themes. For each theme: how many reviews mention it, two short quotes, and the company sizes and industries of the reviewers where shown.

Then mark which themes [YOUR PRODUCT] fixes, based on this description: [ONE PARAGRAPH ON WHAT YOU DO]. Be strict: if it's only partly fixed, say partly.

  2. Search for complaints made in public

    On Reddit, LinkedIn and X: “alternative to [COMPETITOR]”, “switching from [COMPETITOR]”, “[COMPETITOR] support”. Add job posts that mention moving off a tool. These come with a name and a company.

  3. Keep only the problems you fix

    If they hate the price and you cost more, move on. Write only where you fix the exact thing they complained about.

  4. Write about the problem, not the competitor

    Email or LinkedIn message
    Subject: [THE PROBLEM, IN 2 TO 4 WORDS]

[FIRST NAME] - saw your post about [THE PROBLEM, IN THEIR WORDS].

We [HOW YOU FIX THAT EXACT PROBLEM, IN ONE LINE].

Worth comparing notes?

[YOUR NAME]

  5. Track the themes every month

    A theme that keeps growing is worth a page of its own: see write an honest comparison page.

What good looks like

A monthly read of what your competitors’ customers complain about, and a few well-aimed notes to companies with a problem you really fix.

An example, not a client story. A scheduling company reads 40 recent negative reviews of a bigger rival. Fourteen say that changing one route means rebuilding the whole day by hand. That’s exactly what its product does on its own, so “rebuilding the day by hand” becomes the subject line of its notes to carriers who complain about it in public.

Mistakes to skip

  • Bad-mouthing the competitor. Talk about the problem, and let them make the connection.
  • Writing to everyone who complained, including about things you don’t fix.
  • Quoting someone’s review back to them. Only mention what they posted under their own name.

More playbooks

All 64 playbooks →

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