Colay / Guides
Check a competitor claim before a salesperson repeats it
A battlecard needs a statement a salesperson can defend when a buyer asks where it came from. Several models repeating the same competitor claim is not that evidence. In Colay, use different responses to expose missing conditions and alternative interpretations, then verify the underlying source yourself. Publish the checked wording together with its scope and review date.
Reduce the claim to one testable sentence
Start with the exact sentence proposed for the card. “The competitor cannot export data” bundles a product claim, a plan assumption and a definition of export. Split it into questions: which product, which plan, which format, which date, and what does the documentation actually say? An undefined claim cannot become reliable merely by attracting more agreement.
NIST’s Generative AI Profile identifies confabulation as a risk. That is a reason to inspect generated claims, not a reason to count model votes as evidence. A response can sound specific while relying on an outdated plan or inventing a plausible feature limitation.
Make each response perform a different evidence task
Provide permitted excerpts from the competitor’s official documentation, pricing page or release note, with URLs and dates. Ask separately for literal extraction, missing qualifiers, a counterexample and sales-safe wording. These are assigned review lenses, not guarantees of independent reasoning. Open every cited source yourself; do not treat a model-generated URL as a verified reference.
If a source is silent, write “not established from this source.” Silence is different from proof that a feature does not exist. If the question matters to a deal, the next step may be a documented product test or an authorized clarification, not a more confident rewrite.
Review this single competitor claim for a sales battlecard: [claim]. Supplied official excerpts, URLs and access dates: [sources]. Produce four parts: the exact supported statement; conditions involving product, plan, region or date; a plausible counterexample the supplied evidence does not rule out; and cautious wording for a salesperson. Quote only the relevant supplied fragment. Separate supported, contradicted and unresolved points. Do not fill missing facts from memory or treat agreement with another model as verification.
Keep a fact ledger beside the battlecard
Consider invented exercise inputs: an official-looking sample document lists CSV export on an Enterprise plan, but says nothing about API export on other plans. The sample is fictional and does not describe a real vendor. The proposed claim “No export on standard plans” is broader than the evidence.
| Field | Entry | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Supported wording | The supplied document lists CSV export for Enterprise | Keep the plan and format in the sentence |
| Unresolved | Export options on other plans | Do not describe them as unavailable |
| Evidence record | Document URL, excerpt, access date and reviewer | Let the salesperson inspect the basis |
| Expiry trigger | Plan or export documentation changes | Recheck before reusing the claim |
Write the answer to the buyer’s follow-up question
A useful battlecard entry contains the checked sentence, a source link and a neutral discovery question. For the fictional example: “Their supplied documentation lists CSV export on Enterprise. Which export format and plan are you evaluating?” That gives the salesperson a bounded statement and a way to understand the buyer’s actual requirement.
Avoid converting the entry into a universal criticism. The buyer may have a custom contract, another product version or a feature that was released after your check. A card should help the conversation remain accurate when new information appears, rather than encourage the salesperson to defend a stale comparison.
Give every published fact an owner
Colay helps collect and challenge candidate interpretations in one workspace. The deliverable remains your own maintained fact ledger. You do not need eight responses for every low-value detail: focus the comparison on claims that could change a buyer’s decision or embarrass the team if repeated without their conditions.
- Have a named person inspect the original source and approve the exact wording.
- Record the source date separately from the date you accessed it.
- Keep unresolved claims out of the approved fact block; list them as research questions.
- Recheck affected entries when a vendor changes pricing, documentation or product scope.
Questions, answered
If eight models agree, can I mark the fact verified?
No. Agreement does not establish the source, date or scope. Mark a claim verified only through your documented evidence and human review process.
Is a competitor’s marketing page enough?
It may support what the vendor publicly states, but not every inference about availability or performance. Match the source to the exact claim and check more specific documentation when needed.
What should the card say when evidence conflicts?
Keep the point unresolved, record both sources and their dates, and give the salesperson a question to clarify the buyer’s context instead of a categorical claim.
Sources and methodology
- NIST AI 600-1
Primary risk framework identifying confabulation; the battlecard ledger is an editorial workflow proposed here, not a NIST certification.
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