Intel without judgment is just noise

Build the CI system
your market demands.
Then let AI run it.

Your buyers walk into every deal with a story already in their head. Your competitors are busy shaping it. A stale battlecard doesn't fix that. Flank builds the CI system — and then brings the judgment to know what the output actually means, what to act on, and what to ignore.

Book a Free Strategy Call → See how the system works ↓
4–6wks
To a live CI system
B2B
SaaS-focused
∞
Self-improving loop
Monitor Competitor Moves Arm Your Reps with Live Intel Enable Deal-Stage Confidence Win More Competitive Deals AI Agent Workflows Continuous Feedback Loop Built for B2B SaaS GTM Teams Monitor Competitor Moves Arm Your Reps with Live Intel Enable Deal-Stage Confidence Win More Competitive Deals AI Agent Workflows Continuous Feedback Loop Built for B2B SaaS GTM Teams

The Burning Platform

CI changed more in the last 12 months than the last 12 years.

AI didn't just make CI faster. It made a continuously running intelligence operation possible for the first time without a five-person team. The problem is most companies are treating it like a better Google Alert.

The companies that build this system in 2026 will have a structural advantage that compounds. But only if someone is applying judgment to what the system surfaces. AI flags everything. Knowing what matters — and what's noise — is still human work.

The Old Reality
CI was a quarterly project. A PMM spent weeks building a battlecard that was stale by the time it hit the field. Reps relied on tribal knowledge and Slack threads.
What's Changed
AI agents can now monitor your entire competitive landscape continuously, synthesize buyer and seller signals, and push updated intelligence directly into your reps' hands — automatically.
The New Gap
The bottleneck isn't collecting intelligence anymore. It's designing the system, building the workflows, and activating your team around it. That's the work most companies haven't started.
What Flank Does
We build the system, run the workflows, and then apply the judgment that AI can't. Every output gets reviewed, challenged, and refined before it reaches your team. We're the discernment layer — not just the build layer.

The Flank Loop

World-class compete is a feedback loop.
Not a deliverable.

Intel flows in. Assets flow out. Wins and losses feed it back. And at every stage, we apply the judgment to separate what matters from what's noise — so your team only acts on intelligence, not data.

01 — Monitor
INPUT LAYER
  • Market Intelligence
  • Competitor Scan + Threshold Alerts
  • GTM Leadership Intel Brief
  • Quarterly T1–T2 Kit Refresh
  • Buyer + Seller Signal Capture
  • AE Confidence Surveys
02 — Arm
OUTPUT 01
  • Two-Layer Content Model
  • Quick Hits (AE-facing)
  • In-Call Visuals (AE-facing)
  • Technical Deep Dives (SE-facing)
  • AI-generated, human-reviewed
03 — Enable
OUTPUT 02
  • Deal-Stage Micro Modules
  • Compete Hub (always-on)
  • Office Hours + Deal Support
  • Threshold-triggered alerts
04 — Win
OUTCOMES
  • ↑ Rep Engagement + Confidence
  • ↑ Competitive Win Rates
  • Faster Deal Cycles
  • Signal feeds back to Monitor

How AI powers the Monitor stage

  • Agent Automated competitor web crawlers monitor G2, pricing pages, changelog, job posts, and press continuously — not quarterly.
  • Agent Threshold-based alert system fires when a competitor crosses a meaningful signal (new feature launch, pricing shift, funding round).
  • Workflow GTM Leadership Intel Brief synthesized weekly from signal feed — delivered to your Slack, not buried in a doc.

What we build for you

  • Asset Configured monitoring stack covering your full competitive set with relevance scoring.
  • Asset Structured interview framework for ongoing buyer and seller signal collection.
  • Asset AE Confidence Survey template to track field sentiment and surface gaps before they cost deals.

The Two-Layer Content Model

  • AE Layer Quick Hits — 1-page, scannable briefs for the "We're also looking at X" moment. Built for 90-second reads in the car before a call.
  • AE Layer In-Call Visuals — comparison frameworks and narrative anchors reps can actually share on screen without losing the room.
  • SE Layer Technical Deep Dives — architecture, integration, and capability comparisons for deals where engineering is in the room.

AI in the content workflow

  • Agent Monitoring signals automatically trigger content refresh workflows — so your battlecards update when the market moves, not when someone remembers.
  • Workflow Every asset is AI-generated from live signal data, then human-reviewed for accuracy, tone, and strategic nuance before it hits the field.
  • System Version-controlled content library with change logs so your team always knows what changed and why.

Deal-stage intelligence delivery

  • Module Discovery-stage: what buyer narratives your competitor has likely already set, and how to reframe early.
  • Module Evaluation-stage: technical and commercial differentiation, objection handling, landmine identification.
  • Module Late-stage: competitive close plays, reference strategies, and negotiation anchors.

The Compete Hub

  • Platform A single source of truth for all competitive content — searchable, always current, integrated where your reps actually work (Salesforce, Slack, Notion).
  • Support Live office hours for deal-specific competitive questions — so reps aren't guessing on high-stakes calls.
  • Support On-demand deal analysis for competitive situations already in flight.

What better compete looks like in numbers

  • Signal AEs who use structured competitive content close competitive deals at measurably higher rates than those who rely on tribal knowledge.
  • Signal Teams with a live Compete Hub report higher confidence in competitive conversations — and confidence correlates directly with rep engagement.
  • Signal Structured win/loss analysis reveals the real reasons deals close — not the story reps tell themselves after the fact.

How wins & losses feed the loop

  • Feedback Every closed deal — win or loss — is a structured signal input. We capture what buyers believed, what shifted their confidence, and what competitive narratives were in play.
  • Feedback Those signals flow back into the Monitor stage, updating your competitive picture and triggering content refreshes automatically.
  • Outcome The system gets smarter with every deal. Your competitive position compounds over time instead of decaying.
↺ Wins & Losses feed back into Monitor — the loop never stops

What We Build

Every engagement builds
something that outlasts it.

Every deliverable is built to run, not to impress. And everything we hand over has been reviewed, challenged, and validated — not just generated.

⚙
CI System Design
We architect your full competitive intelligence infrastructure — from the monitoring stack and signal sources to the content model and delivery channels. This is the blueprint everything else is built on.
Foundation Layer
⚡
AI Agent Workflows
We build and configure the AI agent workflows that power continuous monitoring, trigger-based alerts, and automated content refresh cycles. Your system runs between your team's check-ins, not because of them.
Automation Layer
🎯
Competitive Content Suite
Quick Hits, In-Call Visuals, Technical Deep Dives. Content built on the Two-Layer Model — right format for the right role, right moment. Backed by real signal data, not feature grids.
Arm Layer
◎
Compete Hub Setup
A single source of competitive truth, integrated into the tools your team already uses. Searchable, always-current, and structured so reps find what they need in the 90 seconds before a call.
Enable Layer
◈
Win / Loss Intelligence
Not a survey. A structured interview process that uncovers the buyer beliefs, competitive narratives, and confidence shifts that actually determined the deal. Signal that feeds the loop and sharpens your positioning.
Feedback Layer
◑
Landscape Analysis
Your competitive set through the lens of how buyers actually talk about your market — the narratives shaping perception, the assumptions working against you, and the story that needs to be told differently.
Insight Layer

Who We Help

B2B SaaS teams that are
done guessing what their
buyers actually believe.

🎯
Founders
  • You're building something real but buyers don't always understand the story behind it — or your competitors are telling it for you.
  • You get asked "Why you?" and the answer you have doesn't cut through the noise in the way it needs to.
  • You know your market is moving fast but you're too close to it to see what buyers are actually hearing.
We give you a grounded view of where you stand today — and the system to stay ahead of what's coming next.
📈
GTM Leaders
  • Deals slow down when reps get blindsided by competitor questions they didn't see coming — and there's no fast answer.
  • Win/loss data is partial, filtered, and rarely tells you what actually happened in the room.
  • Competitive intel lives in Slack threads, stale docs, and the heads of two people who may leave next quarter.
We build the system that gives your team real answers in real time — before deals are already in trouble.
✦
Product Marketers
  • Sales needs sharper content but you're already stretched thin and the battlecard backlog keeps growing.
  • Your messaging risks sounding like everyone else's — you know it, and you're not sure how to fix it.
  • You want a CI program that runs itself between your check-ins, not one that depends entirely on you.
We build and hand you a CI system that keeps running — so you can focus on strategy instead of maintenance.

From the Field

What it sounds like when the system works.

Flank Consulting quickly stepped in to help with our competitive positioning. They were sharp, picked up our business and vertical nuances fast, and delivered high quality materials. They worked cross functionally and presented to our field teams within just a few weeks.

SVP of Marketing · $100M+ SaaS Company

Why Flank

We've done this work.
We know what's signal
and what's noise.

01

Built from in-house experience, not theory

We've built CI programs from scratch inside B2B SaaS companies. We know what breaks — because we've broken it. We know what reps actually use — because we've watched them ignore everything else. That's what we build from.

02

An outside view that sees what's invisible internally

Internal CI programs are often scattered, biased, and stale. We sit just outside your org — which makes it easier to say the quiet parts out loud. We tell you what buyers are actually thinking, not what's comfortable to hear.

03

We bring judgment, not just workflows

AI handles the volume — monitoring, scanning, drafting. We handle the discernment. Every output gets reviewed by senior operators who know when a competitor move is a genuine signal and when it's just noise dressed up as news. That's the part no prompt can replace.

04

Useful in weeks, not quarters

Most CI programs take 6+ months to stand up while your team is already losing deals. We get you something real in 4–6 weeks. Not a roadmap. Not a framework deck. An operating program your reps will actually use.

Work With Us

Build it. Or let us run it.
Either way, it compounds.

Two engagement models. Same outcome: a CI system that runs continuously and gets smarter over time.

Model 01

Build

We design, build, and validate your full CI system — then transfer it to your team fully operational. You get the system, the judgment behind it, and the confidence to run it.

  • ✓ Competitive landscape analysis and buyer narrative mapping
  • ✓ Full CI system design and AI agent workflow configuration
  • ✓ Two-Layer content suite (Quick Hits, In-Call Visuals, Technical Deep Dives)
  • ✓ Compete Hub setup and integration
  • ✓ Win/Loss interview framework and initial round of calls
  • ✓ Team enablement and system handoff
  • ✓ 30-day post-launch support
Best for: Teams with a PMM or CI owner ready to run the system once it's built and validated. Companies that want to own their competitive program long-term.
Start with Build →
Model 02

Run

We build the system and run it. Every week we're monitoring your market, reviewing what the AI surfaces, deciding what's worth your team's attention, and keeping the content current. Senior operators, not interns with dashboards.

  • ✓ Everything in Build
  • ✓ Continuous competitive monitoring and weekly GTM intel brief
  • ✓ Monthly content refreshes triggered by market signals
  • ✓ Ongoing win/loss interviews and signal synthesis
  • ✓ Live deal support and office hours for your team
  • ✓ Quarterly strategy review and system evolution
  • ✓ Launch support for new markets, segments, or competitors
Best for: Lean GTM teams that can't afford a full-time CI hire but can't afford to fly blind either. High-growth companies where the competitive landscape is shifting faster than the team can track.
Start with Run →

From the Field

How we think about
competitive intelligence.

Unfiltered takes on CI, GTM strategy, and what it actually takes to win competitive deals in B2B SaaS.

Strategy
CI Has a Mastery Problem. Here's What Needs to Change.
Every B2B SaaS company claims they "do CI." Yet in most organizations, no one truly owns it. It becomes a side-responsibility for PMMs, squeezed between launches and a never-ending stream of Slack pings. The markets evolved, but the playbook has not.
01 / 10
Buyer Psychology
The Overstory: What Your Buyer Believes Before You Say a Word
Most B2B SaaS companies don't lose deals due to product gaps or pricing. They lose because they don't understand what the buyer already believes. Deals aren't decided in the demo — they're decided by the overstory the buyer carries in.
02 / 10
AI + CI
Beyond Summaries: Using AI as a Competitive Simulation Engine
Most teams use AI to summarize competitors. That's helpful, but it only gets you so far. Tomorrow's advantage comes from using AI to model competitors and coach your GTM teams in real time — before they step into the deal.
03 / 10
Intelligence
The Difference Between Information and Intelligence
At a lot of companies, "competitive intelligence" is basically a Google search with nicer formatting. Research tells you what happened. CI should tell you why it happened, what it signals, and what you should change before your competitor's next move.
04 / 10
Sales Enablement
Sharp Assets Win Deals. CI Encyclopedias Don't.
Competitive intel for B2B SaaS teams often leans reactive. They ignore early warning signs, then swing hard in the other direction. Reps don't need a CI encyclopedia — they need a few sharp, usable assets they can grab in the middle of a live conversation.
05 / 10
CI Operations
CI Is a Team Sport, Not a Research Function
Mediocre CI is reactive. It obsesses over the competitor and turns CI managers into the Ken Jennings of competitor trivia. Good CI starts from a different mindset — the CI function should be the central intake point for the entire GTM org.
06 / 10
Strategy
Beyond Battlecards: CI Is a Company Capability, Not a Sales Artifact
Battlecards are useful. They're also the fastest way to accidentally shrink competitive intelligence into a sales-only function. CI is a company capability — Product needs it, Marketing needs it, CS needs it, and Strategy definitely needs it.
07 / 10
Positioning
Why B2B Differentiation Fails (And the Test That Reveals It)
Every B2B SaaS company builds messaging frameworks. Most still fail to achieve real differentiation — not because the framework is wrong, but because the incentives are. Differentiation fails because companies compromise to offend no one internally.
08 / 10
PMM
CI Is on Every PMM Job Description. It's Rarely on the Calendar.
PMA's 2025 data says 44.3% of product marketing teams are 1–2 people. Those same teams are expected to cover positioning, launches, enablement, and CI. The fix usually isn't "do more research" — it's a lightweight cadence that actually ships.
09 / 10
AI + Future of CI
Are CI Operators Going Away? Let's Be Real.
We keep seeing this LinkedIn trend: "advanced AI prompts" that handle competitive intel end to end. If AI was doing such a great job replacing CI operators, why are the actual AI companies still hiring for CI roles? Here's what's actually changing.
10 / 10
Book a Strategy Call → Questions about your CI program? Let's talk.

Follow Flank on LinkedIn for weekly takes on competitive intelligence, buyer psychology, and what's actually changing in B2B GTM.

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Ready to build the system?

Your market is already running the loop. The question is whether you are.

Start with a 30-minute call. We'll tell you honestly where your current competitive program has gaps — and what it would take to fix them.

Book a Free Strategy Call →
Ready to build your CI system? Book a free 30-min strategy call. Book a Call →

Our Story

Two operators.
One obsession.
The truth in your market.

We didn't set out to become competitive intelligence experts. We set out to understand how businesses actually win.

10+
Years building
CI programs
4
Industries with CI
built from scratch
2
Senior operators behind
every engagement

We started by reading 10-Ks, investor decks, and earnings transcripts — not because someone told us to, but because we were obsessed with understanding how businesses worked. From the beginning, our goal wasn't just to track competitors. It was to understand the business first — what it was solving for, where the pressure points were — and only then analyze how competitors were attacking or reacting to those realities.

We built our first CI program from scratch at a B2B SaaS company nearly a decade ago. Just two operators trying to help Sales win more deals, give Marketing a sharper edge, and guide Product's roadmap with grounded insight.

What we saw back then hasn't changed. Most companies still misunderstand what competitive intelligence actually is — and how powerful it can be when it's done right.

Since then, we've built and led CI programs across fintech, cybersecurity, customer experience, and edtech startups. Every time, we started from zero and turned CI into a high-impact function. Trusted by Sales. Leaned on by Product. Embedded into board-level strategy. We got there by earning trust. That was always priority one. And we take that trust seriously. Our reputation is built on it.

Over time, we've learned what works. What doesn't. What stakeholders say they want, and what they actually need.

We built Flank to see the market through your buyer's eyes and tell you what they see. Not what you wish they saw.

Our aim is to first find the truth in your competitive market. Then help you win. Period.

"Real competitive advantage today comes from clarity and conviction — not competitor trivia. Know what you solve. Know who you serve. Know yourself better than anyone else can pretend to."
AG
Allen Garza
Co-Founder, Flank Consulting
DS
Darren Smolen
Co-Founder, Flank Consulting

Where We've Worked

CI programs built from scratch across four industries.

🏦
Fintech
Payments, lending,
banking infrastructure
🔐
Cybersecurity
Enterprise security,
identity, compliance
◎
Customer Experience
CX platforms,
support tooling, CCaaS
◈
Edtech
Learning platforms,
workforce development

Ready to find the truth
in your market?

Start with a 30-minute strategy call. No slides. Just a direct conversation about where you stand.

Book a Free Strategy Call →