# Sales Companion — Competitive Differentiation v0.1

Status: v0.1 product guardrail  
Date: 2026-07-03  
Area: Sales Companion / Product Positioning  
Related Knowledge File: `05-knowledge/market-intelligence/hvh-differentiation-companion-v0.1.md`

## Product Boundary

Sales Companion must not become a generic Handelsvertreter tool.

The product should be designed around a different promise:

> Companion helps sales people understand and develop their market, not just administer their work.

## What Sales Companion Is

Sales Companion is a mobile, AI-assisted field companion for people working inside the Interior ecosystem.

It supports:

- planning a city or regional trip,
- discovering potential partners,
- building and adapting a route,
- capturing visits through voice, text and images,
- extracting follow-ups and file needs,
- preserving relationship memory,
- recognising product-market signals,
- turning field work into reports and next actions.

## What Sales Companion Is Not

Sales Companion is not:

- a CRM with a nicer interface,
- a mandatory visit-report form,
- a representative administration system,
- a manager-control dashboard,
- a static account list,
- a generic sales productivity tool.

## Experience Principle

The user should not feel:

> I have to document my work for the system.

The user should feel:

> I can tell my Companion what happened, and it helps me carry the work forward.

## Product Experience Rules

### 1. Capture First, Structure Second

The field user gives raw input first: voice note, rough text, photo, impression, objection, contact detail, next step.

Companion extracts structure afterwards.

### 2. Uncertainty Must Be Visible

Companion must never invent certainty.

When contact details, company names, product interests or follow-up files are unclear, the system should mark them as uncertain and ask for confirmation.

### 3. Routes Are Living Objects

A route is not just a list of stops.

It is a living field plan that changes when a visit takes longer, a store is closed, a new tip appears or only 30 minutes remain.

### 4. Photos Are Context

Images should help Companion understand taste, atmosphere, product fit, brand fit, store quality and relationship relevance.

They are not only attachments.

### 5. Follow-ups Are Outputs, Not Afterthoughts

Every useful field capture should create a next-action layer:

- email draft,
- file pack checklist,
- sample task,
- contact verification,
- next visit suggestion,
- field report signal,
- product-market learning.

### 6. Interior-Specific Semantics Matter

Companion should understand concepts such as:

- planning studio,
- concept store,
- Scandinavian design dealer,
- architecture office,
- hospitality lead,
- public-space project,
- curated retail,
- product fit,
- material sample,
- brand environment,
- visual merchandising.

## Strategic Sentence

> CRM stores accounts. Companion understands field reality.

Alternative:

> Traditional sales software documents what happened. Companion helps the field team understand what it means and what should happen next.

## Feature Implications

This differentiation supports the current Sales Companion modules:

- `mobile-field-companion-principle-v0.1.md` defines the product identity.
- `route-intelligence-flow-v0.1.md` defines the beginning of the field day.
- `mobile-capture-flow-v0.1.md` defines the post-visit capture moment.

Together they form the first real product loop:

> Plan → discover → visit → capture → confirm → follow up → learn.

## Acceptance Test

A feature belongs in Sales Companion if it helps the field user do at least one of these:

- understand a market better,
- remember a relationship better,
- prepare a better visit,
- generate a better follow-up,
- recognise a better product fit,
- create reusable field intelligence.

A feature should be questioned if it mainly adds administrative burden without creating learning, memory or action.