Competitor Intel Skill

You’re in a competitive deal. This skill tells you what’s changed at the competitor, who’s left, what their customers are signaling, and where your displacement angles are.

Overview

The Competitor Intel Skill pulls a fact-led intelligence brief on any competitor, shaped by the specific deal you’re in. Give it a competitor name and a one-line deal context — displacement play, renewal defence, or general competitive prep. It returns leadership changes, hiring signals, customer intent, recent product moves, and named displacement angles, all tied to your stated goal.

Under the hood, the skill pulls firmographics, recent news and scoops, hiring surges in target functions, and buying signals from the competitor’s customer base via the Lusha in Claude connector. It then synthesizes everything into a brief shaped around the deal context you gave it — not a generic company profile.

The result is a brief an AE can read in five minutes and walk into a competitive deal with — knowing exactly where the competitor is strong, where they’re exposed, and who to talk to next.

What it does

  • Deal-context framing — takes a one-line deal context and shapes every signal, news item, and displacement angle around it. A renewal defence brief and a displacement play brief for the same competitor look completely different.
  • Leadership and hiring signals — surfaces recent executive changes, departures, and hiring surges at the competitor. Leadership instability and talent gaps are displacement signals.
  • Customer intent signals — flags accounts in the competitor’s customer base expressing intent on your category or adjacent solutions. The warmest displacement targets, surfaced before your AE guesses.
  • Recent product and news triage — filters product launches, press releases, and announcements against the deal context. Only what changes the conversation makes the brief.
  • Displacement angles — synthesizes signals into named displacement angles with the specific data points behind each one. Not generic talking points — angles tied to what’s actually happening at the competitor right now.

Use cases

Active competitive deal prep

You’re in a deal where the competitor is already in the conversation. Run the skill with the deal context — “displacement play, Stage 3, competitor is incumbent.” It surfaces recent leadership changes, product gaps, and customer intent signals that give the AE concrete discovery questions instead of generic positioning.

Renewal defence

Your customer is up for renewal and a competitor is circling. Run the skill framed around renewal defence — “competitor approaching our customer at renewal, need to understand their current pitch.” The brief surfaces what the competitor has launched recently, where they’re weak, and what signals suggest your customer might be at risk.

Displacement prospecting

You want to find accounts currently using a competitor that are most likely to switch. Run the skill focused on customer intent — “find displacement targets in the competitor’s customer base showing intent on our category.” It surfaces the accounts with the strongest signals and the right contacts to reach out to first.

Skill definition

The instructions Claude uses to run this skill. Copy it into a .md file in your Claude Code skills folder, or paste it into a Claude project as a custom instruction.

Example outputs in this skill are illustrative — they reflect the structure, fields, and format of real Lusha connector output, but were not pulled from a live session. Run the skill with your own data and connectors to see live results.

---
name: competitor-intel-skill
description: >
  Pull a fact-led competitive intel brief on any competitor.
  Takes a competitor name and a one-line deal context —
  displacement play, renewal defence, or general competitive prep.
  Returns leadership changes, hiring signals, customer intent,
  recent product moves, and named displacement angles — all shaped
  by the deal you're in.
connectors:
  required: lusha
  optional: crm
campus_url: https://www.lusha.com/campus/plays/competitor-intel-skill/
category: Skills
---

# Competitor Intel Skill

Pull a fact-led competitive intelligence brief on a named
competitor. Shape every signal, news item, and displacement
angle around the deal context the user provides. Return a brief
an AE can act on before walking into a competitive deal.

## Input

The user will provide via $ARGUMENTS:

- Competitor name (required) — company name or domain.
- Deal context (required) — one sentence on why this brief
  is being pulled and what decision it supports. Examples:
  - "displacement play — competitor is incumbent, Stage 3"
  - "renewal defence — competitor approaching our customer
    at renewal"
  - "displacement prospecting — find their customers showing
    intent on our category"
  - "general competitive prep — new rep onboarding to territory"

  If deal context is missing, ask once. If declined, default
  to general competitive intelligence and state that assumption
  at the top of the brief.

- Your company context (optional) — your product, ICP, and
  key differentiators. Used to frame displacement angles and
  customer intent signals. If not supplied, omit the
  displacement angles section and note why.

## Workflow

1. Anchor on the deal context.
   Read the deal context from $ARGUMENTS. Restate it in one
   sentence as the brief purpose. Derive 2-4 priority themes.
   Examples:
   - Displacement play → leadership instability, product gaps,
     customer intent on your category, recent executive hires
   - Renewal defence → recent product launches, pricing changes,
     customer satisfaction signals, competitive positioning moves
   - Displacement prospecting → customer intent signals, accounts
     showing switching behavior, hiring gaps at the competitor

2. Resolve the competitor via Lusha.
   Call companies_search with the competitor name or domain.
   Confirm the match before continuing. If ambiguous, surface
   the top two options and ask to confirm.

3. Pull data in parallel.
   Once the competitor is resolved, run these calls concurrently:
   - Firmographics: size, industry, HQ, revenue range, funding
     stage, recent funding events.
   - Recent news and scoops: last 90 days. Leadership moves,
     product launches, M&A, layoffs, pricing changes.
   - Hiring signals: open roles in target functions. Hiring
     surges signal investment areas. Hiring gaps signal weakness.
   - Key leadership contacts: C-suite and VP level. Recent
     hires and departures. Tenure flags.
   - Customer intent signals: accounts in the competitor's
     known customer base expressing intent on your category
     or adjacent solutions.

4. Triage against the deal context.
   Each retrieval is raw context. Now decide what makes the brief.
   - News and scoops: use the deal context as the primary filter.
     For displacement, a leadership departure outranks a product
     launch. For renewal defence, a new product feature outranks
     a routine hiring announcement. Dedupe. Trim to 5-7 items.
   - Hiring signals: flag surges (investment signal) and gaps
     (weakness signal) separately. Connect them to the deal
     context — a hiring surge in engineering signals product
     investment; a gap in CS signals retention risk.
   - Customer intent: keep only accounts expressing intent
     that maps to your category or a clear switching signal.
     Drop noise.
   - Cross-reference: connect the dots. A CTO departure +
     engineering hiring freeze + customer intent on your
     category = one displacement angle, not three bullets.

5. Write displacement angles last.
   Re-read the full body. Write 3-5 displacement angles —
   each tied to a specific signal or data point from the brief.
   No generic talking points. No "we're better because X."
   Every angle must reference something that is actually
   happening at the competitor right now.

## Output Format

### Competitor Intel Brief — [Competitor Name]

Deal context: [restate in one line, or "general competitive
intelligence (no context supplied)" if defaulted.]

Situation. [2-3 sentences: who they are, the dominant story
at the competitor right now, and the specific signal that
makes this brief timely for the stated deal context.]

---

### Company Snapshot

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Website | |
| Industry | |
| Employees | |
| Revenue range | |
| HQ | |
| Funding stage | |
| Most recent funding | |

---

### Leadership & Hiring Signals

Recent executive moves and hiring patterns — retained because
they map to the deal context or suggest a non-obvious angle.

**Leadership moves:**
For each: name (initials), title, move type (hire / departure
/ promotion), date, one-line implication for the deal.

**Hiring signals:**
| Function | Signal | Open Roles | Implication |
|---|---|---|---|

Surge = 5+ open roles in one function. Gap = 0 open roles
in a function where you'd expect hiring.

---

### Recent News & Scoops

Filtered against the deal context. Group by Leadership /
Product / Financial / Strategic if 5+ items span categories.
Otherwise list flat.

For each: headline, date, one-line summary, implication for
the deal.

---

### Customer Intent Signals

Accounts in the competitor's customer base expressing intent
on your category or a clear switching signal.

| Account | Industry | Employees | Intent Topic | Signal Score | Signal Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

Top targets: [3 accounts most worth reaching out to, with
a one-line rationale for each.]

Omit this section if no customer intent data was found.

---

### Displacement Angles

3-5 named angles, each tied to a specific signal from the
brief. No generic positioning. Every angle must reference
something happening at the competitor right now.

**Angle 1: [Name]**
Signal: [what's happening]
Angle: [how to use it in the deal]
Discovery question: [one question to ask the prospect that
surfaces this angle without stating it directly]

Repeat for each angle.

Omit if no your company context was supplied.

---

### Key Takeaways

3-5 bullets connecting the dots across sources, framed by
the deal context. Each must reference a specific signal,
contact, or moment from the brief. No generic advice.

---
Built by: Unknown
Tools: Claude, Lusha
Type: Skill

FAQ

  • Do I need anything beyond Lusha in Claude?

    No. The skill runs entirely through the Lusha in Claude connector. Connect it once in Claude settings. Optional: connect your CRM if you want the skill to pull existing deal context — open opportunities, engagement history, and named contacts — before building the competitive brief.

  • What if I don't give a deal context?

    The skill will ask once. If you skip it, the brief defaults to general competitive intelligence and labels itself as such at the top — so you know the output wasn’t shaped to a specific deal. The displacement angles section is omitted when no deal context or company context is supplied.

  • How is this different from a Google search on the competitor?

    A Google search returns press releases and marketing copy — what the competitor wants you to see. This skill surfaces what’s actually happening: who just left, where they’re not hiring, which of their customers are showing intent on your category, and what their recent moves signal about where they’re exposed. That’s the difference between knowing about a competitor and knowing how to beat them in a specific deal.

  • Can I run this for multiple competitors in one session?

    Yes. Run it competitor by competitor in the same Claude session. Each pass returns a separate brief. If you’re onboarding a new rep to a competitive territory, run it across every named competitor in their patch — one session, full competitive landscape.

  • What if the competitor is a smaller or less-known company?

    The skill surfaces what Lusha has. For smaller competitors, firmographic data may be thinner and customer intent signals may be limited. The skill suppresses empty sections rather than padding them — so the brief is shorter but everything in it is real. The displacement angles section is only written when there’s enough signal to ground it.

Related Plays

Ready to run this?

Connect once, run anywhere. Works in Claude, ChatGPT, n8n, Clay, or any agent connected to Lusha.

Get free access Read the Docs