Map the competitive landscape for a target market — identify competitors, compare positioning, surface common objections, and build battle cards for your sales team.

Stage: Market and persona intelligence

Competitive Intel

Use this skill to map who else is competing for the same buyer, how they're positioned, and how to win deals when they come up. The output is a battle-card-ready competitive overview your reps can use in active deals.

No CLI or special tools required. Works from web research alone.

Input

Ask the user for:

Your product / company — what you sell and who you sell to (or use ICP context from extract-icp)
Known competitors (optional) — names the team already encounters in deals
Focus (optional) — "we keep losing to X" or "we're entering a new segment and don't know the landscape"

Step 1 — Identify the competitive set

Research who else serves this buyer:

Direct competitors — same category, same buyer, similar price point Adjacent alternatives — different category but competes for the same budget or mindset (e.g. "build it in-house", spreadsheets, agencies) Emerging entrants — newer players gaining traction in the space

Best sources:

G2 / Capterra "alternatives to [your product]" pages
"Compared to" mentions in G2 reviews of your product
LinkedIn job postings at target companies — what tools do they list as requirements?
Your own lost deal data — ask the user what names come up
Product Hunt, Y Combinator recent batches (for emerging players)

Step 2 — Profile each competitor

For each competitor, research:

COMPETITOR — [Name]

Overview:      [1–2 sentences: what they do and who they target]
Founded:       [year / stage if known]
Pricing:       [model and rough range — free tier, per-seat, usage-based, enterprise]
Target buyer:  [who they sell to — title, company size, industry]
Key strengths: [what customers genuinely love — pull from G2 reviews]
Key weaknesses:[what customers complain about — pull from G2 reviews]
Positioning:   [how they describe themselves — pull from homepage headline]
Typical deal:  [SMB / mid-market / enterprise, sales-assisted / self-serve]

Step 3 — Build battle cards

For each significant competitor, produce a battle card:

BATTLE CARD — [Competitor] vs [Your Product]

WHEN THEY COME UP
  [In what deal stage or context does this competitor appear?]
  [What does the buyer usually say when they bring them up?]

YOUR STRENGTHS IN THIS MATCHUP
  1. [Specific advantage — back it with evidence if possible]
  2. [...]

THEIR STRENGTHS (be honest)
  1. [Where they genuinely win — don't dismiss this]
  2. [...]

COMMON OBJECTIONS AND RESPONSES
  "[Exact objection the prospect raises]"
  → [Response that acknowledges the concern, then reframes]

  "[Another objection]"
  → [Response]

TRAP QUESTIONS TO ASK
  (Questions that surface your advantages without sounding like a pitch)
  - "[Question that reveals a gap in the competitor's approach]"
  - "[Question that gets the buyer to articulate what matters to them]"

PROOF POINTS
  - [Customer name / use case that directly counters competitor's strength]
  - [Data point or quote that reinforces your position]

WHEN TO WALK AWAY
  [Signs that this deal is firmly in the competitor's camp — save everyone's time]

Step 4 — Competitive positioning summary

Produce a one-page landscape overview:

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE — [Market / Category]

MARKET OVERVIEW
  [2–3 sentences on the market: how mature, how consolidated, where it's heading]

COMPETITIVE TIERS
  Tier 1 (direct / primary threats): [names]
  Tier 2 (adjacent / indirect):      [names]
  Tier 3 (emerging / niche):         [names]

YOUR POSITION
  [Where you sit in this landscape — be specific, not just "we're the best"]
  [What segment or use case you own most clearly]
  [Where you're weakest relative to the field]

MARKET DYNAMICS TO WATCH
  - [Trend or shift that could affect the competitive balance]
  - [Emerging player worth tracking]

Step 5 — Suggest next steps

Use battle cards in deal-coaching when a specific competitor comes up in a deal
Feed "language competitors use" into write-outreach to differentiate messaging
Add competitive positioning to the persona profile from persona-research
Re-run this skill quarterly — competitive landscapes shift fast

competitive-intel