Competitor connection displacement

Use this skill when you want in-market prospects already evaluating your category — "who's engaging our competitors," "build a displacement list." Given a competitor's new connections and your ICP, it returns a ranked, ICP-qualified list of displaceable prospects, each with a same-week differentiation angle.

SKILL.md
name:
competitor-connection-displacement
description:
Use this skill when you want in-market prospects already evaluating your category — "who's engaging our competitors," "build a displacement list." Given a competitor's new connections and your ICP, it returns a ranked, ICP-qualified list of displaceable prospects, each with a same-week differentiation angle.

Competitor connection displacement

An agent that turns a competitor's newly-connecting audience into a displacement list. Someone who just connected with a competitor is mid-evaluation of your category — reach them in that window, with a reason, before the competitor locks them in.

Input

  • new_connections — people who recently connected with the competitor (their founders, reps, or company page).
  • your_icp — the ICP segments and personas to qualify against.
  • (optional) existing_pipeline — accounts already in motion, to exclude.

Procedure

  1. Qualify against the ICP first. Most new connections are peers, recruiters, job-seekers, or the competitor's own customers. Keep only role and firmographic fits.
  2. Drop the noise — anyone already in your pipeline, and obvious non-buyers.
  3. Score displaceability on three things: net-new (not already yours), decision power (can they buy?), and freshness (connected in the last few days beats last month).
  4. Write a differentiation angle per prospect — tied to their problem and what makes you different, never a teardown and never a mention of how you found them.

Output

prospects[], each:

  • who — name/handle and title
  • why_displaceable — the ICP fit + why now
  • angle — the same-week differentiation opener (problem-first, competitor-agnostic)
  • rank — 1-5 (net-new × decision power × freshness)

What good looks like

  • Timing is the edge. Day-of-connection beats any cold list — they are evaluating now; a month later they have picked someone.
  • Qualified, not raw. The weak version works the whole connection list as leads; most of it is noise.
  • Never creepy. The angle anchors on the buyer's problem and your difference — never "I saw you connected with [competitor]," which reads as surveillance and burns the trust you are transferring.
  • Good output: every name is net-new, fits the ICP, and carries a specific, non-generic angle.

Rules

  • MUST qualify against the ICP before outreach — never work the raw connection list.
  • MUST anchor the angle on the buyer's problem; NEVER reference how you found them.
  • MUST treat freshness as load-bearing — a stale connection is a cold lead again.
  • NEVER open with a competitive teardown.