Sales Confidence, Threat Analysis, Win-Loss: The Starting Point for Impactful Competitive Deal Support
# sales enablement
# win-loss
# strategy
Learn how to uncover the biggest revenue lever in your pipeline.
Adam McQueen
Dustin Ray
Every PMM facing competitive pressure has felt the urge to ship something – anything – fast. Battlecards, decks, one-pagers, quick-hit Slack threads asking, “Does anyone have intel on Competitor X?”
It feels like momentum. But too often, it’s motion without impact. You spend days crafting the perfect asset only to hear: “Yeah, I think I used slide 14 once.”
Because here’s the reality: competitive support that wins revenue doesn’t start with content.
It starts with clarity. Knowing where to focus and why.
You build that clarity by running Sales Confidence Surveys, Threat Analyses, and Win-Loss Interviews – then triangulating the results to uncover the biggest revenue lever in your pipeline, so you can pull it.
Let’s break down exactly how this all works.
The Tripod Approach
To deliver impactful competitive support, you need a three-pronged strategy.
“I call it the tripod stool. You’ve got to have all three—or it’s going to fall. - Dustin Ray, Head of Market and Competitive Intelligence, Huntress
The three essential components are:
Sales Confidence Surveys – Qualitative input on which competitors make your reps uneasy
CRM Data Analysis – Quantitative insight into which competitors show up and win most often
Win-Loss Validation – Direct buyer feedback to confirm or challenge internal assumptions
Individually, each provides valuable signals. Together, they help you map your true competitive landscape.
Step 1: Run a Sales Confidence Survey
A Sales Confidence Survey measures how confident your reps feel competing against key players.
It’s your direct line to the front lines – revealing where sellers feel strong, where they’re struggling, and what kind of support they actually need.
Unlike anecdotal Slack threads or scattered feedback, a confidence survey gives you:
Quantifiable data on competitive readiness
Consistent metrics you can track over time
Comparative insights across competitors, regions, and segments
Voice-of-sales input on what’s missing, not just what’s loud
To be clear, this isn’t a major research initiative. It’s a lightweight feedback loop that captures how sellers are experiencing competitive pressure before it shows up in the pipeline.
Dustin Ray sees it as foundational:
“First thing I do? Launch a survey. If I don’t know where reps feel confident or not, I have no business enabling anything.
Include These Five Questions
Keep it simple, focused, and fast. These five questions will give you more signal than a dozen “quick syncs” ever could:
On a scale of 1–5, how confident are you in competitive deals overall?
How confident are you versus each of our top 5 competitors? [drop down]
What’s the hardest objection to handle right now?
Which existing asset actually helps you sell?
Magic wand: If you could change one thing to make competitive deals easier, what would it be?
This isn’t just about tactical gaps. It’s about uncovering the revenue you’re leaving on the table. If 14 out of 20 reps feel shaky against Competitor B, it’s a signal there’s revenue at risk, and a chance to win more of it back.
When and How to Run It
Keep the process lightweight but consistent. Here’s how to make it actionable:
Cadence: Twice a year is ideal. Once per year is the minimum.
Tools: Google Forms, SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics – whatever is easy and shareable.
Pro tip: Visualize responses with a confidence heatmap. Execs love visuals.
Step 2: Conduct a Threat Analysis with Your CRM Data
How reps feel is only one part of the picture. To take action with confidence, you need to pair sentiment with hard data.
That’s where threat analysis comes in.
Confidence Surveys show where reps feel exposed. Threat analysis shows where you’re actually losing revenue. Together, they give you both the qualitative and quantitative view.
“To start I keep it really simple… close won, close lost by competitor and ACV and region and rep will do to start." - Clara Smyth, Director, Competitive Consulting at Klue
A Simple Threat Analysis Workflow
1. Pull the right CRM reports:Start with these filters and groupings:
Closed-lost by competitor – Who are you losing to most often?
Revenue impact by competitor – Who’s costing you the most in lost deals?Win rate by competitor – Which competitors are hardest to beat?Regional patterns – Are certain players dominating specific geos or segments?
Open opps by competitor – Where are those threats live in your current pipeline?
2. Look for patterns:Which competitors consistently show up in losses? Where do they win most often?
3. Quantify the impact:If you’re losing 80% of deals to Competitor X and have $12M of active pipeline against them. That’s a competitive threat with clear revenue risk.
4. Plot your threat matrix:Map competitors on two dimensions:
Frequency (how often they show up in deals)
Win rate (how often you beat them)
The result is a simple but powerful threat matrix that surfaces your highest-risk zones, where enablement should be focused first.
“When you can say, ‘We have $9M at risk to a competitor we rarely beat,’ people stop asking why this work matters." - Dustin Ray, Head of Market and Competitive Intelligence
Klue Makes Threat Analysis Simple (and Sharper)
If you’re doing threat analysis manually, it’s doable – but it’s time-consuming. Pulling reports, slicing by region and rep, building bubble charts… it adds up fast.
If you’re using Klue Compete, this gets a lot easier.
Klue’s Threat Analysis tool gives you a visual, CRM-connected view of competitive risk—so you can prioritize faster.
It includes two key charts:
Closed Deals vs. Win Rate – See which competitors you’ve lost to and how often. Bubble size reflects total revenue lost.
Open Opportunities vs. Win Rate – Identify active threats in your pipeline. Bubble size shows total pipeline value at risk.
You can hover over any bubble to drill into the details – win rate, opportunity volume, revenue impact – all in one place.
Step 3: Close the Loop with Win-Loss Insights
The final leg of the tripod is Win-Loss Analysis, and it’s what grounds your internal perspective in buyer reality.
While Sales Confidence Surveys capture how reps feel, and Threat Analysis shows where you’re losing revenue, win-loss interviews tell you why.
What Win-Loss Interviews Can Reveal
When you ask buyers directly why they made their decision, the answers often cut through internal assumptions and uncover things no dashboard can.
Sales might believe they lost to Competitor X, but buyers chose Y for entirely different reasons.
What reps call a pricing issue might actually be a trust issue, or a missing feature.
Your CRM might not show emerging competitors
By layering buyer feedback on top of rep sentiment and CRM data, you triangulate the truth.
Competitive support that actually moves win rates doesn’t start with assets—it starts with clarity.
When you know where reps lack confidence, which competitors are hurting your pipeline, and what buyers actually care about, you can stop guessing—and start enabling with precision.
That’s the power of the tripod method:
Sales Confidence Surveys show where sellers need help
Threat Analysis highlights where revenue is at risk
Win-Loss Insights reveal what truly sways decisions
But what do you actually do with those insights?
You use them to:
Prioritize enablement where rep confidence is lowest and competitive risk is highest
Update competitive content to target real objections, not theoretical ones
Build objection-handling content and training tied to actual loss reasons
Track changes over time so you can show progress and spot new risks early
This isn’t just a diagnostic. It’s an operating model for high-impact competitive support.Run the survey. Pull the data. Talk to your buyers.Now you’re ready to compete, confidently.
Only Have an Hour? Use Klue.
If you’re tight on time (and what PMM isn’t), here’s how Klue helps you skip the heavy lift and still act with confidence:
No time to run a sales confidence survey? That’s why we built Deal Tips. Klue’s AI analyzes what was said in a call, flags which competitors came up, and sends a short, tailored summary to the rep’s inbox: here’s what matters, here’s what to say next, here’s how to win.
No time to slice CRM data? Threat Analysis gives you a live view of where revenue is at risk. Just open the dashboard – no exports, no bubble charts.
No time to chase down buyers? With Klue Win-Loss, a steady stream of buyer feedback flows weekly, tagged by competitor and ready to use.
You don’t need a weeklong project to support competitive deals.
