David Lithwick

Essentially, sales win-loss analysis/research is obtaining insights from your buyers about how your sales team performed in pitching new business. The goal is to get feedback to improve messaging and uncover reasons when they did not win the business.

Questions

  • Who else was competing for your business?
  • What were the keys reasons for choosing another provider?
  • Why didn’t we win your business?
  • Was our presentation interesting?
  • Were our reps convincing?
  • Were they good listeners? Knowledgeable? Well organized?
  • What suggestion do you have on how we can improve?

  Guidelines

  1. Given we are talking of something very concrete (why you got or did not get the sale) fewer data points are required to reach the insights you need to make better tactical and operational decisions. Hence interviews with a few buyers should suffice.
  2. When requesting an interview, advise that:
    • You are not in sales and will not be re-opening the sales process.
    • Your goal is to use the information to better understand the market and improve.
    • This is a one to one dialogue, not a survey.
  3. Don’t go into your discussion with a preconceived view of what happened in the presentation.
  4. Don’t try to solve all of your problems in one interview.
  5. Create two introductions, one for your wins, the other for your losses.
  6. Use a score card to present your findings to your sales team:
Performance Ranking
Category Winner Your Co.
 Key Gap Moving Forward
Well organized 10 6 Had technical issues with lap top, and presentation was cut short by 10 minutes Bring a back up laptop and get to the presentation  15  minutes early to give yourself enough time to set-up and work through glitches.

 
Took their time 9 4 Your reps spoke too quickly to make up for lost time
Good listener 10 9
Understood your needs 9 8
Made you feel important 10 10
Knowledgeable 10 8
Gave good suggestions 9 9
Hungry for your business 10 10
Clear in differentiation 10 9