Eight Tips to Help Your Win-Loss Analysis Program
Braydon Anderson and Jonathan Stevens from Clozd offer eight practical tips for creating or improving B2B win-loss analysis programs, emphasizing the importance of defining specific goals, securing cross-functional buy-in, realistically managing buyer participation rates (typically around 20%), and employing effective, persistent yet respectful outreach strategies, including using third-party interviewers to obtain candid feedback.
Braydon Anderson, VP of Operations, and Jonathan Stevens, VP of Consulting, at Clozd share their best tips for creating win-loss analysis programs, based on their experience working with enterprise B2B companies. Whether you’re starting a win-loss program or looking to improve an existing one, here are eight practical tips you can implement today.
Determine what you want to get out of your win-loss analysis program
While the primary goal of win-loss interviews or surveys is to understand why you’re winning and losing deals, it’s important to identify specific problems to solve or questions to answer. For example, you might want to know why you win or lose against a particular competitor in a specific region. Determining a specific outcome beforehand will help you achieve that outcome.
Get buy-in
Win-loss analysis programs often exist in silos. The earlier you can get cross-functional support for the program, the more likely it is to succeed. Involving functional leaders early ensures they get what they need from the program. Sales, product, and marketing leaders all benefit from buyer insights, so early involvement sets you up for success.
Be realistic about buyer participation rates
Don’t limit the number of contacts in your win-loss analysis programs. If you want 20 buyer interviews, you won’t get them from just 30 contacts. A standard participation rate is about 20%, so you need 100 contacts to get 20 interviews. It’s also beneficial to use a third-party to conduct interviews, as clients are more likely to be candid and offer constructive feedback to an unbiased party.
Make sure your reach out is effective
Once you’ve determined the scope of your win-loss program and identified contacts, consider how to engage them in interviews:
- Be consistent but not overbearing. Set a persistent cadence for outreach. People often want to share feedback but get busy. A little persistence, done right, helps them fit an interview into their schedule.
- Offer incentives. Interviewees are taking time to provide valuable feedback. Incentives can help, but most people willing to give feedback will do so without one. Large incentives don’t necessarily increase engagement.
- Focus on your most important research type first. People are more likely to respond to one form of feedback collection. If you want interviews, prioritize them over surveys, as pushing surveys first can lower interview participation rates.
Conduct an adaptive win-loss interview
Avoid sticking too rigidly to a predetermined list of questions. The goal is to understand why you won or lost a deal. Be an active listener and adapt your questions based on the interviewee’s responses. This approach helps you gain a clear understanding of the buyer’s experience.
Record the entire win-loss interview
Recording interviews allows you to focus on the conversation without distraction. You can later extract actual quotes, which removes bias and makes the program more trustworthy and impactful.
Find and identify key trends
After gathering enough data, look for consistent patterns across all deals. Common themes may include UX/UI, product, sales experience, pricing and packaging, support and services, etc. Identifying these trends helps you see the big picture of why you win and lose deals from your buyers’ perspective.
Share your findings
Share your insights broadly across your organization. The more people who see the positive outcomes from the analysis, the more you can influence organizational change for the better.
Running an effective win-loss analysis program provides many benefits to your company, the most important being an increase in win rate and ultimately more revenue. To dive deeper, explore additional resources designed to help you improve your win/loss analysis program.
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