Top 5 Ways to Close More Deals

As we approach our 20th anniversary of providing research support to companies, I recently stopped to think about what common themes I’ve seen across the hundreds of win/loss interviews I’ve done.  This information can help you benchmark your own company against these attributes that customers across all of my clients find most important and use as key criteria when choosing a [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #111: Using Win/Loss Research to Fine-tune Your Marketing

Many people I talk to think that win/loss research is focused on just providing feedback to salespeople about how they could have done a better job closing a sale. Definitely not! There are so many benefits to conducting win/loss research. Let’s focus on Benefit #5: to fine-tune your marketing efforts/messages. People who have recently evaluated your products or services have invaluable [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #110: Win/Loss Research Provides Great Competitive Intelligence

Having insights about your competitors and their new products, marketing strategies, etc. is important to make sure that you remain competitive. Often companies are at a loss for how to get insights about their competitors beyond monitoring their social media posts, press releases, etc. I’ve found that win/loss interviews provide my clients with timely competitive information that they would have a [...]

Win/loss Research in a B2C Environment

In my experience, companies who invest in win/loss research are typically in the B2B world. I imagine that is driven by some of the following factors: B2B accounts are typically associated with more ongoing revenue, especially when you are talking about software licenses Vendors always have contact information for key people at the prospective account, making it easier to get input [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #109: Not All Lost Customers are REALLY Lost

After doing several rounds of win/loss research, I realized that there is an amazing side benefit that happens almost every time I take on one of these projects. I have found that not all lost customers are REALLY lost. They may be tagged that way in your CRM by your sales team, but sometimes they just weren’t ready to buy yet [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #108: How to Engage Lost Prospects

I’m often asked, “Will lost prospects really participate?” when talking about conducting win/loss interviews. The answer is a resounding: “Yes!” The key is to offer lost prospects an attractive incentive that will catch their attention and make the interview worth their time. I have found that offering those contacts a choice of either an Amazon gift card or a donation to [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #107: How Many Interviews is Enough?

I’ve talked earlier about my preference for the ‘drip’ method for doing win/loss research. It’s a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of your market. At some point during the interview process, you need to decide when to stop and do reporting/analysis to share results internally with various groups who could benefit from the insights you have been [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #106: The Argument for 3rd Party Interviewers

Win loss analysis is a great way to get more detailed information about the reasons behind a win or loss than what your salespeople capture in Salesforce. Often all you can get your sales-incented staff to provide when they are closing an opportunity in your CRM is a 1 or 2 word response like ‘price’ or ‘usability’. It’s important to have [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #105: The Benefit of Doing Market Research with New Customers

Sometimes new win/loss research clients will probe me about what value there is in interviewing won customers vs. only talking to lost prospects. Great question! Even though our instinct is to only talk to people who did NOT choose us to get the greatest insights, it’s very helpful, and important to talk to both losses AND wins. Your won customers went [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #104: The “Halo Effect” – An Unexpected Benefit of Win Loss Analysis

I often talk to organizations who are considering implementing win/loss research about the “halo effect” of such research. Definition: The halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about his or her character. The way this applies to organizations is that when we see a company do something that [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #103: Use the “Drip” Method to Implement Successful Win Loss Market Research

I have discovered several success factors when it comes to implementing the ‘drip’ method approach for win/loss research. Be sure that you have real-time access to contact information for recently won or lost accounts Devote a resource to regularly (at LEAST biweekly) updating a shared file that includes the following information for each account: company name, contact name/title, phone #, email [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #102: Cyclical Approach vs. “Drip” Method to Doing Market Research

There are two approaches I’ve used to help clients gather win/loss data after asking them some key questions: Cyclical approach ‘Drip’ method Cyclical Method: The cyclical approach would mean doing research with a targeted number of people every so often (could be quarterly or twice/year, for example). When I first began doing win/loss research for clients, I recommended doing a round [...]

Win Loss Analysis Tip #101: How Often Should I Do Market Research?

When you begin doing win/loss research, it’s important to have the long-term in mind. The following questions are important to consider when developing your long-term plan: Are our clients’ needs constant year to year or are there other factors that they need to react to (the economy, regulations, job market, global conditions, etc.))? Is there any cycle to those factors? Are [...]

Why Do Some Companies Avoid Research Like the Plague?

In a previous post about obstacles to win loss research, I talked about the fact that some companies just don’t do ANY research. Some of the reasons that companies don’t do research: Don’t trust their customers’ perspectives: Some companies are skeptical about their customers’ ability to be objective/overcome their biases.  Other companies consider their technology/concepts to be beyond their customers’ limited imagination.  [...]

Top Obstacles to Win Loss Research

I recently had a great conversation with a client who is championing win/loss research at his company and we explored win loss analysis: what is it, why do it, what are the obstacles, how to overcome them, and more. Win loss analysis is one of the lowest hanging fruit for organizations, providing a relatively easy and quick way to get invaluable [...]