The Power of Post-Sales Discussions in Win Loss Analysis Programs

Being in sales, I am constantly bombarded with objections from company leaders on a variety of topics. After all, I am the first person they deal with in the organization. They think Win Loss Analysis is something they can do on their own, believe a third party can’t get information their sales reps can, or question why they need a Win Loss program at all. “We know why we lose, it’s the price!” is the typical mantra I always hear.

The Case for Discovery Sessions

Objections are very common and part of the sales process. Recently, one of my prospects wasn’t sure about implementing a Win Loss program and felt they didn’t need the Discovery sessions that Primary Intelligence offers as part of the solution. The prospect thought all they really needed was the research from the interviews and an executive summary to get the most out of a Win Loss solution. Having these sessions after every sales deal seemed like too much work and involvement for them.

With no initial interest in using Discovery sessions, they were missing out on the real benefits of having a Win Loss program.

I told them about a recent Discovery session with one of our clients. This client wanted to know why they weren’t selected from a recent sales deal because they knew their product was superior to the winning vendor. Their competitive advantage was rated high and their buyers ranked them higher than the competition in many criteria they evaluated them on.

So why did they lose if all the quantitative data spoke to them as a sure winner?

The Power of a 45-Minute Phone Discussion

Because this question was brought up during a Discovery session call, one of the managers searched LinkedIn and noticed that earlier in the year someone from the winning vendor’s side went to go work for the buyer. Was this discovery an influencing factor? Most likely it was, but it would have never been brought to light if the question wasn’t asked during the call.

After hearing this story, my prospect was able to justify implementing a Win Loss Analysis program and are on their way to improving their win rate.