8 Rules of Successful Win-Loss Analysis

Are you looking to implement win-loss interviews and analysis at your own company?

A great source of insights and best practices is Pragmatic Marketing.

The Pragmatic Marketing framework is the de facto standard for training product professionals since 1993. One of the practices encouraged and promoted by the framework is win-loss analysis, sometimes referred to within the framework as post-decision interviews.

Title:  Eight Rules of Successful Win-Loss Analysis

Author: Roger W. Allison, CEO, Waypoint Growth Advisors

Excerpt: "Post-decision interviews are the only means of capturing the knowledge needed to align any marketing and sales strategies to market perception. Post-decision interviews are not discretionary for successful organizations!"

Summary: Post-decision interviews (i.e., win-loss interviews) allow organizations to understand and validate prospect perceptions. For your prospects, perception is reality. Understanding how they perceived your business, during the evaluation process, can help you diagnose sales performance, align sales and marketing messaging, and verify your competitive differentiation. Successfully extracting these insights requires a disciplined process that follows 8 rules:

1. Interview an equal number of wins and losses.
2. Conduct interviews within 3 months of the final decision.
3. Ensure a non-sales environment.
4. Consider outsourcing to an unbiased third-party.
5. Compile, compare, and present quarterly findings.
6. Use a metric-based and structured template.
7. Make the post-decision interview non-discretionary.
8. Understand that perception is reality.

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