Episode #354: Cian McLoughlin

Conducting a win/loss analysis is about spending time at the end of a sales cycle to extract some feedback from the customer you’ve interacted with. It can help you learn what went well and where you can improve. It’s immensely valuable. You have to make numerous assumptions in the sales cycle. 

This allows you to park the assumptions and get honest feedback from your customer and then take action based on that information. Conducting a win/loss analysis is one of the best ways to improve your sales. Learn more from Cian McLoughlin in this episode of Sales Reinvented!

Outline of This Episode

• [1:01] What is win/loss analysis and why is it important?
• [2:39] The common insights sales teams can gain
• [3:44] Mistakes to avoid when conducting a win/loss analysis
• [7:06] Create an environment where the customer can be honest
• [9:25] Best practices for conducting win/loss interviews
• [11:04] What role does technology play in win/loss analysis?
• [13:00] Cian’s top three win/loss analysis dos and don’ts
• [15:38] You can’t rely on assumptions without testing them

The common insights sales teams can gain

Though it varies from one organization to the next, the basic thing you can learn from a win/loss analysis is where friction exists in the sales cycle. Sales professionals are struggling with deals that drift away. They’re being ghosted. Why?

There’s a misalignment between the sales cycle and the customer’s buying cycle. A win/loss analysis allows you to find out what’s frustrating customers in the buying journey. And once you’ve identified those things, you can address the gaps.

Mistakes to avoid when conducting a win/loss analysis

The biggest issue is that they’re not being conducted at all. When reviews are being done, most sales teams are focusing only on the losses and exclude the wins. It’s inconsistent and there’s no real structure. Secondly, most people don’t have mechanisms in place to do something with feedback they’re receiving.

You need to set the expectation that win, lose, or draw, you’d love feedback. Secondly, don’t get people actively involved in the sales cycle to extract the feedback. Use internal resources or another independent organization not directly involved. It creates separation for the customer and helps them feel more comfortable.

How to create an environment where the customer can be honest

You have to let your customers know why the win/loss analysis is valuable. Cian sat in a loss review meeting with stakeholders from a large organization. Someone from the vendor they didn’t choose was there. 

He shared that their cost of sale was north of $250,000 to pursue the bid they didn’t win. This meeting was the one piece of value they’d be able to extract from their effort. 

Everyone on the customer side of the table was shocked because it never occurred to them how much it cost the vendors to go through the bid process. It wasn’t on their radar. A win/loss analysis lets the customer know how much time, effort, and resources have gone into the sales pursuit. 

You also need to let them know what you’ll use—and not use—the feedback for. It won’t be used to blame the sales team but to test and improve what you do. It’ll be used to better train salespeople. 

It’s being transparent and professional while letting them know that you highly value the feedback. When you set the context like this, you’ll receive honest and quantifiable feedback. 

You can’t rely on assumptions without testing them

Cian jumped on a plane and flew to New Zealand on behalf of a business intelligence company that had just lost a strategic deal to complete an in-person review. As Cian interviewed stakeholders, he got confused. When the most senior executive entered the room, Cian asked if they could pause the formal interview to ask some questions. 

They went through a long and arduous process, chose Cian’s vendor, went through POCs, and all of a sudden everything went quiet after which they were informed they didn’t win the bid. What happened? It was because they made assumptions about the value they were offering and put a significantly inflated price in front of them. It was that simple. 

If they had lowered their price, they would have won the bid. So Cian told his vendor to apologize and bring back a realistic number to see if they could revive the process. Ultimately, they won back the work. The bottom line? You can’t make assumptions. Instead, get to the heart of what influenced the outcome and learn from it. 

What are some best practices for conducting win/loss interviews? What are Cian’s top dos and don’ts? Learn more by listening to the episode!

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Learn More About Cian McLoughlin

Are there any books on or containing Win Loss Analysis that you recommend? Win/Loss Reviews by Rick Marcets, an oldie but a goodie.

In the field of Win Loss Analysis – Who do you most admire and why? I’ve been impressed with Andrew Peterson and Spencer Dent from Clozd and the work they have done to build momentum around this sector of the market.

What are your top ten questions to ask during a Win Loss Analysis – Your Golden Question Set? Rather than share a set of questions, which will obviously differ from vendor to vendor, depending on their deal values, volumes, complexity and industry/buyer persona, I would encourage people to think instead about their Buyers journey. If you align the questions you ask, to the phases which your customers navigate, you should land on a set of questions which unlock valuable and actionable insight.

How do you handle situations where a loss is attributed to factors outside of your control, such as budget constraints or unforeseen market changes? In some cases, Losses will absolutely stem from factors beyond the control of the sales team…however even in these situations constructive and actionable customer feedback is almost always available. Focus on those elements of the sales cycle that you can control and aim for 1% increments of improvement right across the team. 

Can you share some examples of how Win Loss Analysis has helped companies identify gaps in their sales process or product offerings? We worked with a business who always received very positive and constructive feedback about their field team, but often quite negative feedback about their head-office. Their customers and prospects shared that this vendors head office team were slow to respond, often gave mixed signals about pricing and actually made it harder, rather than easier, to buy from this business. As a result of this feedback, the vendor in question completely restructured their business, moving from a head-office and field team approach, to a more dynamic hub and spoke model, covering some of the key capital cities. They saw an immediate jump in terms of customer satisfaction and their win rate also jumped, over the following months. 

Are there any aspects of your own Win Loss Analysis skills that you are working on improving at the moment? Setting an expectation early with a new prospect, that irrespective of the outcome, we would love to get their feedback at the conclusion of their buying journey. We know that setting this expectation early leads to much greater response rates, yet its sometimes easy to overlook this in your own business. 

Hobbies, Interests? Although I’m based in Sydney, Australia….I love to travel. With family in both Ireland and South Africa I’m fortunate to have lots of opportunity to travel for both work and pleasure. I’m a big sports fan and also enjoy creative writing as an outlet. 

How can our listeners contact with you? Connect with me on Linkedin or drop me an email to cian@usetrinity.com