Reflecting on the fallout from the US presidential election earlier this month, it is apparent that much effort is being put into the analysis of want went wrong for President Donald Trump and what went right for President Elect Joe Biden. There are many commentators reporting the news, many more experts and analysts sharing their supposed “insight” on the results, but as yet, not much has been publicised as to what the main two political parties will actually do differently next time to improve their performance in subsequent elections. Early days yes, but to those of us who live the thrill of a bid environment on a regular basis, there are certain familiar parallels that can be drawn.
Your bid team have been working on an opportunity for quite some time, many weeks, even months.
You felt you were in a good position, yes there was some discussion about competitors and access to the end customer, but the opportunity had been categorised as a “Commit” and the opportunity reviews had been broadly positive.
Significant bid budget had been spent on designing the solution, meeting with the end customer, going through governance reviews, producing a proposal, engaging the partners, etc.
Overall it seems to have all gone well and the vibe is positive.
Then the communication arrives from the end customer – “thanks but no thanks”. They have chosen to contract with someone else.
We’ve heard it all too often
The bad news has to be managed.
The bid team are in shock.
There will likely be some political fall-out.
Sales pipelines are reviewed, targets are scrutinised, and the bid team disperse.
Now the excuses start to circulate, and they have a familiar ring to them:
- We lost on price
- The competitor bought the business
- They were always going to choose the competitor
- The solution was wrong
- We should have qualified out
- The process was wrong / didn’t suit us / wasn’t run correctly / was rigged
– sound familiar?
The fact is that you’ve lost. The excuses may make people feel better about themselves, the realisation that they have wasted their time, the fact you’ve been beaten, but the end result is the same.
There may be an opportunity debrief, loss-review, or lessons learned session. However, unless this process results in actionable insight, something tangible that can improve the win-rate, or drive a different result in a subsequent opportunity, it is at best a cathartic exercise for those involved, and at worst a complete waste of time and money.
The problem here is the internal nature of the activity. The most valuable input is usually missing, the clear, undiluted truth from the customer stakeholders, those who actually made the selection decision.
HAD Enough? Now is the Time to act differently
At Digital Distance, we specialise in obtaining that actionable insight and ensuring you benefit from it, we specialise in “digging for gold”.
How do we do this?
First of all, we build win/loss sessions into the “business as usual” model for all your prospective customers. In other words, we notify them of this activity early in their buying process, not when we have just lost, but well prior to the contract award date. We want the customer to know we care what they think regardless or the outcome, not that we are going to cause a problem for them as we did not win. Making the request early is usually a good time, they want us to bid after all.
We also suggest that you are clear with the customer that this will be facilitated by a specialist third party. This helps to take some of the emotion out of the process, the customer will likely feel better able to talk more frankly with a third party expert as to where the vendor had shortcomings and as to why a competitor was preferable.
Our team have performed very many win/loss reviews with end customers and have well rehearsed techniques supported by a set of digital tools to help us collect all the data we need.
Using analytics, we move to the next step. We identify commonality, reoccurring themes, and emerging trends. We evaluate the output data from the end customers and from it we distil key insights, making sure we get to the crux of the matter.
This analysis is made available to you in a clear and easily digestible report. Where appropriate we integrate with your CRM function to embed the findings in your systems and processes.
Driving Win-Rates Up
Most importantly, we work with you on the identification and timely execution of the corrective action. It is this focus that makes the difference to your win-rate and delivers on your desired business outcomes. It is not about the blame-game here, we are not looking to start a witch hunt or alienate your sales and pre-sales community in any way. It is about enabling a culture of continuous improvement, about learning from prior mistakes, about being the best you can be.
Now as the dust settles across the swing-states in the US, both parties will “dig for the gold”, that invaluable insight on the changing voter demographics, socio-economic factors, or other elements that impacted the result. Then it’s time to sit down and have a good think about what they will need to do differently, how they intend to win the next time country goes to the polls, and drive some corrective action.
It’s not just a rust-belt anymore, there’s gold to be found there after all.
Digital Distance are ready and able to engage quickly, providing a scalable and virtual win/loss analytics service. Please contact us for a free consultation and to discuss your specific requirements, and we will be happy to provide a competitive quote for this game-changing digital service.