Did you notice how Mikel Arteta turned Arsenal from midtable to title challengers? It's because he used multiple data points to understand what his players were good at, what their shortcomings were and ultimately why they won (or lost) games - he used this analysis to improve the team, and win more games. In sales, we call this process a Win/Loss Analysis, and it's crucial if you want to win more business.
Win/Loss Analysis is the process of taking a sample of your recent deals, understanding why you won them – or more importantly – why you lost them, and using that knowledge to improve your conversion rates moving forward.
As we approach the end of the year, you’re likely to be looking ahead to 2025. Setting targets and planning how you’re going to achieve them. In this blog, we’ll be looking at the importance of Win/Loss Analysis in B2B sales, why it should be conducted before you start planning for 2025 and how you can carry one out yourself.
Win/Loss Analysis is a strategic tactic used in B2B industries to understand why deals were won or lost. It involves gathering feedback from internal and external teams to uncover patterns that influence the outcome of sales efforts, ultimately leading to more informed decision-making and better sales strategy.
Improves conversion rates: By identifying what works and what doesn't, sales teams can adjust their approach and messaging to align with customer needs and your sales strategy.
Enhance product offering: Insights from lost deals can highlight gaps in the product or service, driving improvements.
Benchmark against competitors: Win/Loss analysis reveals valuable information about competitors, helping companies refine their competitive positioning.
Reignite cold deals: By reaching out to cold deals, you increase the likelihood of restarting the conversation, picking up right where you left off - resulting in some quick wins.
Boosts sales training: The analysis provides specific feedback that can be used to train sales teams, improving future performance.
A Win/Loss Analysis is crucial for sales planning in 2025, because it provides actionable insights into sales success and evolving market trends. You’ll learn what generated you success in 2024 and where you fell short, as well as any new pains your customers are experiencing. This insight will give you the roadmap you need to win more next year and put your teams on the front foot to hit your targets.
Conducting a Win/Loss Analysis can often be overwhelming for many organisations, hopefully the steps below will help outline exactly how you should approach your analysis to help you get the best results.
Data Collection: Gather information on won and lost deals from your CRM, customer profiles and sales reports. Pick a mixture of won and lost deals and remember; you won’t get through to all of them, so have some back-ups ready.
Customer & Internal Feedback: Interview customers and prospects to understand their decision making and how their pains and drivers influenced them - using an external third party increases your chances of receiving unbiased, accurate feednack. Gather insights from your internal sales team on what worked and what didn’t work during the sales process, it could be lengthy proposal put them off, or a certain message pushed them through – try and figure it out.
Analyse Trends: Identify what the reoccurring themes are, around pricing, product fit, competition and pains. Make sure that based on these themes you can have actionable steps to improve next year.
Share Insights: Consolidate your findings into visible reports to improve your sales tactics, marketing campaigns and client management – make sure you’re all on the same page.
Implement & Review: Adjust your approach based on your findings, drill down into the details to find what works for your organisation to help drive new business.
Then repeat this process: Conducting a Win/Loss Analysis on a quarterly basis is the ideal timeframe to keep your conversion rates high as new pains and drivers emerge from across the industry – it will also help keep your organisation competitive!
If you’re looking for advice on how you can complete a Win/Loss Analysis effectively, or if you’re looking for an external team to carry an analysis for you, you can get in touch here.
Shortlist Marketing has recently just launched a trial version of Win/Loss Analysis, helping sales leaders get the insights they need to close new business. Learn more here.
More information on Shortlist Marketing’s Win/Loss Analysis and Lead Generation services can be found here: Our Services.