Cam England for Product Marketing Community Video Testimonials

Speaker: Cam England, Sales Manager, Clozd

Cam England: when trying to increase by in or excitement at your organization for a win loss analysis program. Oftentimes the right approach is to start small and grow the program from there ideally you want to have a mature, robust program in place where you're getting full pipeline coverage, meaning each time an opportunity is closed out by the sales team, you're reaching out to the via or decision maker at that opportunity to ask them to participate, either in a win loss interview or in a win loss survey. Now, before you get to that step, you may have to start small and grow the program from there. The recommendation when starting with a small, targeted win loss program is to align that with some sort of key business initiative or interest. Now, what that could look like is maybe internally there's been discussions and frustrations related to a certain competitor and questions around why are we losing deals to this specific competitor? Well, that's a great use case to go and collect recently closed opportunities where you know that competitor was involved to conduct that win loss pilot and bring back to the business. Actionable information around how you're competing against that competitor. Where do you perform well, where do you fall short? Another common approach is to take a regional look or focus with these wind lost pilots. Maybe historically you've performed very well in the United States in terms of a strong win rate and you want to increase your win rate or increase your market share in europe. Well, that's another great use case go and target recently, close opportunities in europe to run your analysis to speak with your buyers and better understand why are we winning and losing in europe? What are we doing? Well what do we need to improve And what are the differences we're seeing between europe and are higher win rate in the United States for example by tying your win loss pilot with these key business initiatives. It helps demonstrate the action ability and the insights that are attainable through a win loss program on a very targeted section of your pipeline and starts to paint the picture for other stakeholders of how this program can be expanded to give you complete pipeline coverage and then increase the amount and volume of insights that you're getting through your program? The other caution. Our recommendation that I would make is to also not be a bottleneck with the win loss information. The quickest way to kill a win loss program is to not democratize or share out the findings with relevant parties and individuals. The incredible thing about win loss analysis is it gives you such rich feedback that's applicable across the business, giving you insight into your I. C. P. Who's buying this product? Who do we have the most success selling to? What are the action drivers that lead them out to market in the first place? What do they look for in a solution? What do they wish they saw in the market from a functionality perspective what is it like engaging with our sales team? Where's the room for improvement when it comes to interacting with our sales team? So much rich information that has applicability to so many different teams within your company, actual feedback for product, for marketing, for sales, for the compete team, for the pricing team and so by not being a bottleneck and democratizing that data, getting it into the hands of the correct individuals help speed up the process that much more of making sure that you are securing that buy in for a larger, more robust win loss program.

Cam England: the question of how can win loss analysis helps salespeople is a fun one because it can be answered in so many different ways. If you even take a step back and think about the goal or objective of a win loss program. Well, what you're trying to do is understand why do we win as an organization? Why do we lose as an organization? And what can we change or do differently in order to win more? Now? That answer of what can we change or do differently in order to win more may have an impact on many different teams within an organization. It could be helping your marketing team refine the content and messaging that they're producing. It could provide insights to help your product team better. Taylor and hone their product roadmap to align better with your market. It could have an influence on the pricing team, helping them realign pricing and packaging options to better suit different customer needs, regardless of which of these teams. Your win loss program is helping no one has more to gain than salespeople because again, the whole goal of a win loss program is to win more. Now, as you think about sales people specifically and how win loss analysis programs can benefit them more directly. There's a couple of different ways that you can think about it. And this is definitely a non exhaustive list. But my favorite one is it gives sales reps the winning recipe by analyzing why you're winning opportunities as well as why you're losing opportunities. It helps you replicate the success of your peers as well as watch out for different roadblocks or stumbling blocks that you and other reps have run into so that as you move forward, you can take those learnings double down on those strengths and those reasons why you're winning and help avoid those pitfalls that have caused you or your fellow reps to struggle in the past. The other powerful insight that win loss programs can provide is the best source of competitive intelligence. That's because through a well run win loss program, you're going directly to buyers to decision makers at recently won and lost opportunities to understand their perception not only of your organization but of the competitive landscape as a whole. There's not a better or more important source of competitive intel than your buyers and by understanding how they perceive you and your competitors, you can better tailor your talk tracks and your strategy to help you win more. The other impact that a win loss program can have, both for an individual sales rep as well as a sales leader is by providing coaching strategy and identifying areas of weakness that individual reps or teams need to have addressed. So it can really help you tailor and hone in on your coaching and development strategy that as a leader or as an individual rep you need to see implemented in order to win more. The other benefit that I'll highlight that oftentimes gets overlooked is for new reps robust win loss programs can be a great tool to decrease ramp type when you have direct buyer feedback that walks through what leads buyers out to market in the first place. What are they looking for in a solution? What are they like or dislike about different vendors or different solutions that they're evaluating? That is such a rich and great source of information to help you understand as a new sales rep, what you need to know about the market and get you on your feet even quicker and prepared to start closing meaningful deals. So, again, not an exhaustive list, but some of the key ways that win loss programs can have a very direct positive effect on sales people.