Clozd: We're here to talk about how Precisely has been using win-loss feedback to build a culture around feedback with transparency and growth as a mindset. Pat, can you tell me a bit about your role? What does being chief revenue officer of a company like Precisely entail?

Pat McCarthy: Yeah, I'm responsible for, I would say, the growth of the company. So everything that deals with how we grow the company, and really the bulk of the customer interaction. So how we engage with clients through expanding existing solutions, how they're using our technology, and what opportunities they have to use new technologies—and then also the renewal aspect of the business.

And why do you use win-loss analysis at Precisely?

I've had a long experience with using win-loss for myself as an account executive—when I would call clients if I lost to get feedback—or I experienced it internally where I would do that or I'd have marketing do that function. And I always found the feedback to be valuable, but the thing that I was always thinking about is that I could see the conversations or see the feedback, and it always felt like it came from a bit of an angle—the angle of the person that was actually doing the conversation. So we really decided that using third-party feedback would deliver on our full objective, which is to really understand why did we win, why did we lose, and how do we increase our win rate—and then to understand the opportunities we have to improve where we have some weaknesses, or didn't really understand the customer's buying behavior, or the buying patterns that were happening.

Why is it important for you to use a third party?

The objectivity, which I think is very difficult. I can go back to when I was doing my own win-loss conversations. If I looked back at that, I could see, no, that didn't really happen in that sales cycle. Or you guys missed this. So if you're involved in the event, it's almost impossible for you to not take some of that bias and direct or guide the conversation. We all want to win. We all want to come out on top. That's related to the losses, and then related to the wins also. When I saw the feedback, it was a lot about the person or the individual, versus necessarily the broader context of what the customer was doing and why the customer was doing it. And so, going back to my comments around third-party objectivity, a third party has a different goal or objective for win-loss feedback.

Thinking outside of your own team and your own department, how do others at Precisely use win-loss data?

When we started this, it was a partnership between myself and the chief product officer. And so we came together and said, ‘Hey, this would be really good for some specific product segments for us to double-down and do that.’ And so we've continued that. So product management, product marketing, engineering, solution engineering, pricing, and others in the organization—and sales teams obviously use the feedback and functionality. It's worked its way back into how we design products, how we price and package, how we talk about ourselves, how we understand what the customer buying patterns and behaviors are.

Have you had any challenges to adoption of win-loss data across the different teams—any sort of pushback from others?

I wouldn't say it's pushback. I think the thing that I've seen is probably selective digging and grabbing of the data, selective insights. One of the other goals that I have for win-loss data is that sometimes it can be about a deal, but I'm generally looking for bigger patterns for strengths and bigger opportunity areas. And so one of the things I've encouraged is that the teams don't grab that verbatim and then bring that back as, ‘Hey, this is the reason why this happened, or this is the reason why this happened.’ Try to look at things in a bigger context, in a broader context. That being said, if you see things that are real opportunities and you think are diamonds, you should definitely work on those. Or if you see some opportunity areas that you're really worried about, you should dig in on those things. But don't let single points, or a single sentence, or a single comment drive too much of what the direction is. Look for a corpus of data, or a corpus of insights that help guide the organization.

How has Precisely taken that broader view of consuming this feedback? How do you take these interviews and make them into something that's more data-driven?

I think two things. Number one is that we've had [Clozd] come and personally update our executive leadership team and give insights more broadly across the organization. So that creates some top-down adoption pressure in the organization.

And the other item that we're doing is we're doing a win-loss day. We're doing our own version of a win-loss day where we're bringing in marketing, support, engineering, solution engineers, sales teams, and bringing them together to focus on, we're going after three product segments or three product categories and say, ‘Hey, what are the strengths that we have that we're not using enough?’ And so we're focusing on three strengths and one opportunity. What are the strengths that we can see that we're not using consistently enough that will help increase our win rate? And then what's the one opportunity area that we should really be conscious of? Maybe it's competitive, maybe it's price point, maybe it's a feature or a function, maybe it's a geographic difference. So bringing that multifunction, multidiscipline team is increasing the exposure of the win-loss feedback and content, and it's giving it some real purpose. It's putting it into a specific set of actions.

In terms of who should be on those teams to consume the feedback, how do you decide who to bring to the table to work on designing these conclusions or action steps?

We were looking for all the interested stakeholders—people who can take action or would have control over things. Obviously we like engineering and product management to be in there, because they can look at the feedback we're getting around features and functions or UX design. We like some product management also in there, maybe for pricing or packaging. Feedback helps our marketing team for how we're talking about it, and sales for how we’re actually engaging with the clients. And then solution engineering for how we’re demonstrating the solutions, and professional service for how we’re implementing. So it's the full lifecycle of the customer's experience—touching the product, getting the product live, renewing the product, using the product.

Who do you feel should be accessing or consuming this feedback at your company?

Well, I'd like everybody to do it. I don't think everybody has a role in doing that, but if you're building something that is going to be consumed by a customer, if you're engaging with a customer, then I feel like you should be using some form of the win-loss feedback. Probably not in there listening to the recordings every day, but certainly being aware of the aggregated content. What are our opportunity areas that we need to work on, and what are the areas that we need to double-down on and really accelerate our strengths? And that's one of the things also: Win-loss programs sometimes can focus on the loss aspect of it versus the strength aspect of it. And so it’s also important to keep the organization focused on, ‘Hey, let's make sure that we're taking this opportunity and focusing on our strengths and expanding on our strengths versus getting so wrapped up in the lost data.’

Thinking of a culture of safe feedback consumption, how have you made this democratized access feel safe for everybody as they view the perspective of the customers in their various roles?

We don't let it get weaponized. Sometimes win-loss feedback, particularly negative feedback, can get weaponized. I mean, obviously if we see something egregious, we're going to have some conversations, but the real intent here isn't that an AE gets some loss feedback and then the first-level sales manager goes off and has a tough conversation with that person. That should make its way back into enablement. It should be a developmental conversation if there's opportunity, because as soon as you start weaponizing it and using it to go pound on people, it loses its effectiveness. You start to see people not wanting their deals to make their way into the program.

We want to see all the feedback, so we don’t exclude any opportunities. But if you have this culture where people are getting pounded for negative feedback or for a loss, it's just going to create a culture where people don't want to participate and don't want to take corrective action.

Do you have some examples of any positive outcomes that have been driven, backed, and supported by your win-loss efforts?

Yeah, I think there's two really relevant ones for us. There's a pricing and packaging scenario related to the entry point price for one of our solutions, where we noticed that we got some pretty consistent feedback that if the customer wanted to start very small, there was a barrier to entry there. So we made some adjustments in the price point and the entry for that, and it's been very effective. And then the other one was that we noticed that EMEA versus the US—and so Europe versus North America—we saw some distinct differences in win rates, particularly related to demonstration and demonstration feedback and how we were talking about the solution. And so we did some collaborative sessions there to gather feedback and then bring those processes and bring those demonstration routines back to the US and really influence the win rate in that particular product.

Thinking through the perspective of someone who's bringing win-loss to the organization for the first time, what were some of the most effective ways that you were able to establish this culture and this mindset from the get-go from your role and position on the executive team?

I think it was getting all of my peers aligned around that—and I took it to our CEO also. The first step is making sure that everybody understood what we were going to do, why we were going to do it, how we were going to use the data and the content.

And then number two is providing regular feedback as the results start to come in—and encouraging them to log in and to check the data and the content. And again, some top-down pressure from them related to their teams. Are they using the feedback? How is it influencing the decisions they're making and the content they're producing? And then continuing it to evolve the win-loss day and other things. There's no magic to it—it’s just this consistent drum beat. And then I feel like it builds momentum until it just becomes part of the DNA of the organization.

I think for us also, it helped us to get a little more candid about ourselves in multiple ways. The good things we’re doing that we need to multiply in the opportunity areas. I think it's this culture of trust around, ‘Hey, this is feedback that we're going to use ourselves to accelerate the areas where we have some advantage, and then look for how we're going to work together to maybe cover our flanks, or to understand how we need to be positioning ourselves differently.’

Are there any final thoughts you have about establishing culture when it comes to buyer feedback?

Yeah, I mean, I think people want to win. People want to be on winning teams. People want to grow, but sometimes they don't want the coaching or the feedback that's required in order to be able to do that, and they don't necessarily want that on a consistent basis. But that changes if you have the right intent. We're trying to improve the business outcomes for our customers. We're trying to improve the business outcomes for ourselves, and we're going to do this together. It's not like I'm going off and I'm doing these win-loss things and sending you off on your own. I’m in this with you to drive this together. That has been a very effective approach for us.

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