Win-loss for sales: Why every sales team needs win-loss interviews.

Braydon Anderson:

All right. We'd to welcome everyone now to the webinar today. We're excited to have you here with us. We're going to give everyone just a few minutes to join. And we'll plan to start in about two to three minutes.

However, while we wait, you can actually enter into our sweepstakes for a chance to win some Clozd swag. So, you can see the URL there. But simply go to clozd.com/webinarsurvey. Take the brief survey about your win-loss program. And you'll be entered in to a sweepstakes to win. We'll plan to randomly select five winners.

All right. Thanks to everyone that entered into the sweepstakes. We'll keep the survey open throughout the webinar for those who haven't had a chance to take it yet.

But now, let's get started with the webinar. To start, we have a few housekeeping items. First, this webinar is being recorded and we'll actually email the recording to all of you afterward. And then second, due to time constraints, unfortunately, we won't have time for live Q&A. However, if you do have questions for the guests, please submit them to the chat box and we'll just respond via email later on.

So, let's get started. We're excited to talk about win-loss analysis and specifically, how win-loss interviews can be a value to sales leaders. Because of that, we invited three sales leaders that have extensive sales experience and experience with win-loss programs.

So, I'd to introduce myself and our guests. So, first of all, my name is Braydon Anderson, currently I oversee sales, operations and marketing at Clozd, which is a provider of win-loss services in technology.

Our first guest is Josh Ellars, who is the head of marketing and enablement at OpenGov based in Redwood City, California. We're also joined by Dave Osborne, who is the area vice president on the enterprise team at Qualtrics based in Provo, Utah. And our third guest is Shawn Lane, a general manager at E2open, based in Austin, Texas. We're excited to have them here to share their thoughts on the benefits and best practices of win-loss analysis.

To begin, I'd to briefly set the stage on what win-loss analysis is. So, simply put, win-loss analysis is the process of systematically tracking and analyzing the reasons why you win and why you lose sales opportunities.

Rigorous win-loss analysis helps companies validate their strengths and identify areas where they can improve in order to increase their sales win rates. For B-to-B organizations that sell sophisticated solutions, a win-loss interview with the buyer, is really the most effective method for learning why a deal has won or lost. Firms like Clozd specialize in these kinds of interviews.

In most cases, these conversations with buyers lasts about 20 to 30 minutes and drill into many areas, including the product or solution offering, the sales experience, pricing and packaging, the competitive landscape, et cetera. Clozd then delivers these insights back to our clients via innovative software, making it easy for users to consume and really share the findings across the organization. These insights from these interviews enable organizations to fill critical product gaps, refine their pricing strategies, optimize sales messaging, track competitive and market trends, fix sales execution problems, and more. In fact, according to one Gardner study, rigorous win-loss analysis can help organizations to improve their win rates by as much as 50%.

So, Clozd was founded in 2017 to really bring a new perspective, a new technology to the win-loss base. And we've been fortunate to design and deliver win-loss programs for the three companies that are represented by our guests here today. So with that, what we'll actually do is jump into some questions with our guests about the benefits of win-loss interviews, particularly for sales leaders, as well as hear their tips and suggestions for those who are looking to implement win-loss for the first time at their organization.

So, our next guest is Dave Osborne. So, Dave is the area vice president on the enterprise team at Qualtrics, which is the leader in experience management software. Dave brings a lot of experience to the table today, and we're really lucky to have him. Through his career, he's gone from being an account executive to a sales team lead, to running one of the largest sales teams at Qualtrics. He's been instrumental in growing Qualtrics' revenue and really being key contributor to helping individual sales reps learning the skills necessary to succeed. So, Dave, thanks for being here today.

Dave Osborne:

Yeah. Thanks for having me Braydon.

Braydon Anderson:

Of course. Well, let's dive into it. So, a question we get often is, in your experience, do you feel or think that sales reps really have a good understanding as to why they win or lose deals?

Dave Osborne:

Well, I think most reps think they know. I think a lot of the good ones are close enough to the deal that they can sense when things are going sideways. But I think that when you look at just the course of being a salesperson, there's always going to be surprises, right? And so, and especially when you look at a company that's growing and when you look at scale, right? Truly understanding what's happening in the marketplace is hard to put your finger on, right? So, you need to be really objective on how your approach this in my experience.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. It seems if they're reps, that maybe you trust, that they might have a good sense to it, but there are other reps, especially as you have a large sales organization that maybe it's not so much the case, you just need some more objectivity. Is that accurate?

Dave Osborne:

No, I mean, that's perfect. That's exactly the case. Right? I think that like I said, when you're working really close to a deal and you can get sense of, maybe you have some champs that can help give you some coaching there and it can become pretty clear. But like I said, I think there are times where, maybe just work out exactly how you thought and really diving into that detail.

And like I said, especially at scale, right? When you're doing as many transactions as Qualtrics does globally, it's a way to actually capture and understand that feedback and see how that can be seen in a timeframe, is really helpful for us to develop our go-to market strategy and also our products strategy. Right? There's a lot changing and a lot happening at Qualtrics. So, having visibility to that really helps shape how we work in a really complex and competitive environment.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. I love that. So, you've got a lot of experience, Dave. You've been at Qualtrics about 10 years.

Dave Osborne:

Yeah.

Braydon Anderson:

Individual contributor to leading teams. So, whether it's been one of your deals or maybe someone on your team, have you ever been surprised to lose a deal? And do you have an example of that?

Dave Osborne:

Well, I'm sure people love airing their dirty laundry. I'm sure. Yeah. Sure, absolutely. I think anybody who says they haven't, I think is lying or they haven't been doing it long enough. So yeah, I think an example, I could tell you a recent one that was obviously heartbreaking is, we had a rep who actually used to work at the company that he was calling on. So, he knew the company really well, a lot of the contacts were still there, so he had a great understanding of the politics, had relationships, he golfs with these guys on weekends. So, he really had a-

Braydon Anderson:

It's a golden opportunity.

Dave Osborne:

It seemed like a really, really good thing. Right? So, we were able to shape the RFP. We knew exactly what the outcomes were looking to drive from a business perspective, as well as a technical perspective. We felt we were really primed. It felt this was a no brainer for us. Right? So, we were down selected in the RFP, not surprised by that. We figured we were pole position. And then, a week or two, after the presentation, we went learnt that we lost it, which was a huge gut punch. Right? A big surprise.

And the feedback that we got was, that we leveraged a partner strategy that wasn't really jiving with their company culture. Right? And so, Qualtrics is an SAP broadly, is the gigantic companies, right? And so, when you're working on some of these large transformation initiatives, it's pretty common that you work with a partner. And in this particular situation, the customer is looking for one throat to choke. Right? And so, us coming in with our offering, coupled with a partner, it didn't really jive with what they're looking for. And the other vendor was going to do soup to nuts, from implementation to the tech, to the advisory, and ongoing maintenance and support was going to be done internally by them, which was just important to them. And that was just something that we missed.

Braydon Anderson:

So, using one contact rather than 10 different partner contacts is the biggest thing for them?

Dave Osborne:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a complex thing, right? So, I think when you're looking at partners strategy, it's the timing which you're introducing the partner and how you're shaping the offering, the coupled offering together. But like I said, we felt that it was a really strong offering, that us with this partner was going to be a one plus one equals three situation. And in this particular instance it wasn't. And so, we had a hypothesis in terms of why we weren't selected. But I think it's critical that we seek to go confirm and understand exactly, and take inventory of what went wrong and what can we use to hopefully take this as a learning opportunity and make sure that we can course correct and apply it on more broadly to the org.

Braydon Anderson:

Totally. Yeah. Hopefully, I'm sure this is an interview we'll end up conducting for you guys and giving you that feedback.

Dave Osborne:

Sure.

Braydon Anderson:

So, looking forward to it. Well, that's great. And I think you've given a lot of good perspective here on the value of win-loss, but especially when it comes from an individual standpoint. So, I'm curious from your perspective, what are the benefits of win-loss at scale?

Dave Osborne:

Great question. So, I think in my experience, so at Qualtrics we're in a unique opportunity, right? So, we are creating a category called experience management, which is a new category, right? Pioneer in the marketplace. So, in terms of understanding, what works and what doesn't work from a customer outcomes perspective, from a product strategy perspective is still a work in progress, right?

Braydon Anderson:

Sure.

Dave Osborne:

So, it's a new category. It's becoming a highly competitive category that it's a race to see who's going to be the category king.

Braydon Anderson:

Sure.

Dave Osborne:

So, as we look to all these repetitions that we're doing and all these deals that we're running, if we can start to see the trends in what's happening across these different deals, we'll be much better poised to win that category. Right?

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. A lot of stake.

Dave Osborne:

There's a lot at stake. There's a lot of stakes. So, when you look at... Obviously, there's benefits to understanding, like I said, taking inventory of an individual deal, what can we learn? But when you extrapolate that across multiple deals globally, and understanding trends in international markets trends in different verticals, it starts to be really, really compelling. And we can adapt and shift really in real time on the fly to make sure that we are delivering the most relevant and competitive and compelling offer in the marketplace.

Braydon Anderson:

That's awesome. Yeah. That's great. Love the feedback there. Well, Dave, this has been really good. A lot of good insight around win-loss and what you guys are doing at Qualtrics. And that's actually one thing I love about the Qualtrics program, is just how broad it is.

And so, I guess the final question I'd have for you is, what are some tips or best practices that you would give to other sales leaders, maybe specifically around win-loss?

Dave Osborne:

I think my advice would be, dive in headfirst. And this may be just unique to Qualtrics. Our reps are hungry for this feedback, right? I mean, if we lose a deal, and candidly, if we win it, I mean, our reps sign up for these wins. They really volunteer their deals because they want to have that information. They look at it as an opportunity to make themselves better.

Braydon Anderson:

Interesting.

Dave Osborne:

Right? So, I think it's something that as a sales leader, I think can be embedded into the culture. I think if you have a culture of constantly trying to grow and improve, I think that's healthy. And if I were to think to other orgs, I think maybe there's a misconception that win-loss survey is a witch hunt. We're trying to hunt down somebody and say, point fingers and cast blame.

Braydon Anderson:

Right.

Dave Osborne:

And I think when done, that's a really toxic way to approach it. And I don't think that really helps solve problems. So, I think if you could look at it in the nature of being transparent and looking to grow and change, and like I said, make it an important part of the culture, it can be a huge value add you know, both from a go-to market motion, but also in just understanding how should we be enabling our salespeople, right? From a training perspective. Where should we be investing our time and resources internally, as well as externally? So, lean in, that's my advice.

Braydon Anderson:

I love it. Yeah. That's what I love about, again, the Qualtrics program is, you guys have so many users in our portal to receive access to this data, because again, you guys are just trying to learn how to improve. And I think that's the right mindset to have. That this it's not a witch hunt. We're not trying to find the people that are doing everything bad, so we can fire them. It may be the case at times, but that's an extreme case. But most of the time it's, how can we just improve and get better at selling?

So, I love the advice, Dave. So again, thanks for being here. I appreciate all your insights and everything. And so, we'll let you jump. So, have a good one, Dave.

Dave Osborne:

Thanks, Braydon.

Braydon Anderson:

Awesome. Well, we're not fortunate to speak with and hear from Josh Ellars. Josh, it's great to have you with us today. Thanks for being here.

Josh Ellars:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Braydon Anderson:

Of course. Yeah. So, just as a quick background, Josh currently leads the head of marketing and enablement at OpenGov, who is the leader in budgeting and performance technology in the public sector. Josh is also the founder of Patri, which provides technology and services to help companies do more business with the global public sector.

Let's dive into it. I think the first question that I'd have for you, is just thinking about win-loss and the sales process in general. From your experience, do you feel sales reps know why they win and lose deals?

Josh Ellars:

And that's a fantastic question. That's a question I've grappled with for a number of years, as I've tried to build predictable revenue streams for companies. And I found sometimes the reps do know, and most of the time they do not know. And I think a big reason for that is, reps are so close to the opportunity and so close to the deal, and so intimately involved in all of the details that they do not have the macro view to really assess why a deal might be going sideways, why a deal might be lost in time.

And I've found over the years that I've needed help, I've needed third party insight, either from a colleague or someone outside the company to really assess the process, assess the details. And again, some of the times they do, the reps that are really focused on maybe a smaller set of opportunities, understand why. But as the volume grows, the opportunity for miscommunication and missteps, and misdiagnosis continues to rise.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. That's good. So, I'm curious then, in your experience, whether it's been in the sales leadership role or as an individual contributor, have you ever been surprised to lose a deal? And if so, can you share an example of that?

Josh Ellars:

Yeah, absolutely. I cringe and I cry a little bit when I think about this, because as you mentioned-

Braydon Anderson:

I think we all do.

Josh Ellars:

Yeah. It's tough, right? Because I've specifically, I've served public sector, right? Government education. And there are some major differences between private and public sector, but I do believe there are commonalities that we can talk through. So, in many cases across the board, there are procurement and contracting, and other issues that can arise that you have to really snuff out before they do, if you want to close a deal.

I always talk about the back end of the sales process being as stringent and as difficult as the front end. When you're really trying to get the technical win in a public sector sale, you achieve that technical win, and then you have to go win the procurement. And I've called it a sales process mullet, if you will, where I have sales reps that are really tied on the front end, a business in the front and then it's party in the back as it relates to the decision process of procurement.

Braydon Anderson:

I love that.

Josh Ellars:

And a lot of my deals that I was left at the altar with, had to do with that backend process. So, I have an example with the state government and in the Northeast, where I drove the process relatively well on the technical front, not like I was actually going pretty well in procurement and contracting, and navigating all of that. And a few days before the deal was supposed to close, I got left at the altar. And found out afterwards that there was a major procurement contingency that I did not apply my company's software too. And I got left at the altar. And I had forecasted that deal as a commit deal. And I've had several of those over the years. And I've really worked hard to try to identify the drivers for each state and their procurement contracting language.

But that stung. And I've seen that continuously, especially among the public sector salespeople, when we don't see the full spectrum of procurement red tape that we have to go through and have a plan to navigate, we always, if we're not careful to fall short on getting the sale.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. Yeah. I think back to one of my examples, where I thought for sure we were going to close this deal when I was an individual sales rep. And it would have made me hit quarter for the quarter. And we thought we had it, and they just went dark on us. And to this day, I still have no idea if they went with a competitor, if they did nothing. And did we just botched the sales process? So, it's a terrible feeling to just be surprised to lose a deal, especially when it's that far down the sales cycle, if you think you've got it, and then just, like you said, I love the analogy, left at the alter. There's nothing you can do about it.

Josh Ellars:

Exactly.

Braydon Anderson:

And on top of that, from a win-loss perspective, how do you feel that effective win-loss can benefit, whether it's an individual sales person or maybe a sales leader, or the entire organization? I'd love your perspective there, Josh?

Josh Ellars:

Well, I can talk about these individually. Let's start with an individual salesperson. Each sales person that I've coached or managed, or worked with is at a different development area than another, right? We always try to homogenize everybody into the same bucket on sales teams, at least the companies I've worked with. And the reality is that there's a dynamic nature to each person, right?

And I think win-loss analysis in terms of benefiting an individual contributor is number one, we can gauge the specific needs of that individual person to apply to their development plan. For example, if I'm doing win-loss and I'm targeting, either it's on my team, I'm finding out that, "Wow, this person doesn't have the skills yet to navigate properly the procurement process." And I work with her colleague or his colleague, and find out that why, "You know what? Based on this analysis, you're not very good at discovery. You're getting left at the altar, if you will, before you then get to a technical win." So, that's at the individual level, right? Diagnosing competencies that are lacking, I think that's been key.

Braydon Anderson:

And then again, you said [inaudible] opportunity as a sales leader to even train them on those different key things. And now you have much more visibility as the sales leader to dive deep for those individuals, it seems like.

Josh Ellars:

That's exactly where I was going to go, in fact. As a sales team, I've managed multiple teams of various sizes. And the best training you can give the team is content that actually comes out from the market, from their prospects and from their customers, right? There's a lot of intel out there floating around about best practices and data, great tools like Gong io, and others that can diagnose within the process how well we're doing. That's all great. And we leveraged that.

However, intel from the prospect as to why something went sideways, carry 10X the weight of anything I could share. Right? So, "Hey, Bill, you know what? I found out from the prospect that you were a little loose on the procurement process. Didn't understand contracting. Let's work on that." "Hey, Jill, found out that we have some work to do in discovery." And by the way, the messaging of that is less big brother and more like, "Hey, we've got this opportunity to glean insights from these prospects. Let's work together to understand those insights and put a plan in place to get better with each of these skills."

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. So, I want to stop you right there, Josh, because you brought up a great point that I think a lot of sales leaders may be scared of. And I'd love your perspective on this. If a sales leader is worried, the win-loss might seem a witch hunt to find the bad sales reps. What advice would you give them? Can you elaborate on that a little bit more?

Josh Ellars:

Totally. It's at the outset of starting that program, there has to be an expectation alignment with the team, which means before you even launched the program, talk to the team about number one, "Hey, we're actually performing pretty well as a team. We need to go from good to great, and then great to excellent. And to get from great to excellent, we need some help. We need the market." Following the lean startup methodology, we do a research based approach to building something, which means we're going to go out to the market and let the market help us get better. And if you make it inclusive with that type of narrative messaging, the team buys into it, right? That's one area.

The inverse of that is, "Hey, you know what? I'm upset at the way our team is performing. We're going to go to your customers to get insights because we don't feel we have them as a team." That you could tell a stark difference between that messaging. So, I would always frame it about personal development, team improvement, and allowing this, again, the lean startup methodology. As I've tried to build these business units with companies, it's all about understanding what the market says and coupling that with your own insights, and then making a decision, versus having a single threaded decision by your insights alone.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. That's perfect. I love that response. Josh, I'd want to talk briefly just about you guy's win-loss program. So, as one of our customers, I'm curious what led to your decision and OpenGov decision to do a win-loss interview program?

Josh Ellars:

Yeah. Well, first and foremost, we're a market leader in multi-tenant SAS software for budgeting performance and communications, and now a permitting and licensing for government. We are the leader. And we are always high-performing. We're always trying to get better.

And for us, it was more about really understanding as the market matures in our specific sector, in a state local government, what are those buyers, finance directors, CIO, budget directors, and others, what are they actually seeing in the market? And how is our messaging aligning to those needs, those pains and priorities?

So for us, it was as much about improving the sales performance, as it was really understanding if our messaging is landing, as we work on our go to market strategy. So, that was really the impetus for us jumping into this program with Clozd, to really understand, is the messaging landing? What can we identify in the sales process that could be improved to accelerate the revenue for this fast growing company?

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. So, then the perfect follow-up question to that is, what actual insights has either your sales team or just the org in general gleaned from the win-loss loss interview so far?

Josh Ellars:

Well, a couple of things, a couple of very critical things. Number one, we have assertions. As I talked about before, we do not to make single threaded decisions. We have an assertion about a certain market that we've been going after, that we've been having some interesting conversations in. And deciding to go in a certain direction in that market, again, in a single threaded fashion, we actually found in the interviews that the prospects were corroborating exactly what we were suspecting. And we made the decision to double down on that market, right?

For us, it was more about, again, getting an informed, a double threaded decision, if you will, versus our single of assumption, right? It's one thing to have a hypothesis. It's another thing to have some evidence to support the hypothesis, and actually go to market with something tangible. So, that was one of them.

Number two, it's critical for us, especially a SAS company, technology company, that we are very good with messaging or the value proposition of our product as it relates to circumventing and relieving the pain points of our customers and our prospects. And really again, to the messaging comment before, we actually found some incredible insights as it relates to messaging that's working and messaging that is not working, and then forming our 2020 plan in fact, as we worked to build out the go-to market strategy for the company.

Braydon Anderson:

So Josh, this has been super helpful. Just our last question. What tips or best practices would you give to other sales leaders, especially when it comes to win-loss analysis?

Josh Ellars:

The first thing I would say is this, if you want to improve your team, if you want to prove your managerial performance, it's okay to ask for help. And leveraging a third party like Clozd to do this analysis, be that trusted advisor in the market is critical. Because oftentimes, and I've fallen into this, I've thought I've had all the answers. I really thought I had a good grasp on the market, my customers and my prospects, my messaging, my positioning, the pain points in our solutions. And the reality is, going back to the lean startup methodology, we should not do anything in sales teams, unless we've first done the research to get there. And sometimes that research does include a third party assistant, like the Clozd, right? And sometimes we do that on our own and that's okay. But diversify the outreach in terms of how you see the market and how the market sees you. So, that's number one. It's okay to ask for help.

Number two, I would say this, it's vital that when you get the insights that you implement changes associated with the insights. It does no good to glean insight and glean intel, and not have action around it. Right? So, you have to commit yourself to, number one, be okay getting help. And then number two, implementing the insights that you've gleaned from that assistance.

Braydon Anderson:

I love it. There's nothing getting great insights and then just letting it sit on someone's hard drive, and not really doing anything with it. So, great advice.

Josh Ellars:

Exactly.

Braydon Anderson:

Well, Josh, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your time today. We'll let you jump. And we'll go on to our next speaker. But again, thanks a lot for being here.

Josh Ellars:

All right. Thank you so much.

Braydon Anderson:

Great. So, our last speaker is going to be Shawn Lane. So, Shawn, currently serves as GM of discreet manufacturing for E2open. In this role, he has P and L responsibility for $120 million business unit, including sells delivery and support.

Shawn, has actually spent the last 22 years running sales and marketing teams for a number of fast growth enterprise software companies, such as RedPrairie, Servigistics, and [inaudible] Technologies. So Shawn, thanks for being here with us today.

Shawn Lane:

Thanks for having me.

Braydon Anderson:

From my perspective, I love to understand a little bit more about, you've got a ton of sales experience in your past. So, in that experience, have you, yourself ever been surprised to lose a deal? And do you have maybe an example of that?

Shawn Lane:

Sure. Yeah. I think everyone has been in a position where they've been surprised. And as a sales leader, it's really unnerving on your credibility with your board and your leadership. And it [inaudible] that credibility really quickly. But in most well-run sales teams, it's rare to have a complete surprise. You generally have a sense of what's going on.

I can give you one example where we were sure we would win. We were a shoe in. We were the only company, truly the only one that could meet all the customer's functional needs, and ask any references. And we thought our price was quite competitive. And we were approaching the end of the quarter. We were still having good conversations with the customer. I was forecasting it, and making promises. And suddenly they went silent. I think you've all been there. One week later, still [inaudible] phone calls, two weeks later. Finally, after a month we learned that they had gone with a really small competitor. And we were shocked we didn't get it.

It turns out once we hired Clozd to do an interview with them, we learned that the competitor convinced them that we couldn't meet their needs. It was lies and misinformation. But we were flat out sold. We realized that we just hadn't proved our unique qualities.

Here's the good news. We were truly the best solve for them. And based on that knowledge, we sent them emails and cold called, and convinced them that in the case of this supplier didn't make it, if they failed, we'd be a viable backup. And six months later, we sold the deal to them at a higher price deck.

Braydon Anderson:

No kidding. Okay. I like to hear that. I like to hear some good outcomes of, especially some of these win-loss interviews. It sounds like, getting out sold at the outset, but then just really keeping a good taste in their mouth at the conclusion of that deal. And really being able to outsell them down the road. That's awesome.

Shawn Lane:

Yeah. And I think the key there was to keep the good taste in their mouth, was to know what they believed to be true. We had to counter that misinformation from the start. And that was critical.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. That's great. So, just piling on top of that, I'm curious of your perspective with how can effective win-loss, benefits, whether it's an individual salesperson or maybe just the entire org, what's your perspective there?

Shawn Lane:

Yeah, I think it benefits everybody. In my experience with these 30% to 50% of the time, the reason you bought, you lost, isn't the reason at all. And I think it's really important that everybody in the org understands the true root cause. It's really easy to blame sales execution. And sure, sometimes that's the issue, but it could be product direction that needs support. It could be interactions with finance. It could be belief in the company strategy.

I can give you examples where we've turned on a dime our roadmap when we thought we were the best in the world at something, only to find out later, we weren't. This particular example, we had the world's greatest solver that could manage any complex business and come up with the best solution. And what we learned through interviews, is that what our customers really wanted at the time was to start simple. They wanted an algorithm that they could explain, not necessarily the best answer. And so, we had to pivot our product strategy to meet that need first.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. That's great. Now, I know E2open has grown a lot, and I think through a lot of acquisition, but also just natural growth. So, when it comes to win-loss, what were some of the factors that led you E2open deciding to do a win-loss program?

Shawn Lane:

Yeah, I think you hit it. We were growing up crazy. The last four years, we have grown a hundred percent year over year growth through acquisition. And when that happens, you have lots of new people and lots of new products. And you need to sustain that growth.

But when you grow through acquisition, you often forget what made you great in the first place, what these individual brands were famous for. And quite frankly, our win rates were lower than we liked. But we wanted to understand some other factors. We also wanted to understand, did the market value what we were doing? We were creating a combination of acquired companies to create a platform. And we wanted to know, did the market appreciate that?

And so, really that was the forcing functions, was to ensure that our strategy was right. And to ensure that we didn't lose the mojo that we acquired from these other companies.

Braydon Anderson:

That's really interesting. So, in that growth and with all these new employees, and you mentioned, I think a lot of this culture, so I'm curious, do you share the win-loss insights with your whole team, or is it just a couple of people? What does that look? Do you share the insights from the win-loss throughout E2open?

Shawn Lane:

Everyone sees the insights. Sometimes that's painful, but it's a good thing. We believe in a culture of transparency. We don't really believe in blame. When you're growing as fast as we are, you're going to make mistakes. And people can't get better unless they get feedback. And so, it is our belief that these are to be shared across the board, to the individual rep, to the managerial team and to other departments. And that's what helps us get better.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. So, I'm curious from your new experience, do you feel that you E2open could run this program themselves? Or why can't orgs do win-loss programs themselves? Why do they need to hire a third party to come and do these?

Shawn Lane:

So, I've tried that. I've tried to do it with having my marketing team do it. And I've tried it with using my private equity team to do it. And it doesn't work out as well. I don't believe that organizations can do it themselves.

And the first thing is that customers won't answer you the same way they will answer a third party. Most people dislike conflict and they don't want to hurt your feelings.

The second reason is that, I think you create a bias when doing the interviews. Internal people have built in biases, and they're going to hear the stories that match their perceptions. And they're probably going to ask the questions in a way that bends it. When I had marketing do it, I got answers that were very marketing oriented. Or the private equity team came in, it was all about price, finances. So I think there's a bias.

But we find that an outside firm will do a better job. But it's worth noting, even then customers will still hold the story to suit their own purposes.

Braydon Anderson:

Sure.

Shawn Lane:

And then this is why you hire a great firm. This is why I like you guys. The number one reason to hire the best possible firm is that a firm that will invest the time in learning your business and digging past a simple questionnaire, and ask multiple people in the organization, they're going to get better answers, and they're going to help you separate the truth from fiction. And that's just what you can't do yourself.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. And Shawn, I'll actually add one example from, I think he's your counterpart over in IMEA, Michael, he shares an example with us, where he actually interviewed one of your buyers after a loss deal. And he got a lot of great information from it. And then you guys had us go and interview that same buyer. And then when he read the transcript from our interview, I think he said, "We found out 75% more information than what he found out from talking to the exact same person." And so, I think there are a lot of factors that really play into that, obviously. But I just think that there's some good value to a third party coming in and being able to get some candor that you just may not get internally.

Shawn Lane:

Yeah, absolutely. And having the right people do it, that they can interpret the small words or signals, I think is really important.

Braydon Anderson:

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, Shawn, this has been awesome. The last question I'll have for you that I just love asking is just, what tips or best practices would you give to other sales leaders about win-loss?

Shawn Lane:

Get started. Do it sooner than you think you need to. Make it a continuous process, not a one-time project. It needs to stay fresh in the minds. And it's actionable information, and the sooner you get it. Find the best firm to do this and make sure they have a strong methodology. I've worked with four firms. It's night and day difference between the best and the worst. Ensure that they take multiple contact points. And don't just reach out to one count back in the account. And then invest your time to educate them well. Your win-loss partner will do a better job if you spend the time to explain your business to them.

And then I think probably my last point is, execute on wins and no decisions, as well as losses. We learned as much from our wins as we did from our losses. Because the customer finds it difficult to tell you why they actually selected you during a sales cycle, because they don't want to give you financial benefit in the negotiation. They will tell third parties. All right. Lose [inaudible] make yourself stronger.

Braydon Anderson:

I love it. Love every single one of those points, Shawn. Those are right on the money. So, really appreciate you giving us some of your tips and best practices here. I think this has been great for our audience today. And I really appreciate you taking the time. So, we'll let you jump. And again, thanks again for your time today, Shawn.

Shawn Lane:

Thanks so much. Talk soon.

Braydon Anderson:

Okay. Thanks.

Shawn Lane:

Bye.

Braydon Anderson:

Again, we'd like to thank our guests for their time meeting with us today and sharing their insights and best practices on win-loss. I hope this has been as beneficial for you as it has been for me. So, as I mentioned earlier, if you have any questions for any of the guests, feel free to shoot me an email at braydon@clozd.com and we'll connect you with the right presenter. So again, thanks for your time today, and hope you have a great day.

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