I have listened to a couple of interesting webinars recently around the changing role of sales people in B2B. I was listening to learn how this might change the composition of the Win/Loss analysis and Win/Loss questions. This was best addressed in a recent Pragmatic Marketing webinar, “Making the Perfect Match: Adapting to Your Buyer’s Process” presented by Larry Torri, VP of Sales at AssureSign, who has over 15 years in sales management.

Most agree with the Corporate Executive Board’s research that the purchasing decision is about 60% made before buyers contact your sales force. So your on-line presence is more important than ever. You need to push out information widely, and respond almost in real-time. Provide enough information on your website to answer common customer questions. Give buyers some guidance and have a resources page with white papers and calls to action throughout your website. You need to analyze web impressions such as your blog, your partners, your industry and social media especially the major places where buyers look: LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Google+ and how buyers find you through the major search engines like Google, Bing or your blog. Is there crowdsourcing where people can find out more about other buyer’s experiences with you and your competition? TrustRadius, IT Central Station, G2 Crowd and FindTheBest are examples in the IT space. In many companies Sales Development Reps (SDRs) qualify leads more specifically to pass on to sales people, using marketing automation to enable this lead generation like Eloqua, Hubspot, Marketo or Pardot among others. SDRs tend to be right out of school and stay in the job 12 – 18 months before they’re promoted to sales rep or leave the firm.

What does this mean for Win/Loss analysis?

Win/Loss analysis is more important than ever since sales people are brought into buyer’s decision-making quite late in the process. Win/Loss is another precious touchpoint with customers that is in person, usually a phone call a couple of months after the buying decision has been made. We need to include questions to understand their total decision-making process. Previously most of the Win/Loss interview focused on sales performance and behavior, which is still part of Win/Loss. However, since 60% of the purchasing decision is done before buyers contact sales, you need to ask how they researched your company. So you are querying around how well your company is marketing to capture business as a major part of Win/Loss.

• Where did they get their information?
• Which information influenced them the most? Why?
• Did our company educate you during the sales process or did you find the information somewhere else?

In one of my Win/Loss interviews, the customer told me that they had found a most informative white paper on a competitor’s website, but preferred our company’s solution. I suggested that my client write a white paper, and referenced the one that their customer had been influenced by. In Win/Loss analysis today you get more tips like that which you can almost immediately take action on. Make sure to ask probing questions about how they found your company, and which sources influenced them the most, so you know where to focus your resources.

Keep in mind that your SDRs can be most informative. They are dealing in the on-line world constantly as they qualify prospects to pass on to sales people. Make sure to share Win/Loss finding with them to engage them to share their thoughts and impressions on how customers find your company, and which sources seem to influence the buying decision the most for their best qualified leads.

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Filed under: Cooperative Intelligence, Denver, Ellen Naylor, win loss analysis | Comments Off on Aligning Sales and Marketing through Win/Loss Analysis