Blog

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Honey I Shrunk the Pipeline… What Lower Deal Flow Can Mean for Win / Loss Analysis

This blog was written by Zach Golden, Director of Client Management at Anova.

At the foundation of any win / loss program is the raw input: deals.

When deal volume declines, though, it poses critical challenges to the success of any win / loss program. The chief risks are limited analytic capabilities and challenges in trend identification as small sample sizes make it harder to distinguish between actual trends and random occurrences.

However, for companies who still want to commit to the values of having an ongoing win / loss program, there are ways to maximize the value of feedback, even if the number of deals in your pipeline seems to be on a more limited scale:

• Focus on qualitative feedback over quantitative statistics: even Jeff Bezos thinks anecdotes can be the way to go
• Get multiple perspectives from accounts: interview both a decision maker and champion, or an executive and a day-to-day
• Get 360° feedback from a deal: combine feedback from the prospect with feedback from the seller
• Collect full customer journey feedback: combine new business feedback with customer experience or churn feedback

Limited deal flow doesn’t mean a company can’t achieve the value of win / loss. If anything, it means any feedback you get is likely going to be more representative of your overall pipeline. Keeping that in mind, focusing on qualitative findings, and searching for other opportunities for feedback can help businesses still achieve positive impacts from their program.