How much is one sales meeting worth to your business? This past weekend, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors successfully pitched superstar Kevin Durant to join their already-impressive roster led by reigning two-time MVP Steph Curry. Having both players is a huge advantage for Golden State, but the two could have also been part of another team: the list of athletes sponsored by Nike. Instead, Curry’s rise to fame has been all while donning the Under Armour logo on his shoes and clothes, leaving Nike officials to ponder how he got away. Curry’s story parallels much of what Anova finds in our past decade of B2B Win Loss Analysis. The lesson learned: Implementing a Win / Loss analysis program to conduct post-sale debriefs leads companies to be better positioned to improve future sales performance.
In a recent ESPN article, reporter Ethan Strauss unveiled details of the courtship for the reigning 2-time NBA MVP Curry by top sponsors Nike and Under Armour. Readers learned the cringe-worthy story of how one of the most iconic sports brands in the world lost an athlete worth an estimated $14 billion to one of their top competitors. However, readers may not have fully realized the similarities between Nike’s mistakes and the ones that occur in their own companies’ sales situations. Through the hundreds of Win / Loss interviews Anova conducts each month, trends of similar sales miscues emerge across all industries and deal sizes. Some mistakes are more prevalent than others, but all are avoidable. Let’s take a closer look at how Nike made several common sales mistakes and turned off one of their most promising young stars:
In 2013, Nike met with Curry, a current client at the time, in order to sign him to a contract extension. There was no reason why they shouldn’t have been able to; Curry had been wearing the iconic swoosh on his sneakers his entire life and on top of that, Curry’s godfather was an employee of the Oregon-based company. Still, Nike faltered when it was time to meet with Curry. Instead of bringing their top brass, Nike chose to not include one of their chief athlete advisors who had worked with other basketball stars such as LeBron James. The lack of executive attendees signaled to Curry that Nike did not feel he was important enough to warrant the heightened attention.
Anova has learned by conducting thousands of win / loss interviews that making a prospect feel valued is one of the most important drivers of a winning sales process. In the Curry situation, Nike started off on the wrong foot by not having the right personnel at the sales presentation and compounded the issue by not customizing the pitch properly. Included within Nike’s PowerPoint was a slide with Kevin Durant’s name instead of Curry’s, a sloppy error suggesting the presentation was merely reprocessed material used for another Nike athlete. Adding insult to injury, one Nike official was said to have mispronounced Stephen’s name. Between the recycled PowerPoint and calling Curry by the wrong name, Nike failed to make their client feel valued.
The inability to make a prospect feel important is consistently one of the top sales weaknesses cited by respondents in Win / Loss surveys. In this case, it cost Nike considerably. A failure to understand and address fundamental sales issues can be the difference between winning and losing a key deal, yet it still amazes heads of sales that these mistakes are occurring within their sales teams. In 2015 alone, Anova identified ineffective sales performance as a reason for losing bids in almost 50% of situations!
The real question is: How much is it costing your organization to make the same mistakes as Nike?
We live in a world consumed by data and analytics. Technology has allowed us to track and measure just about every activity in our lives, both personal and professional. We have the opportunity to gather data and use it to understand our decisions, efforts, and subsequent outcomes. But does it always have to come down to a cold, hard number? What about the experience behind the numbers?
Enter the art of conversation. Through one-on-one interviewing, research opens up and goes beyond the numbers and metrics. In-depth interviewing allows the experience to truly be heard… it tells the story behind the metrics.
Anova’s service offering aims to capture the entire experience – the metrics (hard data and analytics) as well as the open-ended commentary shared by the interviewee. Whether it be a Win Loss Analysis, Post-Implementation, Client Satisfaction, or Departed Client scenario, the interview is designed to go into the specifics and reveal the details that metrics may not be able to capture. These aspects include preferences, attitudes, tone, biases, and competitive comparisons. Simply put, the conversation says what numbers cannot.
The art of conversation is at its best when an interviewer is able to probe effectively. For example, although the interviewer begins every discussion armed with a customized questionnaire template, what often takes place is not a simple Q&A, but rather a deeper, richer conversation. Anova interviewers are trained to transform what may be initially a nondescript answer into a more detailed response by asking questions and probing such as:
The effectiveness of these probing questions are amplified when they are asked by an objective third-party. While a prospect or client may be hesitant to share details about their experience to someone with whom they have a relationship, often times they are more at ease revealing the unfeigned truth to a party understanding of their situation, yet not emotionally involved.
The customer’s voice plays an integral part in understanding and learning about the whole experience. That is why Anova’s reports not only present data and trends, but also support every finding with the interviewee’s verbatim responses during their conversation with our team.
Pure data offers one way to evaluate a single event, but when married to the art of the conversation, the research becomes more complete, and most importantly, more meaningful.
The truth hurts. However, most people would agree that in order to get better at something, you must fully understand where and what you need to improve on… otherwise known as the brutal facts.
It’s not just anecdotally. In his National bestselling management book Good to Great, Jim Collins dedicates an entire chapter to “confronting the brutal facts”. Collins substantiates that in order for companies to become great, they must be willing to learn the truth about what they are doing well, and more importantly, what they could be doing better. In fact, it is only after companies do this that they are able to hit an inflection point and begin the breakthrough process towards greatness.
Collins goes on to cite examples of corporations such as Pitney Bowes and Kroger who did not shy away from the brutal facts, but instead embraced hearing the truth about areas they could do better in; no matter how painful it felt initially. In the case of Pitney Bowes, senior executives encouraged their employees to come forward and tell them directly all of the issues clients had complained to them about. They were unafraid of hearing some of the searing commentary because they knew they would be better for it. The leadership team at Kroger made the tough decision to re-strategize their entire business model because they did not shy away from the facts of the grocery store industry changing beneath their feet. The result? Surpassing their competitors and becoming one of the preeminent consumer stores of the late 20th century (the book was published in 2001).
The organizations in Collins’ study that were deemed the most successful were ones who yearned to hear the brutal truth about their efforts while simultaneously having the conviction to know that they would be better for it. Why then, do so many people run from feedback on where they could be doing better?
In Anova’s experience, too often managers are worried the sales team and other members of their organization will resist the feedback if it is not positive. They decide to not collect data on how their company could improve because they are worried employees will view it strictly as an evaluation mechanism designed to judge their performance instead of a process to help them improve it.
On the flip side are companies that understand feedback does help. These companies seek the unbiased, unfiltered, “voice of the client” commentary on why their organization is winning and losing. These companies take the data collected, reflect on the findings, and implement real changes to try and fix potential issues. In 2015, 60% of Anova’s Win Loss Analysis clients saw a decrease in the frequency of mentions of their #1 area for improvement from the year before. These are organizations who have realized that in order to become more competitive, they must first hear what they could be doing better. These companies have accepted feedback as a major driver in organizational improvement. In the eyes of Jim Collins, these are great companies.
SalesForce knows a thing or two about selling B2B. So when Marc Benioff, CEO of SalesForce, talks about the challenges facing enterprise sales, we tend to listen. Here’s what Benioff said in the latest annual report for SFDC about the headwinds facing his own company:
“As more of our sales efforts are targeted at larger enterprise customers, our sales cycle may become more time-consuming and expensive, we may encounter pricing pressure and implementation and customization challenges, and we may have to delay revenue recognition for some complex transactions, all of which could harm our business and operating results.”
These challenges are familiar to any company selling to other businesses. As markets evolve and selling becomes increasingly challenging, sales leaders are searching for an added advantage to give their business the edge it needs. With that in mind, here is how a Win Loss Analysis program can help combat the challenges laid out above:
Longer Sales Cycles Requiring More Investment: Heads of sales are committing more dollars and more human capital towards growing sales. There is no better way to protect an investment in a sales force than by arming them with the intelligence they need to elevate their game. The feedback into what works, what doesn’t work, and what sales strategies other vendors are bringing to the marketplace is invaluable for any sales representative in today’s landscape. Anova estimates that less than 20% of U.S.-based companies utilize Win Loss Research as a feedback mechanism, making the knowledge gained through a formal program a notable competitive advantage.
Pricing Pressure on Products / Services: Whether it is a new or an established product line, prospects will almost always factor in costs to their buying decision. Win Loss Research specializes in extracting pricing information about all competitors and products in the market, and assesses how individual competitors’ value propositions are perceived by customers.
Product / Implementation Questions: Are the product features effective? Is the interface user friendly? Is the implementation process effective enough to get clients up and running in the timeframe they need? Are our clients having buyer’s remorse? These are all questions that impact client satisfaction and retention, and ultimately keep executives up at night. The open-ended Voice of the Client feedback captured in Win Loss studies has proven invaluable to business leaders as they launch new product lines or are checking in on existing services.
A Win Loss study isn’t a magic antidote to sales issues, but can be an effective tool in helping business leaders understand how their prospects perceive their company. In a recent study, Gartner estimated that a comprehensive program can increase win rates up to 50%! Given today’s challenging sales environment, the question shouldn’t be Why Win Loss Research? It should be How soon can we begin?
Welcome to the Anova Consulting Group Blog! Here at Anova, we pride ourselves in our Win Loss Analysis work helping companies understand why they are winning and losing business and how they can be more competitive in their respective marketplaces. Although our time is mostly spent working closely with our clients and focused on our research, we also have a lot of interesting thoughts that we would love to share with the rest of the world. Hence the birth of this blog.
The idea of this blog is to share industry trends, business perspectives, and even current events, all with a twist relating back to the core principles of our work: gathering feedback, making strategic decisions, becoming more competitive, etc. There may even be the occasional movie or book review, but we promise to keep the topics captivating and insightful. Remember to check back in frequently, and if you are not familiar with us, take some time to poke around the website and meet the Win Loss Research team.
We thank you and encourage any feedback or ideas you are interested in hearing our take on!
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Andrew Cloutier
Anova Consulting Group, LLC
(617) 731-1045
andrew@theanovagroup.com
BROOKLINE, MASS., April 13, 2016 – Anova Consulting Group, a leading provider of Win / Loss analysis and client satisfaction research to financial services, healthcare, and technology companies, announced today the appointment of an operations analyst, Steven Fantes-Emanuelson.
Steven assists the leadership and research teams with Win / Loss client reporting, content editing, and technology advancement. In addition, he works closely with Anova’s research team in helping to identify trends and creating reports across all programs such as Win / Loss analysis, client satisfaction, and intermediary perception programs.
Prior to joining Anova, Steven worked in the non-profit sector for over 15 years. He has a background in Arts Administration, Theatre Performance, and Theatre Education. Steven is a member of VASTA (Voice and Speech Trainer’s Association) and is an Equity Membership Candidate with Actor’s Equity Association.
“In 2015, Anova added 12 new clients across new industries and increased our total interview output by 35%,” said Richard Schroder, president of Anova Consulting Group. “To sustain our growth, we were looking to add an operational and administrative resource to support our leadership and research teams. Steven’s skills will help Anova continue to efficiently deliver high quality, actionable research to our clients. Client service is Anova’s top priority.”
Established in 2005, Anova Consulting Group is a leading market research and consulting firm focused on win / loss and client satisfaction analysis. By helping its clients understand why they win, lose, and retain business, Anova provides strategic perspectives driving better decision making, product development, sales effectiveness, client service, and continuous improvement. Richard Schroder, Founder and President of Anova, is author of a book titled From a Good Sales Call to a Great Sales Call (McGraw-Hill), which details how learning from post-sale debriefing helps close more future sales.
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Andrew Cloutier
Anova Consulting Group, LLC
(617) 731-1045
andrew@theanovagroup.com
BROOKLINE, MASS., March 17, 2016 – Today, Anova Consulting Group announced the addition of two new Executive Interviewers to its healthcare Win / Loss analysis practice: Lisa Hession-Kunz, Executive Interviewer; and Ellen Murachver, Executive Interviewer.
“In the last year, Anova increased the number of Win / Loss interviews we completed for our clients by 35%. A significant part of this growth happened in our healthcare practice, making it a priority to build out our Win / Loss research team.” said Richard Schroder, Founder and President of Anova.
Lisa joins Anova’s Executive Interviewer team with over 20 years or experience gathering insights to help businesses innovate and improve their processes, products, and services. Her experience ranges from market research and sales enablement to product launches and marketing communications across a variety of businesses and industries. Previously, Lisa was a Product Marketing Manager in the healthcare industry, most recently with Wolters Kluwer and Hologic. Lisa has also managed a variety of marketing, research, and analysis projects with a focus on determining needs and recommending solutions.
Ellen brings over 25 years of experience in medical and social research to her role as Executive Interviewer for Anova’s healthcare clients. Ellen’s career in research began as a consultant to Cornell University’s Department of Human Ecology and the Harvard School of Public Health. She later joined the staff of the Judge Baker Children’s Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School and a leader in children’s mental health services and research. Prior to joining the Anova team, Ellen worked at Partners HealthCare, where she used her extensive knowledge of clinical trial operations and human subject research as project manager of numerous trials investigating the innovative use of technology in healthcare delivery.
Established in 2005, Anova Consulting Group is a leading market research and consulting firm focused on Win / Loss research and client satisfaction analysis. By helping its clients understand why they win, lose, and retain business, Anova provides strategic perspectives driving better decision making, product development, sales effectiveness, client service, and continuous improvement. Richard Schroder, Founder and President of Anova, is author of the Win Loss Analysis book titled From a Good Sales Call to a Great Sales Call (McGraw-Hill), which details how learning from Win / Loss analysis interviews helps close more future sales.
You must have prior success selling conceptual services to senior management of mid-to-large size companies in an emerging market. You excel at finding and closing new business and have excellent listening and questioning (consultative selling) skills. You have a strong sense of personal urgency, are goal-oriented, a high achiever, and work well in a team-selling environment. Experience with enterprise technology or software solution selling, healthcare, financial services, human resources / benefits, sales enablement, or consulting helpful, but not required. You must be willing to travel to 25% and have prior earnings of at least $150,000 required.
WESTWOOD, Mass., December 13, 2005 – NYLIM Retirement Plan Services, a division of New York Life Investment Management LLC (NYLIM), has found that most of its defined benefit clients who moved from an unbundled to a bundled platform during the last several years have seen overall pension service, costs and employee awareness improve since their plan converted.
Bundled pension services entail using one provider, such as NYLIM Retirement Plan Services, for most or all of the services necessary to maintain the plan. Such services include administration, investment management, trust, actuarial consulting and employee communications. Under a traditional, or unbundled, model, a plan sponsor arranges and pays for each of these services a la carte, usually from different firms.
For example, according to NYLIM Retirement Plan Services, 84 percent of its pension clients who switched to a bundled environment indicated in a recent study that overall service to their plan had improved. Similarly, 75 percent of these clients questioned said plan administration had improved while 17 percent thought it had stayed the same. Plan administration includes such services as answering participant telephone inquiries, processing payroll feeds and distributing checks to plan beneficiaries.
Sixty-seven percent of plan sponsors in the study said the effectiveness of their service team had been enhanced under a bundled model, while 33 percent reported it had not changed.
Additionally, 73 percent of plan sponsors questioned indicated that investment services, such as investment review and monitoring, the range of available investments, and investment fiduciary support, had improved over their prior provider, while 27 percent said investment services had stayed the same. None reported a decline in service.
Many of NYLIM Retirement Plan Services’ plan sponsor clients also saw a decline in servicing costs associated with their pension plan under a bundled platform. Sixty-seven percent of NYLIM Retirement Plan Services’ defined benefit clients in the study said their pension costs declined versus 25 percent who said the cost had stayed the same and eight percent who said costs had risen.
“Until now, there’s been anecdotal evidence that bundling improves service to pension plan sponsors by enhancing automation, efficiency and plan oversight, but now we have data to back that up,” said Don Salama, managing director of sales, marketing, and product development for NYLIM Retirement Plan Services. “Bringing state-of-the-art, web-based technology to the traditional world of pension plans is clearly revolutionizing this business during a time when plan sponsors want fewer service providers, not more.”
Finally, NYLIM Retirement Plan Services has seen an apparent increase in its clients’ employee awareness of their pension benefits in the switch to bundling. Seventy-five percent of plan sponsors questioned believe employees’ awareness of their pension benefits had improved as opposed to 25 percent who thought it had stayed the same. Employee awareness of a pension plan is important to plan sponsors, who offer this relatively high-cost benefit for reasons that include employee attraction and retention.
The study was performed by Rich Schroder of Anova Consulting Group in Brookline, Massachusetts. Respondents to the study represent more than 90 percent of NYLIM Retirement Plan Services’ pension clients who moved from an unbundled service arrangement to NYLIM’s bundled platform from January 2002 to August 2004. Anova is a market research and consulting firm focused on the financial services industry.
“Although our sample size is small due to the fact that this trend is still emerging, the results of the survey show a lot of potential for growth in the bundled pension market,” said Salama.
About NYLIM Retirement Plan Services
NYLIM Retirement Plan Services provided services to more than 2,100 defined contribution, defined benefit and deferred compensation plans as of October 31, 2005. With offices in Westwood, Massachusetts, and Parsippany, New Jersey, NYLIM Retirement Plan Services administers retirement programs for small, medium and large companies, multi-employer plans, and individuals throughout the United States, and is widely recognized for its leadership in bundled defined contribution and bundled defined benefit plans.
With more than $196 billion in assets under management as of October 31, 2005, New York Life Investment Management LLC and its affiliates provide investment management and related services to a wide range of individual, corporate, public, and Taft-Hartley clients. NYLIM offers institutional asset management, retail investments, retirement plan services, guaranteed products, real estate investments, and alternative investments. For more information, visit NYLIM’s website at www.nylim.com.
October 24, 2011 — Although advisers have a higher approval rating than recordkeeper relationship managers among mid-market plan sponsors, they have been struggling to keep pace in the small-market, according to Richard Schroder, President of Anova Consulting Group. —
Offering an expanded explanation of research released earlier this week, Schroder told PLANADVISER that in Anova’s survey of 1,080 plan sponsors (700 from small plans with less than $5 million in assets and 380 from mid-sized plans of between $5 and $25 million in assets), the small-market sponsors tend to rate their day-to-day relationship manager (RM) at a provider higher than they rate their adviser (see “Sponsors More Satisfied with Providers than Advisers”). The “advisers” in question cover a range of business models, Schroder noted—including those associated with a wirehouse or an independent registered investment adviser (RIA).
“However, when we move up-market, advisers tend to score better than platform relationship managers,” he said. The difference is not as wide in the mid-market as in the small-market though—in the $5-$25 million plan range, advisers’ overall approval rating is about 87%, versus 86% for RMs. So it’s better, but not by much.
The sponsors were asked to rate their adviser and RM on a 7-point scale. The areas they were asked to rate included overall satisfaction, frequency of contact, problem resolution skills, responsiveness, accessibility, proactive approach, and product knowledge. Schroder said the areas in which advisers consistently outperform RMs are in frequency of contact and accessibility.
“The one area where universally people need to improve is on proactively managing the relationship. This is true for all types of service people—advisers and RMs,” Schroder noted. “Generally, service personnel receive ratings that are 10-15% lower in the proactive approach metric versus other metrics like knowledge or responsiveness. They need to get out in front of the sponsor and be proactive to address issues before they blow up.”
As for RMs receiving higher satisfaction ratings than advisers in the small-plan space, Schroder says this has been consistent over the last five years. “Sponsors tend to see the relationship manager at a recordkeeper as a strength. Advisers aren’t exactly a weakness, but they aren’t a strength either,” he said.
Schroder recognized that it hard to assess how much involvement the adviser is trying to have with the small-market plan sponsor when surveying the sponsors. “Some advisers want to be very involved, others want the provider to take care of the clients while they just want to be involved in the higher level needs like investment selection or perhaps education. Others want a hybrid approach. It’s hard to quantify from the sponsor,” he said, suggesting that if an adviser chooses to be more involved with his small-plan clients, he would score better in the survey.
“Small-market providers have done a much better job of improving their service levels and advisers haven’t kept pace,” Schroder observed. “As outsourcing relationships get solidified and more entrenched, and as large-market customization rolls down hill, it’s germinating into better service for the small-market sponsor.”
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