Many of the businesses we come across, both pre and post private equity investment, carry out some form of ‘lost bid analysis.’ The more astute management teams in those businesses implement a rigorous process involving a core set of questions, designed to help the organisation learn from the failures and translate those lessons into future success.
However, we find almost none has a ‘won bid analysis’ process. Most sales teams are too busy celebrating the success, particularly if it’s a big deal, to ask the people involved in making the decision, precisely why they made the choice they did.
But here’s the rub. During a lost bid analysis you rarely get the truth and even the best questions are often answered with platitudes from people who don’t want to offend or aren’t inclined (understandably in some respects) to enter into the true spirit of the process.
However, if you ask a new client you are benefitting from a relationship just getting off on the right foot and are much more likely to get honest answers. They might even tell what what they didn’t rate about your offer but which they were prepared to overlook because of the real value they perceived somewhere else. Wouldn’t it be a valuable lesson to know what these were, good and not so good?
It’s all very well to keep working on your weaknesses to make them stronger but often, lasting success comes from doing more of what you are best at – if only you knew what that really is!