How can you grow your business when you don’t ask your  customers why you won or lost?

Knowing why you won a project or converted a prospect into a customer provides valuable information.  It gives you the opportunity to learn from your successes and make them repeatable.  When your successes have a consistent thread or theme to them, it helps you identify and define your competitive advantage and your value proposition.  These successes need to become part of your success model as you learn and gather this valuable information.

Knowing why you lost a project helps you understand what you did not do that either the customer wanted or what your competitors provided. Either way the information your prospect provides helps you understand what you could do better next time and increases the likelihood that you will better position yourself to win the next project.

Whether you win the deal or lose the deal, ask your customers the question “why?”  And since you are soliciting an opinion this is not the time to defend your losing position.  You are there to learn and understand, not to try to change their minds or defend your proposal.  If you lost the project remember, their perception is their reality–accept it.

Finally, do not send your sales representative in to gather this information.  This is a face-to-face meeting best conducted by the sales manager or higher.  If you would like to include the sales professional in this meeting, go ahead.  However, this is not their meeting, it is yours.  Get the information, thank them for their time, thank them for the business if you won, and get out.  Take this information and use it to your advantage on the next opportunity.  This needs to be part of the sales cycle and the sales process.

photo credit: iLuv