In recent weeks I have talked to a couple of individuals about Win/Loss Analysis.  I both cases the said, "yeah, we do that; we talk to the sales person involved".  So let me understand this, the person who just failed is the sole source of information as to why you failed.  Excuse me, but that is not how to become more successful in the future.

Lost prospects are valuable sources of information.  When approached correctly, they  often provide insights into how your entire company is perceived, not just about your sales people.  For example, they may tell you that you were the only company that did not have a senior executive involved in the sales process.  To them, your competitors seemed more committed.  It is something that is easily fixed, but you would not have known it was a problem if you didn't ask. 

I have seen a twenty minute phone call go to an hour and a half because the lost prospect just kept providing information about us, our product and the competition.  They told us the specific reasons our competitors product was selected over ours.  That is valuable and hard to get information for a product manager.  When you have that information AND you have interviewed the sales person, you will often see a "perception gap"; that is the difference between the sales person and the prospect percieve as to why the sale was lost.  When they are in sysc, great.  When they are not, you have some issues to deal with.

So what does Win/Loss analysis have to do with One Percent Management?  Improving sales effectivenes is one of the lowest cost ways to increase sales.  For example, in a software company selling high value solutions, it is not unusual to have a close rate of 10% of qualified leads.  To move that to 11%, just 1%, actually means you are increasing sales by 10%!  Certainly every company engaging in mid to high value sales activities should have a structured Win/Loss process and the results should have high visability in the company.