Article · 12 min read

What To Do If You're Winning the Product Evaluation But Losing the Deal

Dave Kellogg · Kellblog Free Intermediate

The single most common thing win/loss uncovers: you did not lose on product or price, you lost to the safe choice, higher up the org than you were selling. Read it for the counter moves, including his line that nobody ever got fired for buying the incumbent, but nobody ever got promoted either.

  • If you win the evaluation and lose the deal, you are probably being killed higher up by a big vendor's safe choice message, not on price.
  • Have marketing debrief several recent losses to test that hypothesis before you assume price sensitivity.
  • Fight it with total cost of ownership over the lifetime, where the mega vendor often runs 2 to 3x more, plus peer proof.
  • Answer nobody got fired for buying IBM with nobody got promoted either, and sell the career upside.
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The question it answers

  1. How do I run win/loss properly, so that losing a deal actually teaches us something?

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