How can we get better at dealing with Procurement and RFPs, and improving our odds of success moving forward? One way is to conduct Win/Loss Reviews, where we look back at our past deals and see what we can learn from them. Here are some questions we could ask about each deal.

Loss Reviews:


What was the reason (or reasons) they gave us for not selecting us?
What decision did the customer make? Why?
Were we involved in the opportunity prior to the RFP?
Did we have any influence on the bid specs?
How effectively did we understand their business direction and needs?
What questions should we have asked that we didn't ask?
What were their rules of engagement (RFP, auction, consultant, access...)?
What was our strategy?
How strong was our coach network?
Did we present to senior level decision makers (vs. submitting via email)?
What are the top 3 reasons we lost (outsold, price, weak coaching, poor fit...)?
How effectively did we involve the right people from our team (support resources, executives...)?
Did we do everything we could to change the ground rules to our favor?
What would we do differently if we could go back and try again?
What key learnings came from this situation?


Win Reviews:


Are we pleased with the outcome (solution fit, price...)?
What did we do well?
What was the turning point?
What reasons did they give us as to why they selected us?
How did we avoid the traps?
What were our critical success factors (good coaching, executive access, support from our leadership team...)?
How did we differentiate ourselves?
What would you replicate in future deals?
What key learnings came from this situation?


By asking these questions, we can gain tremendous insight and make sure that our future efforts are more effective than ever before.