Win-Loss Analysis
Want to Sell More? All you have to do is Ask.Get the answers you need straight from the source.
Ask with Thirdside’s win-loss analysis.
You Need This
Why Win-Loss Analysis?
The reality is that most companies don’t know the real reasons why they lose deals. Sales reps tend to blame budget, product, or competition. And customer feedback to you, the vendor, is not always forthcoming. Use Thirdside to conduct win-loss interviews on your behalf and gain candid insights into your customers’ decision-making process.
Increase Win Rates
You don’t really know why you win or lose. Customers aren’t telling you the full truth, but they will tell us. Use that intelligence to win more deals
Improve Competitive Intelligence
Customers will share more information with us about your competitors that they won’t share with you: product features, promotional strategies, pricing and more.
Win Back the No-Decisions
Get an immediate revenue bump from the no-decisions, long-maybes, and ghosted accounts.
Book a Consultation
Let’s see if there’s an opportunity to work together.
insights
From blind spots to bright spots. Light your path to winning.
Every B2B organization has blind spots – those things you think you’re doing well, but that don’t resonate with buyers. It could be product features, sales tactics, or competitive maneuvers. The reality is, you simply don’t know.
Win-loss analysis illuminates these blind spots, helping you align your strategy with real customer needs and perceptions.
Revenue is Waiting
Win-Loss Analysis:
Why Now?
If you aren’t addressing blind spots, then you are continuing to lose. Even as you are reading this, the shortcomings and blindspots slowing revenue persist. Find them. Fix them. Now.
Is your go-to-market motion suffering from any of these? (And do you even know? Really know?)
- Lack of Discovery
- Failure to connect to customer pains
- Generic demonstrations
- Undifferentiated positioning
- Missing features
What’s the Fix? (WTF)
Thirdside: Your Partner in Win-Loss Research
We understand your situation better than most. We’ve carried sales quotas, run marketing departments, and managed product lines. We take our in-the-trenches experience into every project, interview, and report for our clients. (We’re not burning through interviews to populate a hard-coded dashboard.)
An Eye for Revenue
Unlike career researchers, who tend to be academic in their approach, our team members are all experienced sales & marketing professionals, who pull and probe on the right experiential threads, uncovering blindspots beyond your initial line of thinking.
Safe Space for Discovery
By removing any hint of sales pressure or bias from the vendor perspective, we get much more candid responses – both positive and negative – than our clients can get on their own.
Reports
Win-Loss Analysis Reporting:
For You in Your Preferred Formats
Detailed Interview Reports
Summarized, tagged, highlighted, and linked text make it exceedingly easy to scan a report for the highlights, or quickly jump to the tags of interest.
Regular Review Calls
Guided discussions about recent interview reports provide an opportunity for stakeholders to ask questions of the Thirdside researcher who conducted the interviews.
Online Dashboard & Reporting
Thirdside includes online and completely tailored dashboards where stakeholders can access charts, anecdotes, insights, and full interview reports and run ad-hoc queries of the data.
Management Summaries
Thirdside provides periodic executive presentations in support of management meetings, business reviews, kickoffs, board meetings, etc.
You can’t Fix what you can’t see
Example Blindspots Revealed
Every company has blindspots. Only Thirdside has the flexibility in research & reporting to find them and report them so you can fix them.
The examples here are just a sample of what we’ve uncovered in the buyers’ journeys.
Marketing Blindspots
- Reveal the unfiltered brand perception that buyers share only with neutral third parties.
- Benchmark your brand perception directly against key competitors to see exactly where you win and lose on decision criteria.
- Validate which specific marketing messages and content assets resonate with your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)—and which ones fall flat.
- Identify the top-priority pains and decision criteria driving buyer behavior right now.
- Audit the customer experience to ensure brand promises align with reality.
Sales Blindspots
- Uncover the authentic, unvarnished reasons behind every win and loss, moving beyond the generic “price” or “feature” excuses entered in CRM.
- Identify the true “hidden competitor” in your pipeline: distinguishing between direct rivals, internal “do-it-yourself” solutions, and the Status Quo (No Decision).
- Pinpoint specific sales behaviors and skill gaps that are directly impacting your close rates.
- Equip reps with the specific buyer intelligence they need to navigate complex decision committees.
- Highlight exactly what the sales team did well to secure the win, so you can replicate success.
Customer Success Blindspots
- Pinpoint the specific root causes of churn versus the value drivers that secure renewals.
- Detect early warning signs of attrition and identify at-risk accounts before they cancel.
- Develop data-driven “win-back” strategies based on the real reasons customers left.
- Audit the post-sale handoff and onboarding experience to ensure new customers realize value quickly.
- Equip CSMs with the specific buyer intelligence they need to drive adoption and spot expansion opportunities.
Product Blindspots
- Identify exactly which feature gaps are losing deals and which differentiators are actually driving wins.
- Prioritize your product roadmap based on revenue impact rather than internal assumptions.
- Align your product strategy and positioning with how buyers actually categorize and value your solution.
- Validate product decisions with defensible, direct-from-buyer data that aligns stakeholders and drives adoption.
RevOps & Enablement Blindspots
- Isolate specific skill gaps across the revenue team to target training where it impacts the bottom line.
- Arm your teams with the “Voice of the Customer,” replacing guesswork with proven buyer insights.
- Evaluate channel partner effectiveness and their true influence on deal outcomes.
- Measure the ROI of enablement initiatives by correlating training to actual win-rate improvements.
- Validate CRM data accuracy by comparing rep-entered “loss reasons” against the buyer’s actual reality.
%
Win-loss analysis can improve win rates by up to 50% and revenue by 15-30%. (Gartner)
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Rigorous Win-loss interviews, on average, increase win rates by 18%. (Accenture)
The conservative
business case?
If your annual revenue target is $10M and you have a 20% win rate, only a 10% improvement in win rate as a result of win-loss analysis means an additional $1M in revenue every year.
Unlock Sales Clarity and Success
Discover the insights you need to win more deals and improve your sales performance.
answers
FAQ’s
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the win-loss analysis process, benefits, and Thirdside’s unique approach.
What is win-loss analysis?
Win-loss analysis is the strategic practice of interviewing new customers and lost prospects to uncover the specific reasons behind sales outcomes. It provides qualitative data that CRMs often miss.
Why is win-loss analysis important?
It replaces internal assumptions with market reality. Regular analysis reveals blind spots in sales execution, product fit, and competitive positioning, allowing you to fix systemic issues that lose revenue.
How does Thirdside conduct win-loss analysis?
We use a “peer-to-peer” methodology. Our interviewers are experienced sales and marketing leaders—not junior researchers—who conduct 20-30 minute conversational interviews to elicit deep candor from your buyers.
What are the benefits of win-loss analysis?
Primary benefits include higher win rates, shorter sales cycles, improved product roadmaps, and more effective competitive positioning.
How long does a Win-Loss Analysis program take?
While many clients run annual programs, a standard pilot project takes 4–6 weeks. We typically deliver the first interview reports within 48 hours of completion, ensuring you get immediate insights while the full analysis is being compiled.
Who do you interview?
We target the key decision-makers and “champions” who drove the purchase process. We require that the interviewee was deeply involved in the deal so they can answer specific questions about features, pricing, and competitors.
What deliverables will we receive?
You receive a mix of real-time and strategic assets: Full Interview Reports (tagged and formatted, not just transcripts), a Management Summary (executive presentation), and access to a Live Dashboard to track trends across all deals.
Does Thirdside have international capabilities?
Yes. We conduct interviews globally across North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Our team is experienced in navigating cultural nuances to secure candid feedback from international markets.
Still have questions?
If you have any more questions about win-loss analysis or how Thirdside can help your business, please contact us.
How can I get started?
To get started with Thirdside’s services, simply reach out to us through our contact form or give us a call. We look forward to discussing how we can help your business.