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Lost Business/Lost Client Reviews

While winning new business is important (and exciting!), understanding why you “lost” a prospect or existing client relationship to a competitor may be more vital to your firm’s long term financial health. Yet, too often the reasons behind a firm’s win/loss ratio remain elusive, if not totally ignored, by firm management and service providers alike.

Candid feedback from prospects immediately following the selection decision provides actionable “intelligence” about your firm and all of your competitors. Market leaders have long recognized the value hidden behind this unique “competitive intelligence window” and seize every opportunity to better understand “why” and “how” they win, keep, grow and lose clients. And they quickly translate this understanding into improved business development strategies and tactics – and bottom-line results.

LaBrie Consulting has conducted Lost Business Reviews to help the principals of advertising agencies, brand design firms and law firms gain a more informed and objective view of their firm’s new business teams, processes and pitch formats. The work uncovers the key factors that influence selection or elimination, including team configuration, individual personalities, communication styles, presentation format and product/service promises. Linda LaBrie employs a three-pronged approach that involves the active participation of key firm principals, members of the pitch team and one or more members of the prospect’s selection committee. The firm’s win/loss history, the independent team assessment and the prospect’s candid feedback and market intelligence combine to deliver powerful solutions for future success.

If you lack the information and confidence to answer the following questions, you need to add the Lost Business Review to your new business development arsenal.

  • Does your firm “win” every engagement it bids for?
  • Were you ever “surprised” that your firm did not win a particular engagement?
  • What factors drive the configuration of your pitch teams? Do team members have defined roles before and during the pitch presentation? How does the pitch team prepare and how often does the pitch team rehearse? Who conducts the internal de-briefing with the pitch team?
  • When you lose a pitch to a competitor, do you know which competitor and “why” that firm was chosen over your firm?
  • Are you confident that you showcase your firm’s “competitive advantage” throughout the bidding process? Do you even know your firm’s “competitive advantage”?

Lost Client Reviews have been conducted for professional service firms when a long-standing client decides to move its business to a competing firm or is acquired by another company. The process for conducting these reviews combines elements of the Lost Business Review and the Strategic Client Interview.

 

Stakeholder Intelligence Engagements