Legal Marketing & PR

Why Did You Lose (or Win) That Competition?

By Tom Kane

You can learn a lot either way. Thanks to Barbara Walters Price at Marketing U, I remembered a very important lesson I learned about business development competitions. Whether you win or lose, it is wise to conduct a post mortem to determine why. Barbara’s post led me to a post by Ford Harding on preparing for a sales presentation.  Stay with me now. 

Ford’s point was that it is “insane” to spend a lot of time working on a “leave-behind” rather than focusing on who will say what at the presentation itself.  He considers the leave-behind a waste of time. I would agree, but how he arrived at that conclusion leads me to my point.

He conducted a series of post mortems (learning that potential clients didn’t even remember what was left behind). It reminded me of how important follow up after a competition really is. Not only when you lose, but when you win as well. The latter because you may get a false idea of why you were successful. (I remember a time I found out that the competitor had done a better proposal, but sent the wrong person to the oral presentation. So, we won, but not because of our proposal. Learned a valuable lesson on that one.)   

Of course, the main reason for a post mortem is to learn what the competition did right and what your firm could do better in the future, no matter the outcome.

Full post as published by Legal Marketing Blog on April 15, 2008 (boomark / email).