Losing Pitches are Golden Opportunities for Business Growth

Failure is often seen as the ultimate setback, but what if it was actually the best thing that could happen?

Colin Rosenblum, from one of my favourite podcasts 'Colin and Samir', champions this perspective amongst social media influencers. His quote, “Failure is not embarrassing or a roadblock...it is the road,” (Colin and Samir, 2024) has transformed how I view setbacks, especially in pitching.

As interviewers of creator-led businesses, they highlight an industry filled with solo entrepreneurs and small businesses that learn and fail daily. They achieve success quickly because they have constant access to feedback and analytics.

Inspired by this, we need to ensure we’re getting feedback from our clients too. While we might not have analytics at our disposal, we can do some old-fashioned investigation to improve.

Harnessing Client Feedback for Business Growth

In a world without constant analytics, client feedback is your secret weapon.

When Winning Leads to Complacency

Often, businesses become complacent when they win. Even small losses present opportunities to identify and correct potential issues before they escalate into bigger problems. Recognising these minor setbacks and addressing them proactively ensures continuous improvement and long-term success.

Understanding Why You Lost

Knowing you lost a pitch is just the beginning. Delving into why you lost opens doors to future victories. Feedback reveals what resonated with the client and what didn’t, providing specific insights for improvement.

Building Better Client Relationships

Think following up after a lost pitch annoys your client? Think again. It could strengthen client relationships and open future opportunities. Asking for feedback shows you value their opinion and are committed to improving.

7 Essential Questions for Pitch Feedback Sessions

Here’s a list of pinpointing questions we encourage teams to ask clients and why they’re beneficial.

1. What Were Your Key Decision Factors?

This helps you understand the client's priorities and how well your pitch aligns with their needs. You might have asked this before pitching, but it’s always worth checking if their sentiments have changed after seeing all the options. Knowing this can help you anticipate how future clients might move the ‘goal post’ in the future.

2. What Was Most Compelling About Our Pitch?

Identifying strengths is as important as recognising weaknesses. Knowing what worked can help replicate successful elements in future pitches. Clients may love aspects like presentation style, segment breakdown, or proof of capability through mockups or demos. Understanding these aspects ensures you don’t discard what makes you stand out and unintentionally take steps back.

3. Were Any Aspects of Our Pitch Unclear?

Clarity is crucial. This question identifies and eliminates confusion. For example, complex technology solutions can be hard to comprehend. Simplify the system or focus on the client impact to make your offerings clearer.

4. What Should We Have Included More Of?

This can reveal missing elements or points that need stronger emphasis in your future pitches. This often comes down to handling objections or answering curveball questions. Especially with newer or more innovative solutions, you might come off unprepared if not well thought out or rehearsed. To avoid this, involve a third party to give an unbiased perspective and practice answering hard questions.

5. What Did You Think Of The Team?

This is a commonly overlooked aspect of pitches. Business transactions are built on people-to-people relationships, and how well you get along can impact the outcome. Client stakeholders might not resonate with a team member, certain personalities might not gel, or relationships haven’t been built properly. Other times stakeholders don’t see an adequate counterpart in your team, so maybe someone important is missing or needs to be hired. One of the biggest challenges is recognising if your team is lacking diversity. This can indicate your team isn’t capable of leveraging different perspectives and coming up with innovative solutions.

6. How Did Our Pitch Compare to Others?

This gives you a benchmark against the competition, helping you understand where you stand and what areas need improvement. It can also highlight where your client might be selling 'fake news' to win the project. If you have regular competitors, use this information to subtly guide your clients to ask the right questions in pitches to compare apples to apples.

7. Beyond Price, Why Did You Choose the Winner?

Clients often default to price as the key reason, but other factors are always at play. We will always pay more if the value is strong enough. Learning about these reasons can help you overcome price objections in the future or add value to your offering. Whilst having similar intentions to our first question, we love to follow up with this question at the end to get a potentially different answer. Clients often provide further insights as they feel more comfortable in the conversation.

Embrace Feedback, Refine Your Approach, Win More Pitches

Feedback isn't just a formality; it's your roadmap to better pitches and bigger wins. Embrace it and watch your success soar.

References

Colin and Samir. (2024). The Unknown YouTuber you should be watching: PrestonGoes [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://youtu.be/Jh27vUiHE14?t=1997