Importance of Prior Relationships + Brand Impact

Building and Leveraging Your Network: The Power of Trust and Brand

Your network isn’t just a list of connections—it’s a critical driver of business growth. In every industry, success depends on how well you cultivate relationships, establish trust, and position your brand. But trust and brand don’t operate the same way in every market.

In mature industries, trust built over time plays a key role in decision-making, while in fast-moving, innovation-driven markets, brand credibility and cutting-edge solutions take priority. Understanding these nuances allows businesses to accelerate growth, close deals more effectively, and strengthen long-term customer relationships.

To maximize your network’s impact, you need a strategy that not only builds connections but also leverages them for real business outcomes.

The Role of Trust in Business Networks

Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, personal or professional. But in business, the weight of prior relationships differs depending on the type of market you operate in.

• Mature markets (like financial services) rely heavily on trust built from past experiences. At Anova, we have found that 22% of decisions in these markets were influenced by prior relationships. When money and security are on the line, reliability matters.
• Growth markets (fast-changing, innovation-driven industries) don’t put as much weight on past relationships—only 4% of decisions cited them. Buyers here prioritize cutting-edge solutions over familiarity, meaning companies must work harder to build trust from scratch.

Building Your Brand to Strengthen Your Network

Your brand is an extension of your reputation, and in many cases, it plays a pivotal role in growing and maintaining a strong business network. However, the impact of brand also varies between market types.

• In Mature markets, Brand recognition is a major factor in vendor selection—we have found that around 33% of decisions were influenced by it. A well-known, trusted name gives buyers confidence, making it easier to secure new business.
• In Growth markets, Brand is less influential at 16% of decisions. With constant innovation and disruption, a well-known name won’t always win—new players with better technology can still compete and win deals.

Using Your Network to Strengthen Relationships and Drive Growth

Building a network is only the first step—leveraging it effectively is what drives sustained growth. Here are a few key strategies for using your network to strengthen relationships and expand your reach:

1. Deliver Consistency to Build Unshakable Trust – Trust isn’t given; it’s earned through reliability and follow-through. Always deliver on promises, provide exceptional value, and be transparent in your communication. A reputation for consistency makes you the go-to choice in your industry.
2. Use Your Brand as a Sales Accelerator – A strong brand doesn’t just enhance credibility—it opens doors. Leverage your brand equity through case studies, testimonials, and thought leadership to reinforce trust and reduce friction in the sales process. When prospects recognize your name, half the selling is already done.
3. Tailor Your Approach to Your Market Dynamics – In fast-moving industries, innovation and agility win; in mature markets, relationships and reputation carry more weight. Align your networking strategy accordingly—stay ahead of trends in dynamic markets and nurture deep, long-term relationships where stability matters.

A strong network is built on trust, strengthened by brand reputation, and expanded through strategic engagement. Understanding how these factors influence decision-making can refine your approach, deepen your relationships, and accelerate growth in any market.

Why do enterprise software sales teams win and lose deals? Traditional thinking would hypothesize that for high-dollar value, complex software platforms, the strength of their solution drives wins while losses are driven by a perception of higher price points and more difficult implementations, especially compared to less robust, cheaper, point solutions. Does the difference between winning and losing truly come down to price and a perception of being easy to work with? If that thinking holds true, how can enterprise software companies win despite being perceived as more expensive and more difficult to implement than their competitors?

This report explores how in enterprise software deals, winning in these competitive situations is predicated more on demonstrating value rather than absolute cost or perception of effort involved. In order to fully examine this, Anova analyzed findings from thirteen win / loss programs conducted between 2022 and 2023 focused on complex, high value enterprise software deals. Our goal was to understand what winning sales teams do differently to set their solutions apart and ultimately win more. Company names in this case study have been scrubbed and will be referred to as the Client.

Better Understanding the Price / Value Dynamic

In those thirteen programs one of the most interesting findings was that when our Client won, in just over half of those winning situations their newly acquired customer was actually more satisfied with a competitor’s price point. Despite being at a pricing disadvantage, the Client was still able to win because they proved their solution would drive superior value for the customer. Conversely, when we looked at the inverse loss data, 100% of the time when our Client lost customers rated themselves as more satisfied with both price point and expected value.

Figure 1 illustrates one specific situation representative of this finding. When this Client won, satisfaction with its value exceeded that of its top competitor (75% versus 50%), even though it fell behind its competitor in terms of satisfaction with price levels (50% versus 100%). In contrast, when the Client lost, the winning vendor outperformed it in both value satisfaction and pricing satisfaction.

Figure 1 Satisfaction with Price Levels and Value in Wins and Losses Between Clients and Competitors

Additionally, in our Clients’ winning situations, an average of just 48% of prospects were satisfied with their expected ease of implementation. Said another way, more than half of newly won customers expected to be dissatisfied with their selected vendor’s implementation process yet still felt that value of the implemented solution would outweigh the pain of installation.

Driving to Value

It becomes clear that the expectation of high value can outweigh pricing and implementation concerns. So, the question then becomes: how can software sales teams become successful at proving their value to their customers?

Click here to read the full case study.

For sales leaders, success is not just about hitting quotas – it is about understanding why you are winning or losing deals. In today’s hyper-competitive market, the ability to analyze external factors such as competitor moves, customer preferences, and shifting market dynamics is what separates high-performing sales teams from the rest.

Businesses today have great internal visibility – into their Pipelines, CRM data, internal performance metrics and roadmaps but many are flying blind when it comes to understanding and acting on what’s happening externally – with competitors, customers, and partners – most companies are radically underinvested.

Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Market Intelligence (MI) give sales teams the insights they need to sharpen their strategies, stand out from competitors, and improve close rates. So, how do you gather and use this intelligence effectively?

Why Competitive Intelligence Matters

Competitive Intelligence helps businesses stay ahead by providing real-time insights into market trends and competitor moves. With the right approach, you can:

• Boost win rates by refining sales messaging and positioning based on direct competitor benchmarking (feedback?)
• Protect and grow revenue by identifying churn risks early and proactively addressing customer concerns.
• Sharpen your go-to-market strategy with data driven insights that align your offering with buyer needs.
• Anticipate industry shifts before they disrupt your business, staying one step ahead of market changes

How Win / Loss Analysis Strengthens Sales Strategy

Win / Loss Analysis isn’t just about tracking deals—it’s about uncovering what drives buyer decisions. A third-party debrief after a sale provides unbiased, actionable feedback that helps your sales team:

• Sharpen sales messaging to better address concerns that impact buyer decisions.
• Identify real reasons behind wins and losses revealing key factors that sway competitive deals.
• Uncover new opportunities for product enhancements, pricing adjustments, or service improvements
• Compare against your competitors by identifying and leveraging your competitive differentiators.

By continuously gathering insights from prospects and customers, businesses can make smarter adjustments to their sales process and improve performance over time.

Expanding Your Competitive Intelligence Approach

Competitive Intelligence goes beyond just reviewing lost deals. To get the full picture, companies should focus on:

• Departed Client Analysis to understand why customers leave—and prevent future churn.
• Intermediary Perception Studies to gather market insights from advisors, consultants, and resellers.
• Competitor Benchmarking to analyze how rivals are positioning themselves and where your company stands out.

Taking Action Now

If your sales team is only keeping score without understanding the reasons behind wins and losses, there is a huge opportunity being missed. Win / Loss Analysis is a crucial component of Competitive Intelligence, providing the detailed feedback needed to identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for differentiation. By integrating Win / Loss insights with a broader Competitive Intelligence strategy, businesses can make data-driven decisions that enhance positioning, refine messaging, and ultimately, increase win rates.

Valentine’s Day is all about relationships—but some just aren’t worth holding onto. In business, that means it’s time to break up with outdated sales strategies, ineffective messaging, and misaligned assumptions that are holding your team back.

Here are five toxic habits we recommend leaving behind this quarter:

Relying on Internal Assumptions Instead of Customer Insights

• You might think you know why deals are won or lost, but without direct customer feedback, you’re guessing. A structured win/loss analysis program ensures you’re working with facts, not just gut feelings or faulty insights from unreliable CRM data.

Chasing Every Lead Instead of Prioritizing the Right Ones

• Not all prospects are worth pursuing. If your sales team is still spending time on unqualified leads, it’s time to refine your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and focus on opportunities with real potential.

Ignoring the Competition Until It’s Too Late

• If you’re only thinking about competitors when a deal is lost, you’re already behind. Competitive intelligence from win/loss analysis can help you preempt objections and sharpen your differentiators early in the sales cycle.

Using the Same Sales Pitch for Every Prospect

• If your sales team still relies on a one-size-fits-all script (which surprisingly seems to be on the rise), it’s time for a refresh. Tailoring messaging based on customer pain points—backed by actual win/loss feedback—can significantly improve close rates.

Letting Insights Go Unused

• You’ve gathered feedback from win/loss interviews—great! But if that data isn’t being shared across sales, marketing, and product teams, it’s a wasted opportunity. The best organizations act on their insights, continuously refining strategies based on customer perspectives.

“How did we lose that deal?!” or “Why did our competitor win over us?” These are common questions sales leaders ask their teams, and they are fair questions—business leaders need honest answers to win the next deal.

When a salesperson asks a decision-maker why they won or lost a deal, the truth is often disguised or not shared at all. In fact, salespeople only know the exact reasons behind a decision 40% of the time. At Anova, we work to close this gap by conducting Win-Loss interviews as a neutral third-party. One of the key questions we ask is, “What were the top three reasons for your decision to choose the winning provider?”

By aggregating this feedback, a story emerges. Our analysis helps clients understand what they did well when they won and where competitors outperformed them in losses. This raised a key question for us: What do these stories tell us about the attributes that drive buying decisions?

Mature vs. Growth Markets

To answer this, we grouped companies into two categories:

1. Mature Markets – Industries with stable competition and established market shares, such as financial services and niche technology vendors.
2. Growth Markets – Industries with dynamic competition driven by innovation and new entrants, like enterprise software and healthcare.

When analyzing aggregate data, key trends emerged. The top five decision-making attributes with the greatest differences between these market types were:

• Price
• Prior Relationship
• Brand
• Service
• Sales

The percentage of time each of those attributes were mentioned as a reason for choosing a provider can be seen in the table below:

This data reveals that there are real differences between the two industry types. If one were to rank the attributes in each market separately, price, brand and service are the three most important decision criteria in Mature industries, but price, sales, and brand have the most influence over decisions in Growth markets.

In summary:

• In Mature industries, Price, Brand, and Service are the most important factors.
• In Growth industries, Price, Sales, and Brand dominate decision-making.

Price is the most frequently mentioned attribute in each market and also has the widest disparity in mentions, signaling a difference in how influential costs can be.

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The Unintended Consequences of Your Team’s Pursuit of Efficiency over Execution

Accountability is the cornerstone of our team’s values, and we pride ourselves on delivering what we promise, when we promise. To ensure every team member embodies this value, we actively seek feedback from our own clients on their degree of satisfaction with Anova’s performance.  Our year-end employee evaluations are tied to client satisfaction and program success. Despite consistently ranking in the top-performing quadrant, our team often faces challenges in one area: deal flow (defined as the number of new business contacts clients provide for win/loss phone interviews).

In today’s data-driven world, with the rise of advanced CRM software and generative AI, customer data seems abundant. As a result, clients often express confidence in their ability to provide customer contact information during our initial discussions. However, Anova’s experience with leading B2B companies tells a different story:

Short-term Focus on Efficiency:

• For clients who choose to rely solely on their CRM data and implement an automated approach to deal flow collection, we often find that the data quality is more deficient than expected, resulting in response rates typically in the 10%-30% range. These programs also exhibit a longer ‘time to value’, with the two main drivers being (1) it can take a client upwards of six months to establish internal processes and obtain sign-off on the CRM integration, often to discover (2) the majority of CRM data is incomplete, inaccurate or outdated. So much for efficiency.

Short-term Focus on Execution:

• For clients who acknowledge that their CRM data is incomplete or error-prone, we advise that they directly contact their sales team to collect recent prospect information versus downloading inaccurate deal information from the database. Clients who engage and work directly with their sales team, on average, achieve a 60%+ response rate and a two-week turnaround for completed interviews.

Anova’s experience has repeatedly confirmed that when clients seek efficiency through automation, they tend to overcomplicate the short-term mandate and end up delaying ROI.  While automating deal flow submission should remain the long-term goal, if it’s going to delay getting into the field, our advice is simple: Focus on the most pragmatic short-term solution and just get started. Even if it’s only a couple of prospects from your top revenue opportunities to kick things off, the insights gained from these initial conversations will have measurable impact—certainly more impact than not executing at all.

This blog was written by Brendon Attridge, Engagement Manager.

At Anova Consulting Group, we understand that success in today’s competitive marketplace hinges on a deep understanding of your customers’ needs, preferences, and decision-making processes. This understanding, however, is not easy to come by. One of the most effective methods for collecting this information is a win / loss interview program.

Valuable lessons can be learned from every win and loss. The customer data that is unearthed is a goldmine, but for many businesses it remains a collection of raw, unrefined material. Data can tell a compelling story, but unless you have the right tools and expertise to decipher it, the valuable insights it holds will remain hidden.

This is where Anova Consulting Group steps in. Through our customized win/loss programs, we bridge the gap between raw data and actionable intelligence. Our customized win/loss interview guides and comprehensive research findings empower you to gain a competitive edge, strengthen your market position, and ultimately, achieve greater sales success.

At Anova, we understand that a “one-size-fits-all” approach doesn’t work for win/loss analysis. Each company has unique selling propositions and target audiences. That’s why we take the time to develop customized programs for every client. Our approach begins with Anova’s dedicated client engagement team working with you to get a thorough understanding of your company’s unique sales processes, products, and target markets. We collaborate closely with your team to identify the critical areas of inquiry and tailor our interview guides to address the specific challenges and opportunities you face. By leveraging our extensive experience and industry expertise, we ensure that every question is thoughtfully designed to elicit meaningful and actionable responses.

Our custom process begins with:

• Designing custom, targeted interview questions: Based on your specific needs, we craft interview questions that delve into the customer’s decision-making journey – from initial awareness to final selection. Each question is reviewed and approved by your team to ensure that we uncover the specific feedback that you care about.
• Identifying the right interview candidates: We work with you to identify customers in market segments most important to your company’s growth strategy. Targeting customers by region, vertical, size, competitors, or whatever segmentation gives you the most complete picture.
• Utilizing our dedicated, professional interview team: Our interviewers are career professionals with years or decades of experience in market research. At the start of each program, they receive comprehensive training to understand your company’s products, services, and go-to-market strategy.

From Anova’s in-depth, win / loss interviews you get a treasure trove of information, but it’s still in its raw form. By partnering with Anova, you gain access to an analytical team skilled in transforming raw data into actionable insights. We help you unlock the hidden treasures within your win/loss data, empowering you to make data-driven decisions that drive sales success.

Uncovering those insights starts with our in-depth data analysis. We leverage a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques, both human and AI powered, that allows us to not only identify trends within the data, but also understand the “why” behind those trends.

Through this process, we help you:

• Identify strengths and weaknesses: Pinpoint areas where your sales process excels and areas that need improvement.
• Refine your value proposition: Gain a clearer picture of how your offering aligns with customer needs and identify opportunities to strengthen your message.
• Differentiate from the competition: Understand how your competitors stack up and develop strategies to stand out.

• Develop a roadmap for improvement: Based on the analysis, we develop a customized roadmap with specific recommendations for improvement across various aspects of your sales process.
• Increase your win rates: By addressing the factors that led to past losses, you can significantly improve your chances of future success.

At Anova Consulting Group, we understand that in today’s fiercely competitive landscape, gaining a deep understanding of your customers’ needs and decision-making processes is paramount to success. Our customized win/loss programs provide you with the tools and expertise to transform raw customer data into actionable intelligence, empowering you to strengthen your market position and refine your value proposition. By harnessing the power of customer feedback, Anova helps you chart a data-driven course towards sustainable sales success.

To create and launch any successful product, you must understand the needs of your target customer. And to understand the needs of your target customer, you have to speak to them.

Market research, particularly voice-of-the-customer market research such as win / loss analysis, offers a structured approach to understanding customer needs, competition, and product performance, helping ensure the product meets market demands and stands out in a competitive landscape.

The Role of Market Research in Ideation

Market research plays a crucial role in shaping a product idea before development begins. Through methods like surveys, interviews, focus groups, and secondary data analysis, companies can gather information about the target audience’s needs, pain points, and behaviors. This step allows businesses to validate their ideas, ensuring that the product will solve a relevant problem and have a clear market opportunity.

Market research also helps segment the target audience, providing insight into which user groups are most likely to adopt the product. For example, research might reveal that a cloud-based tool is particularly attractive to small businesses or startups. This segmentation informs decisions about product design, feature prioritization, and marketing.

Refining Product Concepts with Market Research

Once the initial concept has been shaped, market research continues to refine and validate the product. Concept testing allows potential customers to engage with prototypes or mockups and provide feedback on design, usability, and appeal. This phase helps product teams decide which features to prioritize, how to adjust the design for better user experience, and what pricing models resonate best with the target audience.

In addition to feature refinement, research can uncover insights into customer preferences, willingness to pay, and market positioning. For instance, understanding which product features hold the most value for users can guide pricing strategies and help create a product that aligns with customer expectations without over-engineering.

Win-Loss Analysis: Learning from Competitors and Customers

As the product enters the market, win-loss analysis becomes an essential tool for understanding competitive dynamics and refining the product’s positioning. Win-loss analysis involves reviewing successful and unsuccessful deals to determine why certain customers chose the product and why others did not.

For tech companies, win-loss analysis offers critical insights into:

• Competitive positioning: It reveals why customers might favor a competitor’s product over theirs, helping the team refine the value proposition and focus on competitive strengths.
• Refining the value proposition: If customers are choosing other products because they don’t understand the value of your product, this could highlight messaging gaps. It can also reveal the features or benefits driving successful deals, helping the company highlight them further.
• Product development: Win-loss analysis often uncovers missing features or shortcomings that deter potential customers. These insights help inform product updates and future iterations.

By maintaining an ongoing feedback loop, companies can continue evolving the product to stay relevant and competitive, addressing customer concerns and building on the product’s initial success in real time.

The Integrated Approach: Data-Driven Decision-Making for Product Success

Integrating market research and win-loss analysis throughout the product lifecycle ensures that decisions are guided by accurate, relevant insights rather than assumptions. Market research validates and informs the product at every development stage, while win-loss analysis provides real-world feedback on how the product performs in the market.

This integrated approach to data-driven decision-making reduces risk, enhances product quality, and aligns the product with market needs. It enables companies to build products that not only meet customer expectations but also adapt to a competitive and evolving industry landscape.

In today’s fast-paced tech industry, successful product development requires more than innovation—it demands strategic planning and constant refinement. Leveraging market research and win-loss analysis empowers tech companies to create products that resonate with customers, adapt to change, and thrive in a competitive market.

Zach Golden is the Director of Client Management at Anova

The podcast episode with Zach Golden, “Unlocking the Power of Win-Loss Analysis in Product Management,” delves into how win-loss analysis enhances product decision-making.

Golden explains strategies for product teams to leverage feedback from lost deals, the benefits of understanding competitive positioning, and ways to align product features with market needs.

He also highlights the importance of collaboration between product, sales, and marketing to refine customer value propositions and maintain a competitive edge.

For full insights, you can view the podcast here.

Comparison is the thief of joy…

…unless you’re running a business.

Competitive intelligence is a vital part of running and growing a business, particularly in today’s complex B2B sales environment. While there are many ways to gather it, one often overlooked method is Win / Loss analysis. This involves interviewing clients you’ve won and prospects you’ve lost to understand why they chose—or didn’t choose—to work with you. In doing so, this research also gathers valuable insights into why these prospects did or did not go into business with your competitor.

Speaking to decision-makers soon after buying decisions have been made helps you develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of your customer, your competition, and your organization’s competencies and areas for opportunity.

Through our experience with interviewing and assessing thousands of competitive situations, here are some key ways Win / Loss research can enhance and improve your competitive advantage:

• Understanding Customer Goals: Win / Loss research gives insight into the problems prospects wanted to solve, their partner expectations, and what ultimately drove their decision. This helps you align your offerings better with customer needs.
• Understanding Perceptions: Win / Loss research highlights how your company is perceived compared to competitors, including strengths and areas for improvement.

Using These Insights to Improve

• Enhance Competitive Positioning: Understanding customer perceptions helps you capitalize on your strengths and address any perceived disadvantages.
• Refine Sales & Marketing Strategies: Knowing what worked or didn’t work for your competitors allows you to adapt your approach.
• Innovate Offerings: Gaining insight into customer needs and gaps in your offerings lets you innovate where it matters most.
• Strengthen Customer Relationships: Addressing areas for improvement builds stronger relationships with existing customers.

Keep these best practices in mind

• Ask Open-Ended Questions: Focus on customer priorities and decision drivers.
• Compare Against Competitors: Prompt for direct comparisons to uncover competitive strengths and weaknesses.
• Include Quantitative Benchmarking: Have customers rank your offerings against competitors to gather measurable insights.

Win / Loss analysis is an invaluable tool that helps you understand your customers’ needs, innovate, and improve your positioning—all from the customer’s perspective. If you’re looking to implement a successful Win / Loss program, check out our guides on “Running an Effective Win/Loss Program in 2024” and “How to Get Win/Loss Right.”