July 18, 2023 • 42 mins
Why are you winning? Why are you losing? What’s happening to your customer? How do they feel about it?
These are simple, yet important questions that can be answered by one tried and true system. We talk with Scott Varner, Enterprise Team Lead at Clozd, which provides world-class services and technology for win-loss analysis. Today we go beyond the basics and dive deep into the specific deliverables that lead to the clarity every organization can benefit from.
Join us as we discuss:
More information about Scott Varner and today’s topics:
These are simple, yet important questions that can be answered by one tried and true system. We talk with Scott Varner, Enterprise Team Lead at Clozd, which provides world-class services and technology for win-loss analysis. Today we go beyond the basics and dive deep into the specific deliverables that lead to the clarity every organization can benefit from.
Join us as we discuss:
- What exactly win-loss analysis is, and what the basic steps are
- What the best sources of win-loss insight are (quantitative or qualitative)
- Why win-loss interviews are important and tips to succeed in the process
- How to optimize conversation to get customers to share the raw truth about their experiences
More information about Scott Varner and today’s topics:
- LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varnerscott/
- Company Website: https://www.clozd.com/
- Other Relevant Links: Dr. Kelly Dries; Fandango; FreeBuyerInterview.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
The single most important thing you cando today is to create and deliver a
better experience for your customers. Learnhow sales, marketing and customer success experts
create internal alignment, achieved desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal
and human way. This is theCustomer Experience Podcast. Here's your host,
(00:24):
Ethan Butte investigating the case, solvingthe mystery, finishing the puzzle. It's
so satisfying to the human brain andin many cases it has clear business value.
Today we're talking about closed one dealsand closed loss deals, going beyond
the basic what, who, howmany to get into the real learning's,
(00:46):
lessons and applications of understanding the howand why behind the winner loss. And
we're doing it with the enterprise teamlead at Closed, a team that specializes
in win loss analysis. He servedas a business of development REP, product
manager, marketing manager, client successanalyst, and customer success manager at organizations
(01:06):
like Qualtrix and Franklin Covey. ScottVarner, Welcome to the Customer Experience Podcast.
Thanks for having me. Can Ihire you to hype me up in
every setting from now on? Yesyou can, and it's cheaper than you
probably think I'm willing to shell outfor an intro like that. That was
great. Yeah, man, I'mso excited for this conversation. I loved
our initial conversation and this is atopic. Shockingly we've gotten almost we've certainly
(01:30):
blown by two hundred and fifty episodeswithout talking about because there's so much business
value in it, and so tojump right in, we'll jump in where
we always do, which is customerexperience. When I say that to you,
Scott, what does it mean?Yeah, I mean, simply put,
I think about three things. Ithink about what's happening to my customer,
how do they feel about it?And then what do they choose?
What do they do as a resultof it? Could be they choose nothing.
(01:52):
To me, I feel like thepure customer experience, it's just about
understanding the customer without any agenda.And then I think there's a lot of
things we could put off to it, depending on who we're talking to.
If I'm talking to a CFO,I'm probably going to put something about share
of walle new business customer retention.If I'm talking to revops, I'm probably
gonna be talking about those same things, but with some milestones about like,
(02:14):
you know, shortening the customer journeyor removing some friction. And if I'm
talking to like an end service manager, I might not be talking about any
of those things. I just wantthem to know the customer feels cared about
without an agenda. So good.I love those three questions because it's like
the functional mechanical, like what actuallyhappened, how do they feel about it?
And then what are the consequences specificallyin terms of behavior. I love
(02:36):
the way that you broke that down. Do you use this language consistently at
closed or is it just this kindof thing like do you use this language
actively day to day? Yeah,it's interesting. I think I think about
that language. I don't know thatI necessarily verbalize it in that way all
the time. Yeah. Yeah,but what we do, like we're so
focused on the raw customer feedback andwe're focused on it. I think in
(03:00):
that way where in my conversations thatI'm having with my clients and the conversations
I'm having with their buyers, tounpack the mystery, as you said,
that's what I'm trying to do.I'm trying to figure out what happened to
you? How did you feel aboutit, and then what's the decision that
you made? So before we gettoo much farther, tell us a little
bit about Closed. Who are someof your ideal not my brain, but
(03:21):
like, who's the ideal customer foryou all, and what are some of
the problems that you're solving for them? Hey, in this economy, who's
the ideal customer? Do do youhave a dollar? Yeah? No,
Closed, we're leading provider of winloss technology and services. We think our
ideal customers anybody with the skin inthe game of a sale, anyone with
the skin in the game of dollarswho doesn't want to know why you're winning
(03:44):
and why you're losing. The morespecific answer probably is I end up interfacing
with a lot of sales leads,a lot of people that run competitive intelligence
product marketers. Product marketers tend tobe the people that are like at the
central hub of the org that startfeeding the intelligence a different play. But
those are probably the main customers thatI talk to. Awesome, and I
mean just for people who this isn'teven on their radar, bring it down,
(04:11):
win loss what are we talking about, like high level? Yeah,
My academic answer is win loss analysis. The systematic approach to understanding why you're
winning and losing. My less academicanswer, the one that I start sharing
to my family is I'm a strategicgossip where we're kind of truth tellers finding
out what happened. So it's backinto the academic language. There's a quantitative
(04:34):
measure we go survey end customer spiritwould happen, There's a qualitative aspect we
would have conversations with them. That'sthe part that's my favorite and I think
I love to read there. There'sa Dan Pink book about to Sell This
Human and he talks about this newworld of sales and the new world of
sales. Being able to ask theright questions is more valuable than being able
(04:58):
to produce the right answers. Butvirtually the most time we emphasize the answers,
we don't focus on how to ask. And that's where we come in
is we start trying to ask questionsto buyers to know why were you looking
for a solution, how did youfind your options? Who were the options?
And now kind of take us throughwas it about features, was it
about the interactions you were having withthe sales team, or if we're getting
(05:21):
to like the gossip parts. Isit just about the pricing approach and who
was lowering their dollars and who wassaying what behind closed doors? Love it?
The reasons to engage a third partyon something like this seemed pretty obvious
to me. But I'd love towalk them out and I'll get you off
and running with a couple that Ithought of at the top of my head,
which is, like, you know, it's a drop down menu and
(05:43):
salesforce and people are saying closed oneclosed loss, and maybe there are a
couple of like five canned answers orsomething, or maybe there's like some half
baked notes, but they're not organized, they're not gathered, they're not processed,
they're not fedback, they're packaged ina way that has an executive summary
can put in front of almost Ican't think of anyone in an organization that
win loss feedback wouldn't be helpful too. But I also feel like it probably
(06:06):
gets siloed specifically in sales and atbest, you know, because product marketing
is such a hub. If itmakes it there and it does get out
of salesforce and then do someone else'shands, that's probably its best path to
daylight. Yeah, I agree withall of the above, any other key
reasons why we should engage a thirdparty to support this valuable thing and or
(06:29):
speak to the value of it,in particular for folks that it's not obvious
too well falling up a meeting outwhat you said about the CRM and the
limitations that it has is those thedrop downs can be limited. I'm kind
of shocked the number of words thatcome and they're only collecting closed loss reasons.
They're not even collecting closed one reasonsat all. So, for one,
like we have some blinders of thathuge part of our business. When
(06:54):
we look at actually the data fromCRMs of customers that are integrating with us,
if we compare what's tagged with whattheir customers are saying, we've actually
seen that about eighty five percent ofthe time the wrong reason is tagged.
And there's a lot of reasons why, Like we're not saying that it's all
just because we just don't know thatpeople are missa understanding it. It could
(07:14):
be the well there's not enough clarityand the dropdown reasons. It could be
that we just are kind of guessingwe're just tagging the quickest thing and moving
on, and we're tagging the thingsthat maybe minimize the impact to us,
where it's like, well we losta deal because they lost budget, but
I think we were getting to likeprobably the biggest reason you would hire a
third party, which is customers mightnot be sharing the whole truth. I
(07:36):
think about it like dating. We'veall been through a breakup and I wonder,
if there's a breakup, think aboutyour last one. Who knew more
about that breakup? Is that you? Or is it maybe the bartender that
was hanging out with her act Andthat's a little bit where we come in
where I think imagine, imagine youhave somebody unbiased who just gets to hear
(07:57):
the story from the outsiding, getsto ask the questions, but maybe as
a second layer. Imagine the bartenderas a licensed therapist in his like day
job, and so he's able toask questions that are actually helping the person
understand a complicated decision that maybe theydidn't even fully understand until they had the
conversation. Yeah, so speak too, I mean at the risk of asking
the obvious. You know, wherewe left off on the most probably one
(08:20):
of the most common problems is it'sup to the salesperson. It's not a
test that's a high priority for them. They're just excited for the commission or
you know, angry that it wentsideways on for some reason they do the
thing. It's probably not like astrong cultural component. We don't know where
the answers go. I've never reallygotten any direct feedback based on these things,
(08:43):
and that's where it lives for alot of people. Yeah, talk
about the importance and the value ofhaving a conversation, and then maybe let's
from there walk into some of thebest practices. How long should it be,
what portion of our wins or lossesshould we be? Sort of like
I had a bunch of follow upquestions there, let's start with the value
of not just relying on one person'sinterpretation of what happened and actually getting the
(09:07):
real language in the real voice ofthe real customer or would have been customer.
Yeah, well, let's go backto even my definition of CX is
just I need to really to havegood CX to make good strategic business decisions.
I have to understand exactly what happened, but I need to understand that
from the customer perspective, And ifI'm only reporting the things I saw.
(09:31):
It's like, well, I showedthem this, and I message this.
I don't know if that resonated withthe customer. I also don't know what
conversations my competitors were having with themthat could have influenced their reception to my
message. And then there's that nextpiece of CX, do I understand how
the customer felt all throughout that process? That maybe there was a friction point
(09:52):
that I understand that I needed tomitigate ahead of time. Maybe our value
proposition is just highlighting the wrong thing, so we're not getting the customer to
feel what we wanted them to feel. That's one of the key benefits of
sarcing these conversations and doing it ina rich, unstructured type of format is
(10:13):
we get to we get that pure, unfiltered view of the customer, and
then there's so many things you cando with it after the fact. Your
next question, think was talking aboutbest practice of how long? Sure?
Yeah? Yeah, So let's let'spick up where you just left off,
which is what is the deliverable andwhat do we do with it after the
fact. Yeah. So, forclose, we've got a couple of the
(10:33):
rules in our software there's you know, step one, just let's get a
place where we can organize our data, where we can organize the CRM,
and where we can trigger some feedback. We can trigger some data collection for
surveys and trigger the data collection forthe interview. That's probably the piece that
we're talking the most about here.The deliverable there will look like this,
(10:54):
where I get a thirty minute sessionscheduled with the customer. Once I have
that conversation, I deliver my unbiasedthird party consultant view, the quick synopsis
for somebody that just wants to scana summary of like what happened with this
deal, who are the competitors,why do we win, why did we
lose? Any other key takeaways,And that's kind of the end of that
(11:15):
piece. And then we have theconversation that we have with the buyer.
And I think it's important to giveit in that unstructured way because there's so
much like richness that different people canpull out. That of course, like
when I'm having the conversation, I'mlooking for them to tell me about what
drove the decision, and we're goingto touch a lot of different areas,
so we'll talk about their reception tothe product capabilities, features, and the
(11:39):
competitors the pricing. The sales team, well, now if we can give
them a deliverable that capture the wholeconversation in a technology enabled way, we
can get those insights really fast tothe right leaders. So what if a
sales manager has the ability to lookat the part where we're talking about the
sales process the reception of demo.That's a great coaching feature that the manager
(12:03):
can use with somebody in their teamor with their whole team to say,
you know, let's let's shout outand celebrate some success as we can replicate.
Let's in a very very careful way, let's look for some constructive opportunity,
recognizing that even though we're collecting theraw data from the customer, maybe
we need to also and marry thatthere's an internal perspective and external perspective.
(12:24):
So sales can do that with thatfeedback. Product can take the detailed feedback
and say, okay, let's analyzetheir needs state, Let's analyze their perception
of the features. Let's see whathappened in the proof of concept. Let's
see be compared to our competitors areoffering anything that's different, and you kind
of go on and on in thedifferent areas. So now, like the
org is taking ownership of win loss, the organ is taking ownership of customer
(12:48):
feedback and making those strategic decisions.So good. I mean, this is
the spirit of the whole show hereis how do we kind of work outside
our silos in for the benefit ofthe customer in a less disjointed way.
And you're really speaking to it.You're speaking to it a very specific way
around with loss analysis, but it'sthe same spirit of the whole thing,
and there's so much to be taught. I can only imagine the variety of
(13:13):
applications here. Solicituble back into theinterview itself. Yeah, I heard you
say thirty minutes. Is there likean ideal time? I'm even wondering like
time and conversion rate, Like howmany people who chose not to buy from
you will give you their time,like maybe incentivised share. How you think
about the structure of the interview,how you get people into it, and
(13:37):
some thoughts on duration. Yeah,that's interesting because will people give us their
time on a loss? One thingwe tend to find is with wins losses,
and then when we do a lotof churn customer interviews. There's a
small difference in the willingness for themto speak. Where winds and churns actually
behave sort of similar and we geta higher participation rate from those that those
(14:00):
customers want to tell us a lotabout the experience. Losses is only very
small difference, So you change theincentive approach just a little bit, you
change the messaging a little bit.Losses are the ones that tend to favor
the third party approach to just kindof a you know, if the customer
themselves is reaching out to the buyerto try to get the decision, and
(14:22):
then once we have them, thattwenty to thirty minute session is typically a
great length so that you can godeep into what drove the decision. If
you start going longer, now you'regetting into buyer fatigue, where the answers
are blurring together. You're not gettingvery rich things after minute thirty, and
you also just don't get as manypeople on the phone. Yeah, talk
(14:43):
a little bit about the warm upperiod. I would imagine, first of
all, the idea that chern andcustomer behave similarly and loss behaves differently makes
intuitive sense. It's the depth ofthe relationship, Like if I was your
customer for six months or a yearor five years, I'm much more like
to do again. That makes tonsof intuitive sense. Talk about this is
(15:05):
kind of a nuanced question, buttalk about the warm up period, like
how do you build some familiarity andtrust with these people? How do you
maybe do you have any strategies forlike bringing the guard down in order to
get some you know, some interest, some legit introspection, and maybe a
higher degree of honesty, like anytricks there. This is a really really
(15:26):
important part of just my interview methodologyis I need that warm up period to
be one that builds trust, letsthem know I'm a human. I'm a
human that is not just here tolist off some questions that could have been
sent to you in any setting.But I want to build a personal connection
with them at first. And theeasiest way to do that is if videos
(15:48):
on I can notice something great aboutthe background, I can talk to them
about where they're calling from. AndI spent probably more of my time here
as an interviewer than I ever thoughtI would just talking about the weather and
relating to that. But you tendto find those connections of if I visited
a place, Oh my gosh,let me tell you about how much I
loved the Torch Taco trip I tooklast time I was in Texas. And
(16:11):
people tend to connect with you prettyfast. We explain exactly what we're doing
and why, and I think there'sa pretty clear alignment that if in the
beginning we have that personal connection andlet them know, Hey, we're here
to understand your experience, and we'rehere to understand exactly what you think could
have gone differently, people are prettywarm to that. Yeah, I think
(16:33):
you're doing I love that you getto do this. So I would love
to interview more like it's a privilegeshows a podcasts. I would love to
ask more questions to more people moreoften and package them up in the way
that you are. I'm going tomake an observation, and I would love
to get your just top of mindthoughts on it. If you're doing this
interview, I assume that it's probablyrecorded, and you're qualifying why it's being
recorded, and you certainly get atranscript, and you can run transcript through
(16:57):
AI and do sent him an analysisand keyword an analysis across bodies of them
and all these things, and maybeyou're doing that. You probably are.
But the thing that the transcript isalways going to miss, at least for
the foreseeable future. I think,unless I'm totally blind to some tech that
you might know something about, itdoesn't include what wasn't said. It doesn't
(17:18):
include the way something was said.Where did it get like staccato? Where
was there a thoughtful pause and aninhale. You know these things that you
Scott can detect, and it's goingto be reflected in your consulting analysis of
(17:38):
what happened and what transpired with thiscustomer. Talk a little bit about kind
of the richness in the conversation,and maybe even start getting into the divide
between qualitative and quantitative. I assumethat it also, at least on the
interview side of things, starts qualitativeand then you find some ways to roll
(17:59):
that up into some higher quantitative analysis. Yeah, I so much what you
said. I could talk for probablyhours on it alone. Okay, let's
go for like ten minutes then attemptto be concise. You started by getting
into just a lot of how Icoach our team when they come in,
when we coach new interviewers, isthere's this kind of phase to becoming a
(18:21):
good winless interviewer where step one isjust focusing on how do I interview and
how do I ask the right questions. Step two is when you get used
to that, making sure that you'replacing everything the buyer is saying within the
context of what a buying cycle lookslike, and so you're able to take
the responses and be agile and knowpeople are talking out of order, so
(18:41):
I'm going to back them up andI'm gonna start guiding them through so they
can make sure I have the wholecontext of what I need to And then
that final level is exactly what you'resaying the unsaid, and also tying observations
that you're hearing in other conversations aswell, so that you can bring all
that in. That is I thinkkind of what you're saying you would love
(19:03):
to do that That's what I'd loveto do exactly, and I think people
appreciate that that when you do callthat out. That one of initially when
I started doing win loss interviews,it's a lot about an interview guide I
had that has questions that I knoware going to be important, and I
know we're going to drill down toaria's valuable to the customer. The clients
that I'm working with on behalf of. But the best questions are the ones
(19:25):
that are just me listening to whatthey're saying and echoing back to them a
piece of what they said, soI can get them to elaborate on that
bit and elaborate on why that wasimportant. And sometimes if there's a pause,
it's letting that pause linger. It'smaybe calling out, maybe sometimes calling
out with humor like oh, Ifeel like there's a little bit something there.
And by keeping in mind exactly whatthey're saying, you can get them
(19:47):
to give so many more layers reallygood. I imagine you're actually let's stick
with this talk about the roll upof all the qualitative feedback. This is
a challenge that just in win lossis a challenge with everyone in data.
We all know that the richness ina human conversation a recorded video is super
useful. But it's not, asI hate this term, and I'm misused
(20:11):
it a little bit, it's notas scalable as just rolling up a whole
bunch of survey feedback. Talk aboutthe tension between qualitative and quantitative and perhaps
then even get into the nuance ofhow do we start turning some of the
qualitative stuff into useful quantitative data.Yeah, you take me back to the
first time I did qualitative research ina past life. We were doing some
(20:33):
deep value assessment, had these brilliantinterviews that I thought were just going to
be so valuable, like I couldn'tbelieve the things we got, and then
it came time to do some analysis, big giant head scratch. I had
no idea what it was I wasdoing. So that to me is the
tension between qualitative and quantitative. Howdo I take this richness and put it
into something useful. Going back toour definition of win loss, that academic
(20:56):
one, it's that systematic measurement.So we start with our system to measure.
What we use is decision drivers.It's kind of easy to think of
the categories that customers might be talkingabout. I've mentioned a few times,
but you know, interacting with ourproduct, for reception of our pricing,
sales. Those are three really easycategories that I know we're probably going to
(21:18):
come up. And then there's somesome themes that I'm going to look for
to go within that. If we'retalking about our sales approach. Could be
just the responsiveness, could be thetrust and empathy. I felt like I
was getting knowledge and expertise, thedemo proof of concept. So if you
start with those things, and Iknow what I'm looking for. When I'm
(21:40):
hearing customers talk about things that aremeaningful about their decision, I can kind
of putt put a little pin inthat and no, okay, like I'm
going to tag this theme and here'sthe quote that's going to go with that
to support it. So you startwith one interview, you start to like
build your rhythm, and then let'spull back after thirty and let's let's look
at those decision drivers and let's lookat some waiting. That's what that's what
(22:03):
our software is designed to do withthat human approach, also with some machine
learned approach, with just the surveydoing it itself. But if I look
at those, all those drivers thatI've defined, I can look at,
okay, across thirty conversations, fifteentimes, this has been a very influential
topic. And out of those verystrong influence on wins, this is my
(22:23):
wind driver, and this other thingover here those my lost drivers. That's
a lot of the kind of secretsauce we're trying to do is just surface
those and then if you can havethe segmentation in using the CRM, let's
do some breakdowns and let's say,okay, let's look at my enterprise deals
from Q two. Let's look atmy enterprise losses from Q two, and
(22:45):
I can have those top five winthose top five loss reasons, and now
let me click on that. Letme drill down into the quotes from the
customers that support that. So youknow, we have that quantitative system that
then goes down to the qualitative insightsof well, if somebody says API integration
is why that it bias, let'slook at the fifteen times that that happened
and see if we can get someconsistent themes. Yeah, really really good.
(23:08):
Talk about the tagging system. Imean that is that in my imagination,
there are probably maybe four or fivemain buckets, maybe as few as
two or three that like you know, you're gonna get you You're to start
with tag SETA or tag set BR, tag set C off the shelf,
and then we're going to kind ofdial it and customize it to your
(23:29):
business into your sales process. ButI would imagine and I and thinking then
maybe some of the variation is youknow, the duration or the level of
complexity of the buying process, thenature of the product or service. There
might be some vertical variation. Buttalk about that set up because the tag
is the thing, right like that, Like that's the intersection of the qualitative
and the quantitative is part of theunlock. Talk about some of the variation,
(23:52):
like is there like an off theshelf set of tags. I we
mentioned a few of the key driversalready. Yeah, I think I've asked,
Yeah, we've got that off theshelf place that we're starting from that
we know if we're talking about aB to B decision, these are some
things that are probably going to haveinfluence. And we're always trying to curate
that to the industry, to thespace that there's probably some things that we
(24:15):
know if we're talking about a bibusiness intelligence software, having some things about
dashboards analytics probably going to come upmore often than if we're talking about a
communication tool, where things like audioand video quality are probably going to be
a thing. This is where therecan be that almost like danger in trying
(24:36):
to get too specific in the beginningthat if I define all the things I'm
expecting to hear, I may endup with a roundup win loss interviews where
I have a lot of drivers ofone and so I have fifteen unique loss
and I have twelve unique win reasons. If I'm trying to prioritize things and
make strategic decisions, that's kind ofdifficult to do. So there's a balance
(24:56):
that we try to find of Let'sstart with a level that we can have
some clear groupings of our capabilities andfeatures of ease of use and intuitiveness.
And once we start getting a volumeof feedback in now we can start to
see, well, if I havea drive right, maybe there's a driver
where ease of use is an easyone. If that's showing up is a
(25:18):
clear win and loss reason pretty consistently, that's where I can probably look in
and do some investigation and say,oh, well, it turns out that
on the times where I win becauseof the user experience. I was talking
to a very technical admin and hewas talking about how it was easy for
them to set this up and provisionit to users and integrate it with their
(25:41):
ecosystem, but those lost things,that's the end user that's somebody that's not
very tech savvy and they're having frictiondoing this. Well, I have a
driver that because I have data,I can split that out and as I
go forward with my interviews, nowI know I know this customer set,
I know this client, I knowhow these drivers match. So it's almost
like I'm as the interviewer unbiased.As I am, I'm learning the language
(26:07):
of the customer and the clients.I can use the tagging more accurately.
Love it. This is a littlebit of a turn, but speak to
I mean, it should be obvious, but I'd love for you to just
like lay it out in I guesssmash this underhand softball tuck about the business
case. I mean it should beapparent. We've already talked about different ways
(26:27):
that this insight can be used acrossmultiple teams, not just helping perhaps say
the sales team understand different ways todisqualify. Perhaps something it's like, oh,
we've seen the signs this is goingto be a loss. You know,
eighty five percent she has at aloss based on these three things.
We heard that it has this hugevalue for messaging, for product roadmap,
(26:52):
etc. Etc. Etc. Justtalk about for people who aren't making this
investment of time and energy, whetherthey're using a tool like cloth or whether
they're trying to figure out a systemon their own, they haven't been that
systematic about it. Just make alittle business case for investing more time and
money into this. Yeah, doyou want to improve your win rate?
(27:12):
Are you measuring your win rate?Can you actually say that you're quantifying the
number of times if you're up fora deal, how often are you going
to win that? What's the likelihoodif you have fifty percent win rate if
you can increase that by just aten percent increasing win rate, if you
get just ten percent more of thosedeals up, How many more dollars does
(27:34):
that mean for your organization? Howmany more dollars does one incremental deal mean
for the org? Especially in theclimate we're in right now, where you
know we're here recording this a weekout from end of quarter. I know
that every person that has ownership overthe sales number, they're in a meeting
right now looking at all the dealsthat they can close the end of the
quarter, thinking what is it thatI can do so that I can increase
(27:59):
those wins? How do we meetour goal? How do we attain quota.
If I'm a customer owner and I'mlooking to know how do I retain
my customers? How can I flagmy at risk customers? Win loss is
clearly your answer. Where you cango and find a profile of similar clients,
you can look at similar competitive circumstances. What did those buyers need that
could help us? Well, let'slet's take those last ditch efforts so we
(28:23):
can try to see, you know, let's replicate the winds. But if
I think more forward thinking and I'mtrying to overcome milestones, I'm trying to
avoid obstacles, I can be muchmore proactive by using wind loss. Yeah,
really good. It's efficiency across thewhole revenue organization into product as well
(28:44):
one constituent. Kind of in mymind, I'm seeing a kind of a
quad scenario and one of them's empty. And I bet that you help people
with this too, although it's notprobably the primary it's obviously not the primary
use case. Be if prospect oneprospect lost, customer lost? Are you
helping people understand why customers are staying? We do? We do, And
it's interesting because some of that couldbe we have a lot of customers that
(29:07):
are staying with us and not reallydoing anything. And by not doing anything,
I mean they're just sitting there,they're not changing anything, they're just
renewing year over year. We don'tnecessarily know why we've gone. And we've
interviewed those customers to try to talkabout their use case, and many times
the objective is how do you quantifyvalue or how would you define value?
(29:29):
How do you know this is valuable? Probably more common is I'll go talk
to customers that have stayed and they'vedowngraded or they have upgraded. And I
did a recent project where, youknow, a client came and they said,
you know, we've got this hugelong tale of customers and oftentimes they're
with us several years before they expandwe're not entirely sure what's driving that.
(29:52):
So now we get in we talkabout the long tail of the customer experience
of the account management. What arethe things that happened before they actually expanded,
so they can do some proactive adjustmenttoo. Maybe they picked some things
in their website, Maybe they getmore proactive in their automated outreach to the
small customer and start nurturing them alongin a tactical way. So good,
(30:18):
very specific question. Indecision lost notto a competitor, lost to no decision,
indecision they just timed out close lostnot to a competitor. What are
you seeing there? I know you'reworking without all kinds of different people and
you're not necessarily seeing everything all thetime, But like, that's a thing,
(30:38):
it's an interesting thing. What haveyou observed about that? It's an
incredibly timely question, even just todate. When I started at Closed,
it was June of twenty twenty whenwe had this this little bug going around,
and so as I was getting myintro into when lost with Closed,
(30:59):
a lot of the things we wereseeing as the impact of COVID delaying buying
decisions, things like that, AndI watched as the world kind of came
back, and I watched there weresome activity. There's a lot of opportunity
was created when budgets came back.We're on a macro level. We're back
in that where a lot of ourclients, the amount of losses to no
decision is going way way up.It's a challenging thing to unpack, and
(31:22):
it's kind of a hard thing becauseit's painful for the clients that we have,
but within that, you know,we're seeing, well, give us,
give us what's happening on your side, tell us about kind of the
internal politics, tell us about howyou get budget allocated, who's making these
decisions, And we're kind of armingthe reps with very immediate feedback they can
take, not for hypothetical future deals, but intelligence they can use in these
(31:47):
in these deals right now we're givingthem. We actually kind of at this
exact timing, we made an adjustmentto our software that lets us flag those
wind back opportunities, and we're watchingcustomers go out and change their value message
so they can try to get someof that or we're capturing what does timing
look like on your side to comeback. And we're also in some cases
(32:09):
hearing about new competitors that aren't youknow, they're not just the small guys,
the new players emerging, but we'rehearing about new you know, kind
of ways people are getting creative tosolve their problems. Yeah, I mean
indirect competitor or a new completely newsolution essentially at some level super interesting.
Yeah, I would love to hearfrom your perspective with a bit of reflection.
(32:32):
I already mentioned it in the intro. I think it's part of what
made you want want me to kindof follow you around and offer that to
other people as you're entering rooms andthings. Marketing, product marketing, bizdev
analyst CSM. How did your thatdiversity of back because essentially it's the full
customer life cycle, you know,it's from the initial touch to managing accounts.
(32:57):
So you've had a lot of exposureto customers across you know, the
entire experience. How has that helpedyou in the role that you're in today.
Oh, that's a big question.I wonder if you if there's you
can help me just understand too,like kind of where you're coming from with
are you're asking it? Just meinteracting with so many different stakeholders? Yeah,
Yeah, I just think it's reallyinteresting your diversity of experience inside approximately
(33:22):
kin in a way organizations, youknow, for example, one way I
think it probably has helped you isbeing able to have effective interviews with different
types of buyers, right, likedifferent products and services. Some of them
product marketers buy them, some ofthem salespeople buy them. Some of them
are bought by sales leaders, butthey're for business development reps. Some of
(33:43):
them are bought by chief customer officers, but they'refore CSMs like, I just
think your background is so interesting inthe diversity of functions, and I just
had some imagination that it's helpful toyou today. That's helpful. It's so
interesting because I just think it's helpedme think about the big picture. It
was actually like for me personally specifically. You know, when I worked at
Qualitricks, I felt like I wasgetting this broad view into how so many
(34:07):
different industries are collecting feedback, andin the role that I am now,
I'm understanding how they're using the feedback. There's so much emphasis I think in
that going back to the quote whyit resonates with me, we don't really
talk about how to ask good questions, and then by doing that, it's
(34:27):
like, well, who's interested inthis? And I'm able to go see,
well, I know that in atthe client that I'm working with in
this one work, I know afterone interview, I know that the revenue
officer is really going to be interestedin this piece, and so let me
flag this to them because I knowhow they're going to use that. I
know how they're going to use thatto go adjust their process. They're going
to create some new collateral for theirsales team. They're going to disarm this
(34:50):
competitor ahead of time. And Ihear one nugget and I know, oh,
I better get this over to theproduct manager. He's going to want
to make sure that they have thisfor their roadmap. And I think that's
probably the best, you know,best part of my background and working with
so many diverse customers, really good. Thank you for doing that, and
thank you for seeking the clarification youneeded to provide that thoughtful response. Appreciate
(35:12):
it's part of the skill I learnedas an interviewer. A number of times
I ask a question, somebody answersand I think, oh, no,
they didn't know what I meant becauseI didn't I didn't clarify well enough.
Yeah, so this skill of courseof having conversations. I don't feel like
I've been my sharpest today. Thankyou for tolerating that. I feel like
it's a skill that is broadly transferable. You've obviously become relatively expert. I
(35:36):
don't know how you regard yourself.I don't want to oversell you to yourself.
You've developed some amount of expertise inthis zone. Any other like high
level tips or recommendations. There havebeen a few of them throughout the conversation
on interviewing. What are a coupleyou know when you think about people that
are new to it, that you'vecoached, any other like common mistakes or
just like simple quick, I'm goingto jump you ahead, if you could
(36:00):
just remember to do this thing,think about this thing, make this a
habit, any other like kind ofhacks, tips, lessons for people.
Yeah, I think there's two almostcontradictory bits of information. The first is
have a plan when you go intoit, sketch out what the questions you
need to ask are. But aspart of that plan, the danger is
(36:22):
trying to scope too many questions,where if you go into a conversation thinking
I got to ask all of thesequestions, and if you do, you're
not considering how long it's going totake to answer those questions. But even
if you had the answer to allthose questions, if you step back,
would you know why you want orlost the deal? Or even more simply
stated, would you know why thecustomer made the decision that they did.
(36:46):
And if the answer to that isno, then you might need to re
revisit your plan, but I thinkhow a good bank of questions that you
can ask appropriately. And now thesecond more important tip is if you learn
how to just listen to other people, listen very carefully and like you said,
(37:06):
listen to the intangibles. That's goingto tell you exactly what you need
to ask next. And I thinkthat's the most important awesome And with that,
I want to point folks to anotherinterview that I did on the Customer
Experience podcast. On episode one eightyfour, I talked with Tanya Berstrom,
the founder of a firm called Derby, and we talk a lot about literal
(37:29):
voice of the customer and customer interviews. That one was called holding Curious Conversations
to hear the Voice of the Customer. Episode on any four with Tanya,
we also talk Scott a little bitabout indecision and it wasn't just an advanced
tease to episode two twenty seven withMatt Dixon, who's the author of The
Challenger Sale, Challenger Customer, andmore recently the Jolt Effect. We call
(37:51):
that one keys to overcoming customer anddecision. There's a lot of really interesting
psychology in that book and in thatinterview on episode two twenty seven with Matt
Dixon about why so many of usare losing more deals than ever to indecision
and part of it interesting. Haveyou read that one, Scott. I
haven't read that one yet, butI'm a big Matt Dixon fan, so
(38:12):
the fact you're using him in thisinterview is big trophy for me. Love
it. I think you'll love thatbook. There's a lot of the problem
that we tend to get into isthat our default is to turn up fear,
uncertainty, and doubt, when infact that's exactly what's causing the indecision
in the first place, or theparalysis or whatever. So I think you'll
really enjoy it, just based onI want to know of you through the
(38:35):
time we spent together in these settingsbefore I let you go, Scott,
First, thank you. Second,I would love for you to give thanks
to someone who's had a positive impacton your life or career. Yeah,
I need to shout out doctor KellyDrees, who became a mentor back when
I was an undergrad, when Iwas trying to navigate my own future career
path, and she was the firstperson I think that gave me opportunity to
(38:57):
lead and taught me how to leadjust from caring, just from listening.
Had a conversation with her just lastnight. So there's my shout out.
Awesome, well done. How abouta company or brand that delivers a great
experience for you as a customer.Yeah, I would be true to my
own personal brand if I didn't shoutout fan Dango. Everyone at Clothes is
going to know I spend a significantamount of my time popping around at the
(39:20):
movies. I think they've really masteredwhat it means to curate a great personal
experience and keep you coming back.Awesome. Fun fact, my son is
also a huge fan of movies,and I think he's written something like eight
hundred reviews in letterbox. Are youfamiliar with that app avid user myself?
Okay, cool, love it.I'll have to point him to you.
(39:43):
I've enjoyed this so much, Scott. If other folks are at this point
in the conversation, I'm sure theydid too. If they want to follow
up, learn more about you,learn more about closed. Where would you
send people who've enjoyed this conversation?Yeah, the easiest answers always find me
on LinkedIn. Even easier. Igot the benefit of being Scott a dot
com. But the thing that welove is if if you are at all
(40:04):
curious and understanding what does an interviewlook like? Can a third party understand
my customer interviewing is so much myfavorite part that hop over to free Buyer
Interview dot com and I would loveto give you a test run. Love
at free buyer interview dot com.Yes, awesome, love it. It's
Scott Varner. For folks listening onthe move or as I tend to listen
(40:25):
to podcasts, it's Scott Varner spelledexactly how it sounds closed to clozdclos dot
com and Free Buyer Interview dot com. Ethan, it was great having the
conversation. Yeah, appreciate you allright, thanks so much. A marketing
futurist from Salesforce, the first salespersonat HubSpot, an emotional intelligence expert with
(40:47):
seven US patents in the analysis offacial coding data. These are just three
of more than a dozen experts featuredin the Wall Street Journal bestseller Human Centered
Communication, A Business Case against DigitalPollution. The purpose of the book to
give you frameworks, strategies, andspecific tactics to create human connection across the
(41:10):
digital divide. Learn to break throughthe noise, build trust, and enhance
your reputation and revenue despite the everincreasing digital noise and pollution that separates us
all. Get your copy of HumanCentered Communication absolutely free at bombomb dot com
(41:30):
slash freebook. That's bomb bomb dotcom slash free book. Thanks for listening
to the Customer Experience Podcast. Rememberthe single most important thing you can do
today is to create and deliver abetter experience for your customers. Continue learning
the latest strategies and tactics by subscribingright now in your favorite podcast player,
(41:52):
or visit bombomb dot com slash podcasts
The single most important thing you cando today is to create and deliver a
better experience for your customers. Learnhow sales, marketing and customer success experts
create internal alignment, achieved desired outcomes, and exceed customer expectations in a personal
and human way. This is theCustomer Experience Podcast. Here's your host,
(00:24):
Ethan Butte investigating the case, solvingthe mystery, finishing the puzzle. It's
so satisfying to the human brain andin many cases it has clear business value.
Today we're talking about closed one dealsand closed loss deals, going beyond
the basic what, who, howmany to get into the real learning's,
(00:46):
lessons and applications of understanding the howand why behind the winner loss. And
we're doing it with the enterprise teamlead at Closed, a team that specializes
in win loss analysis. He servedas a business of development REP, product
manager, marketing manager, client successanalyst, and customer success manager at organizations
(01:06):
like Qualtrix and Franklin Covey. ScottVarner, Welcome to the Customer Experience Podcast.
Thanks for having me. Can Ihire you to hype me up in
every setting from now on? Yesyou can, and it's cheaper than you
probably think I'm willing to shell outfor an intro like that. That was
great. Yeah, man, I'mso excited for this conversation. I loved
our initial conversation and this is atopic. Shockingly we've gotten almost we've certainly
(01:30):
blown by two hundred and fifty episodeswithout talking about because there's so much business
value in it, and so tojump right in, we'll jump in where
we always do, which is customerexperience. When I say that to you,
Scott, what does it mean?Yeah, I mean, simply put,
I think about three things. Ithink about what's happening to my customer,
how do they feel about it?And then what do they choose?
What do they do as a resultof it? Could be they choose nothing.
(01:52):
To me, I feel like thepure customer experience, it's just about
understanding the customer without any agenda.And then I think there's a lot of
things we could put off to it, depending on who we're talking to.
If I'm talking to a CFO,I'm probably going to put something about share
of walle new business customer retention.If I'm talking to revops, I'm probably
gonna be talking about those same things, but with some milestones about like,
(02:14):
you know, shortening the customer journeyor removing some friction. And if I'm
talking to like an end service manager, I might not be talking about any
of those things. I just wantthem to know the customer feels cared about
without an agenda. So good.I love those three questions because it's like
the functional mechanical, like what actuallyhappened, how do they feel about it?
And then what are the consequences specificallyin terms of behavior. I love
(02:36):
the way that you broke that down. Do you use this language consistently at
closed or is it just this kindof thing like do you use this language
actively day to day? Yeah,it's interesting. I think I think about
that language. I don't know thatI necessarily verbalize it in that way all
the time. Yeah. Yeah,but what we do, like we're so
focused on the raw customer feedback andwe're focused on it. I think in
(03:00):
that way where in my conversations thatI'm having with my clients and the conversations
I'm having with their buyers, tounpack the mystery, as you said,
that's what I'm trying to do.I'm trying to figure out what happened to
you? How did you feel aboutit, and then what's the decision that
you made? So before we gettoo much farther, tell us a little
bit about Closed. Who are someof your ideal not my brain, but
(03:21):
like, who's the ideal customer foryou all, and what are some of
the problems that you're solving for them? Hey, in this economy, who's
the ideal customer? Do do youhave a dollar? Yeah? No,
Closed, we're leading provider of winloss technology and services. We think our
ideal customers anybody with the skin inthe game of a sale, anyone with
the skin in the game of dollarswho doesn't want to know why you're winning
(03:44):
and why you're losing. The morespecific answer probably is I end up interfacing
with a lot of sales leads,a lot of people that run competitive intelligence
product marketers. Product marketers tend tobe the people that are like at the
central hub of the org that startfeeding the intelligence a different play. But
those are probably the main customers thatI talk to. Awesome, and I
mean just for people who this isn'teven on their radar, bring it down,
(04:11):
win loss what are we talking about, like high level? Yeah,
My academic answer is win loss analysis. The systematic approach to understanding why you're
winning and losing. My less academicanswer, the one that I start sharing
to my family is I'm a strategicgossip where we're kind of truth tellers finding
out what happened. So it's backinto the academic language. There's a quantitative
(04:34):
measure we go survey end customer spiritwould happen, There's a qualitative aspect we
would have conversations with them. That'sthe part that's my favorite and I think
I love to read there. There'sa Dan Pink book about to Sell This
Human and he talks about this newworld of sales and the new world of
sales. Being able to ask theright questions is more valuable than being able
(04:58):
to produce the right answers. Butvirtually the most time we emphasize the answers,
we don't focus on how to ask. And that's where we come in
is we start trying to ask questionsto buyers to know why were you looking
for a solution, how did youfind your options? Who were the options?
And now kind of take us throughwas it about features, was it
about the interactions you were having withthe sales team, or if we're getting
(05:21):
to like the gossip parts. Isit just about the pricing approach and who
was lowering their dollars and who wassaying what behind closed doors? Love it?
The reasons to engage a third partyon something like this seemed pretty obvious
to me. But I'd love towalk them out and I'll get you off
and running with a couple that Ithought of at the top of my head,
which is, like, you know, it's a drop down menu and
(05:43):
salesforce and people are saying closed oneclosed loss, and maybe there are a
couple of like five canned answers orsomething, or maybe there's like some half
baked notes, but they're not organized, they're not gathered, they're not processed,
they're not fedback, they're packaged ina way that has an executive summary
can put in front of almost Ican't think of anyone in an organization that
win loss feedback wouldn't be helpful too. But I also feel like it probably
(06:06):
gets siloed specifically in sales and atbest, you know, because product marketing
is such a hub. If itmakes it there and it does get out
of salesforce and then do someone else'shands, that's probably its best path to
daylight. Yeah, I agree withall of the above, any other key
reasons why we should engage a thirdparty to support this valuable thing and or
(06:29):
speak to the value of it,in particular for folks that it's not obvious
too well falling up a meeting outwhat you said about the CRM and the
limitations that it has is those thedrop downs can be limited. I'm kind
of shocked the number of words thatcome and they're only collecting closed loss reasons.
They're not even collecting closed one reasonsat all. So, for one,
like we have some blinders of thathuge part of our business. When
(06:54):
we look at actually the data fromCRMs of customers that are integrating with us,
if we compare what's tagged with whattheir customers are saying, we've actually
seen that about eighty five percent ofthe time the wrong reason is tagged.
And there's a lot of reasons why, Like we're not saying that it's all
just because we just don't know thatpeople are missa understanding it. It could
(07:14):
be the well there's not enough clarityand the dropdown reasons. It could be
that we just are kind of guessingwe're just tagging the quickest thing and moving
on, and we're tagging the thingsthat maybe minimize the impact to us,
where it's like, well we losta deal because they lost budget, but
I think we were getting to likeprobably the biggest reason you would hire a
third party, which is customers mightnot be sharing the whole truth. I
(07:36):
think about it like dating. We'veall been through a breakup and I wonder,
if there's a breakup, think aboutyour last one. Who knew more
about that breakup? Is that you? Or is it maybe the bartender that
was hanging out with her act Andthat's a little bit where we come in
where I think imagine, imagine youhave somebody unbiased who just gets to hear
(07:57):
the story from the outsiding, getsto ask the questions, but maybe as
a second layer. Imagine the bartenderas a licensed therapist in his like day
job, and so he's able toask questions that are actually helping the person
understand a complicated decision that maybe theydidn't even fully understand until they had the
conversation. Yeah, so speak too, I mean at the risk of asking
the obvious. You know, wherewe left off on the most probably one
(08:20):
of the most common problems is it'sup to the salesperson. It's not a
test that's a high priority for them. They're just excited for the commission or
you know, angry that it wentsideways on for some reason they do the
thing. It's probably not like astrong cultural component. We don't know where
the answers go. I've never reallygotten any direct feedback based on these things,
(08:43):
and that's where it lives for alot of people. Yeah, talk
about the importance and the value ofhaving a conversation, and then maybe let's
from there walk into some of thebest practices. How long should it be,
what portion of our wins or lossesshould we be? Sort of like
I had a bunch of follow upquestions there, let's start with the value
of not just relying on one person'sinterpretation of what happened and actually getting the
(09:07):
real language in the real voice ofthe real customer or would have been customer.
Yeah, well, let's go backto even my definition of CX is
just I need to really to havegood CX to make good strategic business decisions.
I have to understand exactly what happened, but I need to understand that
from the customer perspective, And ifI'm only reporting the things I saw.
(09:31):
It's like, well, I showedthem this, and I message this.
I don't know if that resonated withthe customer. I also don't know what
conversations my competitors were having with themthat could have influenced their reception to my
message. And then there's that nextpiece of CX, do I understand how
the customer felt all throughout that process? That maybe there was a friction point
(09:52):
that I understand that I needed tomitigate ahead of time. Maybe our value
proposition is just highlighting the wrong thing, so we're not getting the customer to
feel what we wanted them to feel. That's one of the key benefits of
sarcing these conversations and doing it ina rich, unstructured type of format is
(10:13):
we get to we get that pure, unfiltered view of the customer, and
then there's so many things you cando with it after the fact. Your
next question, think was talking aboutbest practice of how long? Sure?
Yeah? Yeah, So let's let'spick up where you just left off,
which is what is the deliverable andwhat do we do with it after the
fact. Yeah. So, forclose, we've got a couple of the
(10:33):
rules in our software there's you know, step one, just let's get a
place where we can organize our data, where we can organize the CRM,
and where we can trigger some feedback. We can trigger some data collection for
surveys and trigger the data collection forthe interview. That's probably the piece that
we're talking the most about here.The deliverable there will look like this,
(10:54):
where I get a thirty minute sessionscheduled with the customer. Once I have
that conversation, I deliver my unbiasedthird party consultant view, the quick synopsis
for somebody that just wants to scana summary of like what happened with this
deal, who are the competitors,why do we win, why did we
lose? Any other key takeaways,And that's kind of the end of that
(11:15):
piece. And then we have theconversation that we have with the buyer.
And I think it's important to giveit in that unstructured way because there's so
much like richness that different people canpull out. That of course, like
when I'm having the conversation, I'mlooking for them to tell me about what
drove the decision, and we're goingto touch a lot of different areas,
so we'll talk about their reception tothe product capabilities, features, and the
(11:39):
competitors the pricing. The sales team, well, now if we can give
them a deliverable that capture the wholeconversation in a technology enabled way, we
can get those insights really fast tothe right leaders. So what if a
sales manager has the ability to lookat the part where we're talking about the
sales process the reception of demo.That's a great coaching feature that the manager
(12:03):
can use with somebody in their teamor with their whole team to say,
you know, let's let's shout outand celebrate some success as we can replicate.
Let's in a very very careful way, let's look for some constructive opportunity,
recognizing that even though we're collecting theraw data from the customer, maybe
we need to also and marry thatthere's an internal perspective and external perspective.
(12:24):
So sales can do that with thatfeedback. Product can take the detailed feedback
and say, okay, let's analyzetheir needs state, Let's analyze their perception
of the features. Let's see whathappened in the proof of concept. Let's
see be compared to our competitors areoffering anything that's different, and you kind
of go on and on in thedifferent areas. So now, like the
org is taking ownership of win loss, the organ is taking ownership of customer
(12:48):
feedback and making those strategic decisions.So good. I mean, this is
the spirit of the whole show hereis how do we kind of work outside
our silos in for the benefit ofthe customer in a less disjointed way.
And you're really speaking to it.You're speaking to it a very specific way
around with loss analysis, but it'sthe same spirit of the whole thing,
and there's so much to be taught. I can only imagine the variety of
(13:13):
applications here. Solicituble back into theinterview itself. Yeah, I heard you
say thirty minutes. Is there likean ideal time? I'm even wondering like
time and conversion rate, Like howmany people who chose not to buy from
you will give you their time,like maybe incentivised share. How you think
about the structure of the interview,how you get people into it, and
(13:37):
some thoughts on duration. Yeah,that's interesting because will people give us their
time on a loss? One thingwe tend to find is with wins losses,
and then when we do a lotof churn customer interviews. There's a
small difference in the willingness for themto speak. Where winds and churns actually
behave sort of similar and we geta higher participation rate from those that those
(14:00):
customers want to tell us a lotabout the experience. Losses is only very
small difference, So you change theincentive approach just a little bit, you
change the messaging a little bit.Losses are the ones that tend to favor
the third party approach to just kindof a you know, if the customer
themselves is reaching out to the buyerto try to get the decision, and
(14:22):
then once we have them, thattwenty to thirty minute session is typically a
great length so that you can godeep into what drove the decision. If
you start going longer, now you'regetting into buyer fatigue, where the answers
are blurring together. You're not gettingvery rich things after minute thirty, and
you also just don't get as manypeople on the phone. Yeah, talk
(14:43):
a little bit about the warm upperiod. I would imagine, first of
all, the idea that chern andcustomer behave similarly and loss behaves differently makes
intuitive sense. It's the depth ofthe relationship, Like if I was your
customer for six months or a yearor five years, I'm much more like
to do again. That makes tonsof intuitive sense. Talk about this is
(15:05):
kind of a nuanced question, buttalk about the warm up period, like
how do you build some familiarity andtrust with these people? How do you
maybe do you have any strategies forlike bringing the guard down in order to
get some you know, some interest, some legit introspection, and maybe a
higher degree of honesty, like anytricks there. This is a really really
(15:26):
important part of just my interview methodologyis I need that warm up period to
be one that builds trust, letsthem know I'm a human. I'm a
human that is not just here tolist off some questions that could have been
sent to you in any setting.But I want to build a personal connection
with them at first. And theeasiest way to do that is if videos
(15:48):
on I can notice something great aboutthe background, I can talk to them
about where they're calling from. AndI spent probably more of my time here
as an interviewer than I ever thoughtI would just talking about the weather and
relating to that. But you tendto find those connections of if I visited
a place, Oh my gosh,let me tell you about how much I
loved the Torch Taco trip I tooklast time I was in Texas. And
(16:11):
people tend to connect with you prettyfast. We explain exactly what we're doing
and why, and I think there'sa pretty clear alignment that if in the
beginning we have that personal connection andlet them know, Hey, we're here
to understand your experience, and we'rehere to understand exactly what you think could
have gone differently, people are prettywarm to that. Yeah, I think
(16:33):
you're doing I love that you getto do this. So I would love
to interview more like it's a privilegeshows a podcasts. I would love to
ask more questions to more people moreoften and package them up in the way
that you are. I'm going tomake an observation, and I would love
to get your just top of mindthoughts on it. If you're doing this
interview, I assume that it's probablyrecorded, and you're qualifying why it's being
recorded, and you certainly get atranscript, and you can run transcript through
(16:57):
AI and do sent him an analysisand keyword an analysis across bodies of them
and all these things, and maybeyou're doing that. You probably are.
But the thing that the transcript isalways going to miss, at least for
the foreseeable future. I think,unless I'm totally blind to some tech that
you might know something about, itdoesn't include what wasn't said. It doesn't
(17:18):
include the way something was said.Where did it get like staccato? Where
was there a thoughtful pause and aninhale. You know these things that you
Scott can detect, and it's goingto be reflected in your consulting analysis of
(17:38):
what happened and what transpired with thiscustomer. Talk a little bit about kind
of the richness in the conversation,and maybe even start getting into the divide
between qualitative and quantitative. I assumethat it also, at least on the
interview side of things, starts qualitativeand then you find some ways to roll
(17:59):
that up into some higher quantitative analysis. Yeah, I so much what you
said. I could talk for probablyhours on it alone. Okay, let's
go for like ten minutes then attemptto be concise. You started by getting
into just a lot of how Icoach our team when they come in,
when we coach new interviewers, isthere's this kind of phase to becoming a
(18:21):
good winless interviewer where step one isjust focusing on how do I interview and
how do I ask the right questions. Step two is when you get used
to that, making sure that you'replacing everything the buyer is saying within the
context of what a buying cycle lookslike, and so you're able to take
the responses and be agile and knowpeople are talking out of order, so
(18:41):
I'm going to back them up andI'm gonna start guiding them through so they
can make sure I have the wholecontext of what I need to And then
that final level is exactly what you'resaying the unsaid, and also tying observations
that you're hearing in other conversations aswell, so that you can bring all
that in. That is I thinkkind of what you're saying you would love
(19:03):
to do that That's what I'd loveto do exactly, and I think people
appreciate that that when you do callthat out. That one of initially when
I started doing win loss interviews,it's a lot about an interview guide I
had that has questions that I knoware going to be important, and I
know we're going to drill down toaria's valuable to the customer. The clients
that I'm working with on behalf of. But the best questions are the ones
(19:25):
that are just me listening to whatthey're saying and echoing back to them a
piece of what they said, soI can get them to elaborate on that
bit and elaborate on why that wasimportant. And sometimes if there's a pause,
it's letting that pause linger. It'smaybe calling out, maybe sometimes calling
out with humor like oh, Ifeel like there's a little bit something there.
And by keeping in mind exactly whatthey're saying, you can get them
(19:47):
to give so many more layers reallygood. I imagine you're actually let's stick
with this talk about the roll upof all the qualitative feedback. This is
a challenge that just in win lossis a challenge with everyone in data.
We all know that the richness ina human conversation a recorded video is super
useful. But it's not, asI hate this term, and I'm misused
(20:11):
it a little bit, it's notas scalable as just rolling up a whole
bunch of survey feedback. Talk aboutthe tension between qualitative and quantitative and perhaps
then even get into the nuance ofhow do we start turning some of the
qualitative stuff into useful quantitative data.Yeah, you take me back to the
first time I did qualitative research ina past life. We were doing some
(20:33):
deep value assessment, had these brilliantinterviews that I thought were just going to
be so valuable, like I couldn'tbelieve the things we got, and then
it came time to do some analysis, big giant head scratch. I had
no idea what it was I wasdoing. So that to me is the
tension between qualitative and quantitative. Howdo I take this richness and put it
into something useful. Going back toour definition of win loss, that academic
(20:56):
one, it's that systematic measurement.So we start with our system to measure.
What we use is decision drivers.It's kind of easy to think of
the categories that customers might be talkingabout. I've mentioned a few times,
but you know, interacting with ourproduct, for reception of our pricing,
sales. Those are three really easycategories that I know we're probably going to
(21:18):
come up. And then there's somesome themes that I'm going to look for
to go within that. If we'retalking about our sales approach. Could be
just the responsiveness, could be thetrust and empathy. I felt like I
was getting knowledge and expertise, thedemo proof of concept. So if you
start with those things, and Iknow what I'm looking for. When I'm
(21:40):
hearing customers talk about things that aremeaningful about their decision, I can kind
of putt put a little pin inthat and no, okay, like I'm
going to tag this theme and here'sthe quote that's going to go with that
to support it. So you startwith one interview, you start to like
build your rhythm, and then let'spull back after thirty and let's let's look
at those decision drivers and let's lookat some waiting. That's what that's what
(22:03):
our software is designed to do withthat human approach, also with some machine
learned approach, with just the surveydoing it itself. But if I look
at those, all those drivers thatI've defined, I can look at,
okay, across thirty conversations, fifteentimes, this has been a very influential
topic. And out of those verystrong influence on wins, this is my
(22:23):
wind driver, and this other thingover here those my lost drivers. That's
a lot of the kind of secretsauce we're trying to do is just surface
those and then if you can havethe segmentation in using the CRM, let's
do some breakdowns and let's say,okay, let's look at my enterprise deals
from Q two. Let's look atmy enterprise losses from Q two, and
(22:45):
I can have those top five winthose top five loss reasons, and now
let me click on that. Letme drill down into the quotes from the
customers that support that. So youknow, we have that quantitative system that
then goes down to the qualitative insightsof well, if somebody says API integration
is why that it bias, let'slook at the fifteen times that that happened
and see if we can get someconsistent themes. Yeah, really really good.
(23:08):
Talk about the tagging system. Imean that is that in my imagination,
there are probably maybe four or fivemain buckets, maybe as few as
two or three that like you know, you're gonna get you You're to start
with tag SETA or tag set BR, tag set C off the shelf,
and then we're going to kind ofdial it and customize it to your
(23:29):
business into your sales process. ButI would imagine and I and thinking then
maybe some of the variation is youknow, the duration or the level of
complexity of the buying process, thenature of the product or service. There
might be some vertical variation. Buttalk about that set up because the tag
is the thing, right like that, Like that's the intersection of the qualitative
and the quantitative is part of theunlock. Talk about some of the variation,
(23:52):
like is there like an off theshelf set of tags. I we
mentioned a few of the key driversalready. Yeah, I think I've asked,
Yeah, we've got that off theshelf place that we're starting from that
we know if we're talking about aB to B decision, these are some
things that are probably going to haveinfluence. And we're always trying to curate
that to the industry, to thespace that there's probably some things that we
(24:15):
know if we're talking about a bibusiness intelligence software, having some things about
dashboards analytics probably going to come upmore often than if we're talking about a
communication tool, where things like audioand video quality are probably going to be
a thing. This is where therecan be that almost like danger in trying
(24:36):
to get too specific in the beginningthat if I define all the things I'm
expecting to hear, I may endup with a roundup win loss interviews where
I have a lot of drivers ofone and so I have fifteen unique loss
and I have twelve unique win reasons. If I'm trying to prioritize things and
make strategic decisions, that's kind ofdifficult to do. So there's a balance
(24:56):
that we try to find of Let'sstart with a level that we can have
some clear groupings of our capabilities andfeatures of ease of use and intuitiveness.
And once we start getting a volumeof feedback in now we can start to
see, well, if I havea drive right, maybe there's a driver
where ease of use is an easyone. If that's showing up is a
(25:18):
clear win and loss reason pretty consistently, that's where I can probably look in
and do some investigation and say,oh, well, it turns out that
on the times where I win becauseof the user experience. I was talking
to a very technical admin and hewas talking about how it was easy for
them to set this up and provisionit to users and integrate it with their
(25:41):
ecosystem, but those lost things,that's the end user that's somebody that's not
very tech savvy and they're having frictiondoing this. Well, I have a
driver that because I have data,I can split that out and as I
go forward with my interviews, nowI know I know this customer set,
I know this client, I knowhow these drivers match. So it's almost
like I'm as the interviewer unbiased.As I am, I'm learning the language
(26:07):
of the customer and the clients.I can use the tagging more accurately.
Love it. This is a littlebit of a turn, but speak to
I mean, it should be obvious, but I'd love for you to just
like lay it out in I guesssmash this underhand softball tuck about the business
case. I mean it should beapparent. We've already talked about different ways
(26:27):
that this insight can be used acrossmultiple teams, not just helping perhaps say
the sales team understand different ways todisqualify. Perhaps something it's like, oh,
we've seen the signs this is goingto be a loss. You know,
eighty five percent she has at aloss based on these three things.
We heard that it has this hugevalue for messaging, for product roadmap,
(26:52):
etc. Etc. Etc. Justtalk about for people who aren't making this
investment of time and energy, whetherthey're using a tool like cloth or whether
they're trying to figure out a systemon their own, they haven't been that
systematic about it. Just make alittle business case for investing more time and
money into this. Yeah, doyou want to improve your win rate?
(27:12):
Are you measuring your win rate?Can you actually say that you're quantifying the
number of times if you're up fora deal, how often are you going
to win that? What's the likelihoodif you have fifty percent win rate if
you can increase that by just aten percent increasing win rate, if you
get just ten percent more of thosedeals up, How many more dollars does
(27:34):
that mean for your organization? Howmany more dollars does one incremental deal mean
for the org? Especially in theclimate we're in right now, where you
know we're here recording this a weekout from end of quarter. I know
that every person that has ownership overthe sales number, they're in a meeting
right now looking at all the dealsthat they can close the end of the
quarter, thinking what is it thatI can do so that I can increase
(27:59):
those wins? How do we meetour goal? How do we attain quota.
If I'm a customer owner and I'mlooking to know how do I retain
my customers? How can I flagmy at risk customers? Win loss is
clearly your answer. Where you cango and find a profile of similar clients,
you can look at similar competitive circumstances. What did those buyers need that
could help us? Well, let'slet's take those last ditch efforts so we
(28:23):
can try to see, you know, let's replicate the winds. But if
I think more forward thinking and I'mtrying to overcome milestones, I'm trying to
avoid obstacles, I can be muchmore proactive by using wind loss. Yeah,
really good. It's efficiency across thewhole revenue organization into product as well
(28:44):
one constituent. Kind of in mymind, I'm seeing a kind of a
quad scenario and one of them's empty. And I bet that you help people
with this too, although it's notprobably the primary it's obviously not the primary
use case. Be if prospect oneprospect lost, customer lost? Are you
helping people understand why customers are staying? We do? We do, And
it's interesting because some of that couldbe we have a lot of customers that
(29:07):
are staying with us and not reallydoing anything. And by not doing anything,
I mean they're just sitting there,they're not changing anything, they're just
renewing year over year. We don'tnecessarily know why we've gone. And we've
interviewed those customers to try to talkabout their use case, and many times
the objective is how do you quantifyvalue or how would you define value?
(29:29):
How do you know this is valuable? Probably more common is I'll go talk
to customers that have stayed and they'vedowngraded or they have upgraded. And I
did a recent project where, youknow, a client came and they said,
you know, we've got this hugelong tale of customers and oftentimes they're
with us several years before they expandwe're not entirely sure what's driving that.
(29:52):
So now we get in we talkabout the long tail of the customer experience
of the account management. What arethe things that happened before they actually expanded,
so they can do some proactive adjustmenttoo. Maybe they picked some things
in their website, Maybe they getmore proactive in their automated outreach to the
small customer and start nurturing them alongin a tactical way. So good,
(30:18):
very specific question. Indecision lost notto a competitor, lost to no decision,
indecision they just timed out close lostnot to a competitor. What are
you seeing there? I know you'reworking without all kinds of different people and
you're not necessarily seeing everything all thetime, But like, that's a thing,
(30:38):
it's an interesting thing. What haveyou observed about that? It's an
incredibly timely question, even just todate. When I started at Closed,
it was June of twenty twenty whenwe had this this little bug going around,
and so as I was getting myintro into when lost with Closed,
(30:59):
a lot of the things we wereseeing as the impact of COVID delaying buying
decisions, things like that, AndI watched as the world kind of came
back, and I watched there weresome activity. There's a lot of opportunity
was created when budgets came back.We're on a macro level. We're back
in that where a lot of ourclients, the amount of losses to no
decision is going way way up.It's a challenging thing to unpack, and
(31:22):
it's kind of a hard thing becauseit's painful for the clients that we have,
but within that, you know,we're seeing, well, give us,
give us what's happening on your side, tell us about kind of the
internal politics, tell us about howyou get budget allocated, who's making these
decisions, And we're kind of armingthe reps with very immediate feedback they can
take, not for hypothetical future deals, but intelligence they can use in these
(31:47):
in these deals right now we're givingthem. We actually kind of at this
exact timing, we made an adjustmentto our software that lets us flag those
wind back opportunities, and we're watchingcustomers go out and change their value message
so they can try to get someof that or we're capturing what does timing
look like on your side to comeback. And we're also in some cases
(32:09):
hearing about new competitors that aren't youknow, they're not just the small guys,
the new players emerging, but we'rehearing about new you know, kind
of ways people are getting creative tosolve their problems. Yeah, I mean
indirect competitor or a new completely newsolution essentially at some level super interesting.
Yeah, I would love to hearfrom your perspective with a bit of reflection.
(32:32):
I already mentioned it in the intro. I think it's part of what
made you want want me to kindof follow you around and offer that to
other people as you're entering rooms andthings. Marketing, product marketing, bizdev
analyst CSM. How did your thatdiversity of back because essentially it's the full
customer life cycle, you know,it's from the initial touch to managing accounts.
(32:57):
So you've had a lot of exposureto customers across you know, the
entire experience. How has that helpedyou in the role that you're in today.
Oh, that's a big question.I wonder if you if there's you
can help me just understand too,like kind of where you're coming from with
are you're asking it? Just meinteracting with so many different stakeholders? Yeah,
Yeah, I just think it's reallyinteresting your diversity of experience inside approximately
(33:22):
kin in a way organizations, youknow, for example, one way I
think it probably has helped you isbeing able to have effective interviews with different
types of buyers, right, likedifferent products and services. Some of them
product marketers buy them, some ofthem salespeople buy them. Some of them
are bought by sales leaders, butthey're for business development reps. Some of
(33:43):
them are bought by chief customer officers, but they'refore CSMs like, I just
think your background is so interesting inthe diversity of functions, and I just
had some imagination that it's helpful toyou today. That's helpful. It's so
interesting because I just think it's helpedme think about the big picture. It
was actually like for me personally specifically. You know, when I worked at
Qualitricks, I felt like I wasgetting this broad view into how so many
(34:07):
different industries are collecting feedback, andin the role that I am now,
I'm understanding how they're using the feedback. There's so much emphasis I think in
that going back to the quote whyit resonates with me, we don't really
talk about how to ask good questions, and then by doing that, it's
(34:27):
like, well, who's interested inthis? And I'm able to go see,
well, I know that in atthe client that I'm working with in
this one work, I know afterone interview, I know that the revenue
officer is really going to be interestedin this piece, and so let me
flag this to them because I knowhow they're going to use that. I
know how they're going to use thatto go adjust their process. They're going
to create some new collateral for theirsales team. They're going to disarm this
(34:50):
competitor ahead of time. And Ihear one nugget and I know, oh,
I better get this over to theproduct manager. He's going to want
to make sure that they have thisfor their roadmap. And I think that's
probably the best, you know,best part of my background and working with
so many diverse customers, really good. Thank you for doing that, and
thank you for seeking the clarification youneeded to provide that thoughtful response. Appreciate
(35:12):
it's part of the skill I learnedas an interviewer. A number of times
I ask a question, somebody answersand I think, oh, no,
they didn't know what I meant becauseI didn't I didn't clarify well enough.
Yeah, so this skill of courseof having conversations. I don't feel like
I've been my sharpest today. Thankyou for tolerating that. I feel like
it's a skill that is broadly transferable. You've obviously become relatively expert. I
(35:36):
don't know how you regard yourself.I don't want to oversell you to yourself.
You've developed some amount of expertise inthis zone. Any other like high
level tips or recommendations. There havebeen a few of them throughout the conversation
on interviewing. What are a coupleyou know when you think about people that
are new to it, that you'vecoached, any other like common mistakes or
just like simple quick, I'm goingto jump you ahead, if you could
(36:00):
just remember to do this thing,think about this thing, make this a
habit, any other like kind ofhacks, tips, lessons for people.
Yeah, I think there's two almostcontradictory bits of information. The first is
have a plan when you go intoit, sketch out what the questions you
need to ask are. But aspart of that plan, the danger is
(36:22):
trying to scope too many questions,where if you go into a conversation thinking
I got to ask all of thesequestions, and if you do, you're
not considering how long it's going totake to answer those questions. But even
if you had the answer to allthose questions, if you step back,
would you know why you want orlost the deal? Or even more simply
stated, would you know why thecustomer made the decision that they did.
(36:46):
And if the answer to that isno, then you might need to re
revisit your plan, but I thinkhow a good bank of questions that you
can ask appropriately. And now thesecond more important tip is if you learn
how to just listen to other people, listen very carefully and like you said,
(37:06):
listen to the intangibles. That's goingto tell you exactly what you need
to ask next. And I thinkthat's the most important awesome And with that,
I want to point folks to anotherinterview that I did on the Customer
Experience podcast. On episode one eightyfour, I talked with Tanya Berstrom,
the founder of a firm called Derby, and we talk a lot about literal
(37:29):
voice of the customer and customer interviews. That one was called holding Curious Conversations
to hear the Voice of the Customer. Episode on any four with Tanya,
we also talk Scott a little bitabout indecision and it wasn't just an advanced
tease to episode two twenty seven withMatt Dixon, who's the author of The
Challenger Sale, Challenger Customer, andmore recently the Jolt Effect. We call
(37:51):
that one keys to overcoming customer anddecision. There's a lot of really interesting
psychology in that book and in thatinterview on episode two twenty seven with Matt
Dixon about why so many of usare losing more deals than ever to indecision
and part of it interesting. Haveyou read that one, Scott. I
haven't read that one yet, butI'm a big Matt Dixon fan, so
(38:12):
the fact you're using him in thisinterview is big trophy for me. Love
it. I think you'll love thatbook. There's a lot of the problem
that we tend to get into isthat our default is to turn up fear,
uncertainty, and doubt, when infact that's exactly what's causing the indecision
in the first place, or theparalysis or whatever. So I think you'll
really enjoy it, just based onI want to know of you through the
(38:35):
time we spent together in these settingsbefore I let you go, Scott,
First, thank you. Second,I would love for you to give thanks
to someone who's had a positive impacton your life or career. Yeah,
I need to shout out doctor KellyDrees, who became a mentor back when
I was an undergrad, when Iwas trying to navigate my own future career
path, and she was the firstperson I think that gave me opportunity to
(38:57):
lead and taught me how to leadjust from caring, just from listening.
Had a conversation with her just lastnight. So there's my shout out.
Awesome, well done. How abouta company or brand that delivers a great
experience for you as a customer.Yeah, I would be true to my
own personal brand if I didn't shoutout fan Dango. Everyone at Clothes is
going to know I spend a significantamount of my time popping around at the
(39:20):
movies. I think they've really masteredwhat it means to curate a great personal
experience and keep you coming back.Awesome. Fun fact, my son is
also a huge fan of movies,and I think he's written something like eight
hundred reviews in letterbox. Are youfamiliar with that app avid user myself?
Okay, cool, love it.I'll have to point him to you.
(39:43):
I've enjoyed this so much, Scott. If other folks are at this point
in the conversation, I'm sure theydid too. If they want to follow
up, learn more about you,learn more about closed. Where would you
send people who've enjoyed this conversation?Yeah, the easiest answers always find me
on LinkedIn. Even easier. Igot the benefit of being Scott a dot
com. But the thing that welove is if if you are at all
(40:04):
curious and understanding what does an interviewlook like? Can a third party understand
my customer interviewing is so much myfavorite part that hop over to free Buyer
Interview dot com and I would loveto give you a test run. Love
at free buyer interview dot com.Yes, awesome, love it. It's
Scott Varner. For folks listening onthe move or as I tend to listen
(40:25):
to podcasts, it's Scott Varner spelledexactly how it sounds closed to clozdclos dot
com and Free Buyer Interview dot com. Ethan, it was great having the
conversation. Yeah, appreciate you allright, thanks so much. A marketing
futurist from Salesforce, the first salespersonat HubSpot, an emotional intelligence expert with
(40:47):
seven US patents in the analysis offacial coding data. These are just three
of more than a dozen experts featuredin the Wall Street Journal bestseller Human Centered
Communication, A Business Case against DigitalPollution. The purpose of the book to
give you frameworks, strategies, andspecific tactics to create human connection across the
(41:10):
digital divide. Learn to break throughthe noise, build trust, and enhance
your reputation and revenue despite the everincreasing digital noise and pollution that separates us
all. Get your copy of HumanCentered Communication absolutely free at bombomb dot com
(41:30):
slash freebook. That's bomb bomb dotcom slash free book. Thanks for listening
to the Customer Experience Podcast. Rememberthe single most important thing you can do
today is to create and deliver abetter experience for your customers. Continue learning
the latest strategies and tactics by subscribingright now in your favorite podcast player,
(41:52):
or visit bombomb dot com slash podcasts
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