I recently finished reading "Blindspots: The Ultimate Guide to Building a Better Win-Loss Program" by Ryan Sorley, and it’s an essential resource for anyone passionate about deeply understanding customer decisions and competitive landscapes.
As a Product Manager, effectively analyzing competition is crucial, and Win-Loss analysis provides powerful intel directly from customers. Whether you're initiating a new Win-Loss program, running an established one, or even outsourcing, this book provides actionable guidance to scale and optimize your efforts.
Key highlights that particularly resonated with me:
1) Securing Leadership Buy-In: Ensuring alignment with senior leadership is foundational. Ryan advocates for initial in-depth discussions to uncover leadership's specific knowledge gaps, making sure the program delivers valuable strategic insights.
2) Defining Clear Learning Objectives: Clearly defined goals based on leadership's priorities help focus the program. Designing your Win-Loss activities around these objectives ensures the insights gathered directly impact strategic decisions.
3) Maintaining Program Agility: Ryan emphasizes the importance of regularly adjusting your Win-Loss program to stay aligned with evolving business needs. Insights gained initially should inform the continuous refinement of objectives and strategies.
4) Creating Actionable Insights: Gathering data isn't enough—Ryan stresses the importance of forming internal committees responsible for reviewing insights, prioritizing actionable recommendations, assigning clear responsibilities, and defining measurable success criteria.
If you're serious about customer insight and competitive advantage, I highly recommend adding this book to your professional toolkit!