When you lose a sale, it's an opportunity to learn something about yourself and your firm and also about your competitors. Recently, I spoke with Ken Sawka, Managing Partner of Outward Insights, a competitive intelligence consulting firm, and asked him how a firm could get the most from these opportunities. He had suggestions well worth passing on.

Where I had expected to learn some unusual questioning techniques, he immediately spoke of how the debrief with the client fit into a larger process. Sawka suggests that you seldom learn the most valuable insights from a single debrief. Rather, you learn lots of pieces from a variety of sources that allow you to put together a picture of how to fix a competitive disadvantage. The sources include:

• Debriefs with the partners leading all major pursuits, whether wins or losses.
• Debriefs with clients on both wins and losses.
• Interviews with alumni of firms you compete with.
• Competitors' and your own marketing materials, such a websites, with specific attention to how changes in them suggest changes in what the competitors view as how best to compete.

All of these sources have their weaknesses and biases, but combined they can give you lots of raw information.

Your own biases complicate the analysis of this information, says Sawka. "If you are convinced that the competitor is beating you on price, you can probably find validation in the data, even if price is only a part of the problem."

To avoid making this mistake, Sawka recommends developing a number of competitive themes, such as, a) the clients are buying on price, b) Competitor A's reputation for x is stronger than ours, c) our range of service is a major factor when we win. Then see what information you have supporting or negating each. This usually provides you with a richer and more valuable understanding of your competitive situation.

Ken provided this illustration of his point: When a large technology consulting firm began to lose projects to competitors who were outsourcing work to India, they tried to compete on price. Though they cut costs as fast as they could, competitors matched and exceeded every price drop, and the firm continued to lose.

Research, encompassing all the sources listed above, showed them that clients didn't think of the firm as low cost. Rather, they valued its processes and methodologies which increased the chance of success on complicated projects. They didn't want to risk giving that kind of work to the cost-cutting competitors.

The more they had tried to compete on price, the more they had lost. As soon as they focused on complex, demanding projects, their win rates climbed-and at higher prices.

Ken's blog can be found at www.outwardinsights.blogspot.com