2020 marks the second year that my family has set intentions, rather than resolutions. 

If you’re already on board with intentions, feel free to jump ahead as the next couple of paragraphs offer some personal context on Resolutions vs. Intentions.

Resolutions are made to be broken because they so often focus on outcomes and specifics -- and usually create impossible to hit goals. An intention is a purpose, a general goal you aim to achieve and that gives you something to actively work towards.  

What is the difference between my making a resolution to use our rower 3-4 times a week, and setting the intention to live a healthier lifestyle? For me, a hell of a lot. The resolution requires me to be perfect - if I only row once in a week, I’ve already broken the resolution, beat myself up about it, and all things considered, actually end up less healthy.

On the other hand, when I set an intention to live a healthier lifestyle I give myself flexibility and creativity. It allows me to complement my rowing with an hour-long walk listening to a podcast, discovering a new vegetarian recipe in an effort to cook less red meat, and establishing a more consistent sleeping schedule. I achieve a healthier lifestyle that feeds my creativity and broadens my knowledge, meaning my mental health becomes part of the equation.

Intentions are great for personal growth, and the same approach can be applied to business. With many fiscal years just starting or coming up on the eve of January 31st, I wanted to encourage B2B companies to set cross-functional intentions in 2020.

I’ll share one intention for Sales & Marketing teams to get you started: In 2020, listen more to your customers and prospects. You’ll find yourselves making smarter, more strategic decisions that ensure you hit your growth targets.

Here are 3 ways your team can fulfill this intention:

1. Onboard and train your team using feedback directly from customers and prospects. Companies often struggle to ramp new hires and drive sales productivity by relying only on tribal knowledge. While the tribe may have useful information, it’s often incomplete and can also fall into the trap of amplifying company myths (in psychology, it’s called reflective appraisal). The trouble is, while you may understand the core elements of what drives buyers’ decisions, you probably don’t know how to prioritize them. And usually, what your CRM tells you about why you win and lose is wrong 60% of the time! It’s as unlikely that you’re losing deals solely because of your product and pricing as it is that you’re winning them all based purely on sales execution. Talk to your customers AND the prospects that chose to go another direction. Ask them about the product and pricing, but also ask them about their sales experience, how they viewed the market coming into their evaluation, and ultimately what their top 3 priorities were. Your new hires (and current team!) will be better for having learned straight from your buyers.

2. Stop building pipeline based on anecdotal evidence.  

   How often are you investing budget in a new vertical based on the assumption that a new product feature will resonate in that market? Do you often use a handful of your most recent wins and stories from Sales to increase spend in a specific channel? Anecdotes about the best leads and product fit in a category can feel like alignment between marketing and sales. But until you actually listen to your prospects and not just your internal team, you risk doubling down on a gut feeling rather than the reality.  I recently worked with a client where sales felt they had traction in Manufacturing companies the last two quarters, but by talking to prospects from this vertical we found a consistent fear of recession and a tightening of purse strings and IT budgets. Investing heavily in building pipeline for 2020 in this vertical would ultimately mean less budget for other campaigns that would likely yield higher returns. When you work back from your customers you’ll place smarter bets on generating winnable pipeline - you’ll also learn which messages are resonating and convert leads to closed-won deals.

3. Share what you learn from customers and prospects across the organization. 

   In-depth win-loss interviews will uncover new and unexpected insights beyond sales and marketing.  By collaborating upfront on the types of questions to ask and hypotheses to test, you’ll generate findings that should be distributed across the business. This information can enable sales to win more often, fuel more potent marketing content and messaging, create new product strategies and roadmap priorities, and influence the broader corporate strategy. Most importantly, you’ll create amazing cross-functional alignment when everyone is focused on listening to your buyers. Don’t hoard this valuable information! Share it transparently in company-wide meetings and make it accessible to leaders across the business. You’ll find everyone believes the plan is more credible when it’s based on information straight from the customer.

The best way to accomplish these three goals is to start a formal B2B win/loss analysis program. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Don’t start by setting a goal for a certain number of interviews every month, or only talk to a specific cohort. Just start.  When it comes to win/loss, I often hear B2B leaders say that they know it’s something they should be doing, or have done in the past, but that no one has the cycles to keep it up. Other things come up and inevitably as the new fiscal year approaches, teams are left thinking about win/loss as something they will get to next year. This sounds a lot like the result of the broken resolution, rather than the setting of an intention. Goals were set too high or were wrong to begin with. One or two people were assigned to hit them. The program fizzled because it was a siloed and unrealistic resolution rather than a shared intention to listen more to your customers and prospects.

For your fiscal new year, don’t drop the ball on win/loss analysis. Set the intention in 2020 to listen more!

Check out Everything you need to know about running a rigorous win-loss program.