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Competitor · Diagnose

Win/loss analysis

The cheapest research you will ever do, because the evidence already exists inside your business. It is also the one nobody runs, because the answers are uncomfortable.

The printable canvas and the handoff into Claude Code are part of a paid plan. See what a plan includes. It needs the Claude desktop app on this machine, and your team and the prompt library already installed in that project — we cannot see your disk, so open it there.

Stage
01 Diagnose
Works at
Business, Department
Maturity
Early startup → Large organisation
Time
A week of calls, or two hours with the CRM notes

What it is

A systematic look at why deals were actually won and lost, drawn from the people who decided rather than from the people who sold. The evidence already exists inside the business, which makes it the cheapest research available — and the least run, because the findings tend to be uncomfortable for whoever owns the pipeline.

The recorded reason
What was logged at the time. Treat it as a baseline to be disproved rather than as data — "price" is what gets written when nobody knows.
The decider's account
What the person who actually chose says, in their words. Not the contact who fobbed you off, and not your own account manager's reconstruction.
The win side
Why the customers who chose you did so. Almost nobody asks this, and it is half the value: the reason is rarely what your marketing leads with.
Cause versus excuse
Behind almost every price objection sits a value, trust or process failure. The analysis is finished when you have reached one of those.
The fixable category
A group of losses sharing a cause that you could realistically close, with a value attached. One category beats twenty anecdotes.
The mistake people makeSample the losses you did not expect to lose. Deals you were never going to win tell you nothing; the ones that should have gone your way are where the pattern lives.
What it’s forYou are losing deals and the sales team's explanation is always price.
What it’s not forYou have too few deals for a pattern, or no record of why they went either way.

How you run it

  1. Pull the recorded reasons firstGet the pattern the CRM thinks exists. It is usually wrong — "price" is what people write when they do not know.
  2. Call five lost customersNot the buyer who fobbed you off. The person who decided. Ask what the winner did that you did not.
  3. Call three won customers tooNobody does this, and it is half the value. Why did they pick you? Rarely the thing your marketing leads with.
  4. Separate cause from excusePrice is almost always the excuse. Behind it sits a value, trust or process problem. Push until you reach one.
  5. Group into fixable categoriesYou want a category of loss you could close, not a list of anecdotes. One fixable category beats twenty stories.

The prompt

Two ways to run it

Run this tool in your own Claude

The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.

🔒 Prompt locked

Everything above is free — what this tool is, what it is for, what it is not for, and how to run it as a workshop. Three tool prompts a month are free with an account; beyond three, and for the printable canvas, it is the paid part.

See plans — from £19 a month

Your playbook

It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.

You’ll need

  • A list of won and lost deals over 12 months
  • Whatever reason was recorded at the time
  • Ideally permission to call five lost customers

You’ll end up with

  • The real reasons, ranked, separated from the recorded reasons
  • Which competitor takes what, and on what basis
  • One or two changes that would flip a category of loss

Runs well with

AI risk classification and governanceAnalysis planBusiness Model CanvasCapability maturity assessment