Confidential pursuit debriefs

Do you trust your go/no‑go decision?

We combine what each person on your pursuit team learns but never writes down, and turn it into an action plan.

The plan lists the conditions your pursuit really has to meet, and what your team can do to meet them and improve its chances of winning.

This is not another go/no-go checklist.
Example: a $4M pursuit at a regional bank
What four people told us in confidence
Stays with Boost Win Rate
The action plan you receive
No names, no quotes
What four people told us in confidence (stays with Boost Win Rate)
Wk 2
Solution architectThe bank's operations team complained about weekend outages.
Wk 3
Account executiveThe new CTO's last bank used our biggest competitor.
Wk 4
Pricing leadNext year's budget is flat, and our price is 18% above it.
Wk 5
Proposal managerThe bank asked how it could exit its current contract.
The action plan you receive (no names, no quotes)
Action plan

Regional bank, $4M application management

Meet the new CTODue week 4Step: two colleagues who worked with him ask for 30 minutes
Critical this week
Show how we would stop the weekend outagesStep: a 60-day plan, backed by a service credit
Open
Fit next year's flat budgetStep: a smaller first-year scope, then a second phase
At risk
Answer the exit questionStep: offer exit assistance in our own contract
Done
Week 6 gate: we continue only if the CTO meeting has happened.
The problem

Your pursuit team sees new evidence every week about how a pursuit is going, but nobody writes it down or puts it together.

Most firms make the go/no-go decision at the start of a pursuit and never revisit it, even though the facts behind that decision keep changing.

THE DECISION ON FILE

0
Go.

The pursuit lead scored the pursuit in week 1, and nobody scored it again.

WHAT FOUR PEOPLE LEARNED IN WEEKS 2 TO 5, AND NEVER WROTE DOWN

Week 2, solution architect"In our workshop, the bank's operations team complained about the weekend outages they've had with their current vendor."
Week 3, account executive"The bank just hired a new CTO, and at his last bank he used our biggest competitor."
Week 4, pricing lead"The bank's budget for next year is flat, and our price is 18% above it."
Week 5, proposal manager"The bank added a late question to the RFP about how it can exit its current contract."
The firm competed on price and lost in week 9.The bank chose the competitor the new CTO had worked with before.The reason logged in the CRM was "price."

Anyone who had heard all four facts would have seen that the bank was ready to replace its vendor, and that a safe transition mattered more than a lower price. This example is a composite of pursuits people described to us, and its figures are illustrative.

What the research shows

Researchers have found three reasons why the facts that decide a pursuit rarely reach the go/no-go meeting.

18%

of groups made the best decision when the facts they needed were spread across members.

Stasser and Titus, 1985
85%

of employees said they had felt unable to raise an important issue with their boss.

Milliken, Morrison and Hewlin, 2003
15%

of loss reasons recorded in CRM systems matched what buyers said in interviews.

Clozd

On average, nine people contribute to each RFP response, and each of them hears different things from the client (Loopio, 2026). Full sources are in the framework.

What people leave out of a loss review

The reasons people write down after a loss are too vague to act on, but in a confidential interview, the same people explain what actually happened.

What gets writtenWhat the team told us in confidenceWhat to do next time
"Pricing was a factor."
The evaluators compared first-year prices, because nobody showed them the cost over the full contract.
Show the total contract cost, and ask the CFO's office to compare bids on that basis.
"The relationship could have been stronger."
Nobody had met the executive who owned the budget.
Ask a partner that already works with the client to co-host a lunch with that executive.
"Resourcing was tight."
The delivery lead we named was committed to another client.
Name a backup delivery lead, and have both managers confirm their time in writing.
Who we interview

Each person on a pursuit team knows something that nobody asked about at the go/no-go meeting.

Proposal manager"The client asked three separate questions about where its data would be stored."
Solution architect"The client's security team failed an audit last year."
Account executive"The client's CISO now has to approve every new vendor."
CombinedThe client will choose mainly on security.
What the team didThe team treated security as one section out of twelve.
What the team could have done

Bring its own security lead to the oral presentation.

Ask to meet the CISO before submitting.

We also interview
Pricing leadHow much the price was cut
Delivery leadWhether the team can start on time
Pursuit leadDoubts left out of the score
Why confidential

In a 1-on-1 walkthrough, people mention the routine facts, and in confidence, they mention the rest.

Group debriefThe whole team in 1 room, with the leaders who approved the bid


Team

Team

Team

Team

Leader who approved the bid
"Pricing was a factor."

Confidential debriefOne person, and an interviewer from outside the firm


Team member

Boost Win Rate
"Procurement told me twice that the incumbent's renewal price was the benchmark, and we priced 18% above it."
Satisfied with win/loss interviews run by a third party
62%
Satisfied with win/loss interviews run internally
28%

Pragmatic Institute and Clozd, State of Win-Loss Analysis Report, 2023. The quotes are illustrative.

The confidentiality protocol

You receive findings without names or quotes, and we never share recordings or transcripts.

Each person sees these rules before agreeing to an interview. Read the protocol as your team will see it.

The interview

We talk with each person for 30 minutes, one at a time.

Our own computer

We transcribe and remove names with AI models on our computer, never a cloud AI service.

Your review

Within 48 hours, each person marks every point: use, use only when combined, or don't use.

The findings

We write every finding in our own words, with no names, quotes or roles.

Your firm

Your firm has agreed in writing not to ask for recordings or try to identify anyone.

Recordings and transcripts stay with Boost Win Rate, and we delete them after a fixed period.
Your firm sees only the approved findings.
Each condition comes with a plan

Knowing that nobody has met the budget owner is useful only if you also know how to get that meeting before the RFP is issued.

In the same confidential interview, we ask each person what the team did, or could have done, to meet each condition. We add a step to the plan when someone on your team suggests it, when your team used it in 1 of your wins, or when a pursuit leader at another firm has used it and agrees to be credited.

Gate 1 condition

Before the RFP is issued, someone from our firm has met the executive who owns the budget, and not only the procurement team.

ProofThe account executive's calendar entry and meeting notes
If the condition is still not metThe firm bids as a subcontractor to a firm that already knows the budget owner, or does not bid.

Ask a partner that already works with the client, such as its cloud or ERP vendor, to co-host a lunch for six people on a problem the budget owner has spoken about publicly.

Other firms, on the recordOwner: alliance manager, week 1

Offer the budget owner a 45-minute session, with no sales pitch, on how four of their industry peers handled the same problem.

Your past winsOwner: practice lead, week 1

Ask colleagues on current projects at the client, its parent company or its subsidiaries whether they know the budget owner well enough to introduce you.

Your team, in confidenceOwner: account executive, week 1

Invite the budget owner to speak on an industry panel that your firm hosts.

Your team, in confidenceOwner: marketing lead, week 2
Where to start: the pursuit autopsy

In two weeks, we interview every person who worked on one recent pursuit, in confidence.

Day 1

Onboarding call

We pick one pursuit decided in the last 6 months with your sponsor.

Days 1 and 2

Invitations

Your sponsor invites each person, with the confidentiality protocol attached.

Days 3 to 10

Confidential interviews

We interview each person for 30 minutes, one at a time, and team members before their managers.

Day 14

Debrief

We show you the conditions your pursuits really have to meet, and the steps your team named for each one.

You get

  • One account of the pursuit, combined from every interview, with the points where it was won or lost
  • An estimate of what the pursuit cost in senior staff time
  • The conditions your next similar pursuit must meet at each gate, and how they differ from your current criteria
  • For each condition, a plan of specific steps with an owner and a due week

Which pursuit qualifies

The pursuit was worth at least $500K, or it took at least 100 hours of senior staff time.

It was decided in the last 6 months, and 3 to 6 people worked on it.

Three pursuits

In each of these three pursuits, someone on the team knew what it would take to win, but nobody put the facts together.

Each example shows what the team knew, what the team could have done, and the gate condition we would add. The examples are composites, and their figures are illustrative.

After the autopsy

For two quarters, we track each major pursuit against its conditions every week, and then we reduce our role.

Monday

The open conditions

The pursuit lead receives the open conditions for the next gate, and the one step that matters most that week.

Friday

A three-minute update

The pursuit lead marks each condition as done, not yet done or blocked, and adds one line about anything that changed.

Over the weekend

The next step

We update the list and send the next step from the plan for each blocked condition.

At each gate

A 15-minute call

The sponsor and the pursuit lead decide whether to continue, pause or withdraw, based on the Friday updates.

After each major pursuit

The debrief

Within 10 days of each decision, won or lost, we interview the people who worked on the pursuit.

Each quarter

Leader interviews

We interview each leader about 5 to 8 recent pursuits and revise the conditions and plans with them.

After two quarters

A defined end

When we add no new conditions in two quarterly reviews in a row, we reduce the work to a short quarterly check, or stop.

Testing the new conditions

Before you adopt the new conditions, we test them on 5 to 10 of your past pursuits alongside your current criteria.

  1. We pick 5 to 10 pursuits from the last 12 months, including both wins and losses.
  2. For each pursuit, we find the week in which each new condition would have failed, using your CRM records and a 10-minute call with the capture manager.
  3. We do the same for your current criteria.
  4. We add up the senior hours spent after the week in which each pursuit would have been stopped.
An example with 10 past pursuits, 5 won and 5 lostCurrent criteriaNew conditions
Losses that would have been stopped0 of 54 of 5
Wins that would have been stopped by mistake0 of 51 of 5
Median week in which the pursuit would have stoppedNo stopsWeek 2
Senior hours that would have been saved01,120

These figures are illustrative. All ten pursuits had passed the current criteria. Ten pursuits are too few to prove the result, so we repeat the test as more pursuits close.

Objections and answers

These are the six questions sales and pursuit leaders ask before they start.

"We already do postmortems."
We compare what your postmortems recorded with what your team says in confidence, and we add the steps that would have met each condition.
"We already calibrate against past outcomes."
Calibration adjusts the weights on scores your team gave itself. We add the facts from each person's confidential account, including the ones your checklist leaves out.
"We use a win/loss firm."
Win/loss firms interview your buyers about why they chose. We interview your team about what they knew and what they would do about it. We have not found another firm that interviews the seller's own pursuit team in confidence.
"Will people really talk?"
They see the protocol before agreeing, you never receive the recordings, and your firm learns only how many people took part, not who they were.
"How is it accurate without quotes?"
Each person reviews their own points before we use them, we check each insight with 1 or 2 people on the team, and we test each condition against your past pursuits and later ones.
"We don't want another forever vendor."
We work with you for two quarters, then reduce our role once a quarterly review adds nothing new.
What you measure

In two weeks, you'll know what your team saw, and in two quarters, you'll know whether it raised your win rate.

Week 2: decision quality

Risks your team knew about that the score did not include

We list each risk with how many interviews raised it, and the pursuit's estimated cost.

Quarters 1 and 2: pursuit efficiency

Senior hours spent on pursuits that would not have passed the new conditions

We express this in dollars, for example $420K of senior time across three pursuits that you would have stopped at gate 2.

Quarters 2 to 4: results

Win rate and revenue won on the pursuits you chase

We measure both together, so the gain comes from winning more, not from bidding on less.

Day 1

We pick one recent major pursuit with your sponsor on an onboarding call.

Days 3 to 10

We interview each person who worked on it for 30 minutes, in confidence.

Day 14

In the debrief, you see the conditions your pursuits really have to meet, how they differ from your current criteria, the senior hours you would have saved, and the steps your team named for each condition.

Start with one recent major pursuit

We reply within one business day to schedule the onboarding call.