Why closed lost reasons are an opportunity, not an obstacle

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Sales reps are the first and last line of defense in your sales process. They are the ones who uncover opportunities, identify needs, establish trust and rapport with customers, decipher the reasons for closing deals, and expose unaddressed customer pain points at every step of the way. That’s why it’s so frustrating when reps encounter lost deals. These scenarios put reps in a catch-22: On one hand, reps understand that they cannot win new business without investing time to uncover what’s preventing prospects from buying. On the other hand, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression on your customers. Whether they happen by accident or design, closed lost deals have disastrous implications for sales performance. Any gaps in processes make it easier for leads to fall through the cracks, which in turn makes it more challenging to find them again when they become ready to buy. So how can you use closed lost reasons more productively as an opportunity instead of an obstacle?

Overview

• Register closed lost reasons
• How to find gaps in the sales process

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Why do sales reps often not register the closed lost reason?

It’s normal for a certain percentage of leads to fall through the cracks. You might have invested too little time with them in the beginning, or they might have been looking for something that you didn’t offer. In some cases, you might have spent too much time with a lead without getting to the point. There are many ways to lose leads, but the most common ones involve failing to discover unmet needs, uncovering false pain points, and failing to close the sale.

Some companies require their reps to leave a note when a lead is lost, or a message in Slack. More often the big deals that were lost are also discussed with their manager. There are many lost deals however, who just vanish silently into a marketing wasteland. The truth is, that it can be painful for sales people to rehash all of the reasons why they did not close. They would rather move on to the next opportunity.

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"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them yourself."

Importance of keeping notes

One of the best ways to diagnose a sales process is to retrospectively examine lost deals. You can use this information to identify the gaps in your sales process by asking questions such as:

• What prevented prospects from buying?
• What prevented prospects from buying from us?
• Why weren’t they ready to buy?
• What can we do to get them ready to buy?

These questions will help you get a clear idea for the gaps in your sales process. When you come across a lead who didn’t buy, you should ask yourself why they didn’t buy. You can then categorize the reason as false pain points, unmet needs, or both. If you encounter leads who were ready to buy, but didn’t buy from you, you can categorize their reasons as false pain points, unmet needs, or both. Leads might not be ready to buy because they don’t trust you enough to buy from you yet. You can use this information to identify ways to build trust with your leads.  You can use the information about false pain points to come up with ways to allay customers’ concerns. You can also use information about unmet needs to identify areas in which you can broaden your offerings. Once you’ve identified the areas that need improvement, you can work to improve them.

As you go through the lost deals, you might notice that a certain type of lead keeps falling through the cracks. If this happens, you might want to start by trying to uncover the root cause of all this losing. With this type of lost reasons, you’re not looking for gaps in your sales process. You’re looking for the reason behind it, whatever it might be. Ask questions to uncover false pain points When you encounter leads who are not ready to buy, you can ask them questions to uncover false pain points that are preventing them from investing in your product or service. These questions should address their concerns and fears. This way, you can start working to alleviate those concerns.

On the other hand, leads who are not ready to buy might have unmet needs that are holding them back from becoming ready to buy. Questions related to their needs should help you identify what prospects need in order to become ready to buy.

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Uncover why prospects did not buy

Sometimes the input left by the sales reps is not sufficient and you need more information. This can be done by conducting a win loss analysis, this is particularly useful if you’re selling a product or service that offers solutions to common problems. Which is a great discovery exercise often leaving you surprised with some of the results and might even help you identify new competitors. This enables you to get in touch with your prospective customers and learn more about their needs. This is done by interviewing prospective customers and asking them about their needs, pains, and frustrations.

Another way to uncover unmet needs is to conduct a customer survey. Surveys allow you to gather qualitative data from your prospective customers. This data can then be used to identify what your prospects need in order to become ready to buy from you.

It could very well be, that these prospects have certain IT systems in place, or another organizational aspect that makes your product incompatible for them. It might be that 10 other prospects are in the same situation. If you encounter this information, you can act on it. If 20% of your deals get lost because you miss an integration with Hubspot. Then you need to talk to your product team and see if they can make it a priority on their roadmap. But if you never ask, you will never know.

If you come across a lost file and you can’t seem to uncover the root cause of all this losing, you can try to reverse engineer the problem. You can start by looking at the people who have fallen through the cracks and thinking about what they have in common. For example, if you’re in sales and you’re coming across a lot of lost files, you might want to start by looking at the people who are falling through the cracks. You can then ask yourself if there’s anything they have in common. If you can’t find a common thread, you’ll need to be more creative. You can try asking yourself what they don’t have in common. This can be a helpful way to come up with ideas for how to reverse engineer the problem.

Lost deals are frustrating for sales teams because they represent lost opportunities. It’s crucial for reps to understand why these leads are falling through the cracks so that they can do something about it. When reps have insight into the gaps in their sales process, they can take steps to close those gaps and reduce the number of leads that were not closed.

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