In sales, when a deal is lost, your business can still turn it into a win by learning and adjusting to boost your sales. Marketing Metrics highlights that businesses usually have a 5-20% chance of turning a prospect into a customer, meaning the other 80%-95% of the time the deal will be lost. This statistic highlights just how normal and commonly lost deals are in sales. This article will look into the different takeaways your business should get from a lost deal and the benefits they will bring you.
There is a reason behind every won or lost deal in a business. It is very important for businesses to take the time to identify the reasons why they are winning and losing deals so they are able to alter their sales process to improve things accordingly. Some common reasons why a sales team may lose a sale are:
To find out exactly why and how deals are lost, some businesses conduct interviews with lost customers to find out what happened. This is an effective way of identifying things to improve on in your sales process to avoid losing future deals. This section will break down some of the possible reasons your business may lose deals.
When a salesperson is communicating with a potential customer, they must make sure that their focus is on the customer, and the customer’s problem to be successful. If you focus on your product when talking to a client, it is likely they will become disinterested in your product as you will seem like you are trying to sell them something rather than help them resolve their problem. This is a big reason why some deals are lost in a sales team.
If your sales and marketing departments are not working collaboratively towards your business’s goals, it is likely that your sales team will not get the highest quality, most relevant leads possible. This will make it more challenging for sales teams to win deals, and lead to more sales being lost as the potential customers were not relevant enough for your product or service.
If a sales representative takes a client’s first answer to a deal, they are likely to not get the answer they want. Brevet shares that on average, 80% of sales require about 5 follow-ups with the customer before a deal is closed. This statistic shows how important it is for a sales representative to follow up with their clients, and not be disheartened if a client’s first answer is no or they are unsure. Instead, you must persevere and adjust to the client’s needs to show them that your product is the solution to their problem.
After your business loses a sale, they make take the necessary steps to analyze how and why the sale was lost. Follow these steps to turn a lost deal into a win.
Analyse your sales process – You must look at the steps in your sales process and identify where any challenges are occurring. This will help you identify where sales representatives are finding challenges in the sales processes, and where you are able to improve your efficiency.
Compare the process to a winning deal –This will help you identify anything that has worked in the winning deal that may have been applicable to the deal that was lost. As a result, your business will get a better understanding of what methods work well for your products or services when trying to sell to a customer.
Provide training and support – Once the analysis has been done to find out how and why your deal was lost, you need to make sure that your business takes steps to improve on the areas that may have lost the deal. Providing training and support for sales representatives can be very beneficial for this as it will help your team improve their skills and reduce the risk of them making mistakes when talking to a client.
Focus on higher quality leads – If you find that you are losing a high number of deals, you may want to focus more on the quality of your leads as opposed to the quantity of them. This means you should collaborate with your marketing department to try and generate high-quality leads that have a higher chance of
Follow-up with lost prospects – Instead of giving up once a deal is lost, try following up with the lost prospect. A lost prospect’s situation may change, where they are now more interested in your product. This means that after a short period of time, it can be effective to reconnect with a prospect to see if you are able to now move further through the sales funnel with the client.
To win more deals and reduce the number of deals you lose, adopting these strategies may help:
Focus on the bond with the customer – Rather than focusing on selling your product to the customer, focus on creating a good relationship with the customer. This will increase the trust between you and the customer making it more likely that a deal can be agreed upon.
Incorporate demos – Demonstrations are an effective sales tool, as it allows you to visually show the customer how your product will help their problem. This will increase the likelihood of them being interested in your product as they are not taking your word about how it can help them, but instead seeing it.
Embrace storytelling – Storytelling is a great way to engage your potential customers. Instead of listing off benefits that your product will bring customers, tell them how your product has helped someone in a similar situation. This will create a more memorable experience for the customer and likely result in more deals being won.
Focus on efficiency – Responding to a lead quickly is a crucial part of the sales process as it can make or break a deal. Embracing an efficient approach to customers to respond to leads quickly can result in a lot more deals being won, and increase the revenue and profitability of your business.
TEB is a sales automation CRM software that will transform the way a sales team operates. With TEB, you can identify everything you need to know about lost deals to make sure that your business grows and adjusts to win more deals and increase revenue. The way TEB does this is with stand-out features such as:
Schedule a demo with us to view all of these features in action, and see first-hand how TEB will help your business win from its lost deals.
