Twelve Strikeouts is Concerning
When you hold a dozen or more sales meetings with well qualified buyers and don’t close any, it’s time to act. Unfortunately, our client’s action was suspending an otherwise very successful campaign. We are working on a proposal for a Lessons Learned campaign that will reveal the reasons they have lost so many deals. Then we’re back on track.
Sometimes we lose deals that we think we should have won. These lost opportunities are audited by someone uninvolved as a quality control measure. And it works. We recently spoke with a prospect that was very willing to provide candid, specific feedback about how we sized up against the competition, including a pricing discussion.
What did we learn? First, the call itself was a great brand booster for us as the contact said that he appreciated the opportunity and the fact that we “cared enough to call.” He also confirmed something that we read a few months ago in the Sales Forensics Report by Ask Forensics, that price was a very low consideration and that he was still planning to buy the most expensive proposal (still, from a competitor).
So, Why are Deals Lost?
Ask Forensics uses science to figure out why F500 companies lose deals. Their Sales Forensics Report is quite actionable based on their direct and in-depth interviews with 57 F500 companies about specific lost deals averaging $11 million. As we mentioned, the report predicted in 2013 that pricing would become less of an issue in 2014 – just what we heard, albeit from only one prospect.
Here is a graphic from the report that shows six reasons why these F500 companies didn’t win deals averaging that average $11 million.
Know Your Answer
How much do you know about your number one answer to,
“What could my sales team have done to win your deal?”
Consider the divergent implications of each of these should a’s in terms of fixing it. The first one speaks to the need for high-level sales reps or engineers that can create and paint a picture of an intelligent, creative solution. Number three means product development or marketing work and the last one could point to a need for sales enablement.
The strategies and tactics necessary to fix each of these issues are vastly different and investing in a solution for the wrong one could actually exacerbate the overall problem. If you have no idea why you’re losing deals, you can’t fix what’s wrong. Do you know why you’re losing deals? If not, maybe you should find out.
Sure, your deals are somewhat smaller than $11 million and your budget is commensurately in-line so you can’t invest in an elaborate solution like the F500.
Maybe you could just pick up the phone yourself. Maybe there’s another solution.
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