5 Productive Ways To Handle A Lost Sale | How To Learn From Your Losses

It can be a difficult feeling to lose a sale. Especially when you're new in the role. At times, you'll feel like you're moving and shaking, making deals, and closing them in record time. But there will also be moments in your career when all of your best efforts seem fruitless. To handle a lost sale, you have to find where it went wrong.

To start, I want to make one thing clear: Never EVER feel discouraged over a lost sale!

The bottom line? No one succeeds every single time they contact a prospect. A sale is a back-and-forth as much as it is your responsibility. Sometimes, you'll hear I did what I could, but I was overruled by the bosses.” Always remember that in B2B sales, there typically isn't one decision-maker; it comes down to a group decision that benefits the company's long-term goals.

There will be times where a buyer had no intention of buying from you from the start. It's really not the end of the world when a candidate moves on and chooses a competitor's product instead.

Learning from a lost sale takes time, but these five items are productive ways to start that journey.

1 - Ask The Client

It can feel satisfying to hold a round table and discuss amongst the internal team what went wrong, but that's only speculation. It may help adjust tactical decisions but doesn't address the root of the issue. One of the best ways to move forward productively is to reflect on the loss. Contact the prospect and ask them specific questions.

Emotionally, it might feel like you're calling your high school sweetheart who dumped you 2 days before the prom. Remember: the purpose of calling a lost prospect isn't to win back the opportunity. The idea is to solicit clean, honest, and constructive feedback. If you make that clear from the start, most clients will be more than willing to speak with you.

2 - Reflect on Your Patterns

We often don't realize how we're coming across to someone, especially over the phone. The tone of your voice can convey something completely different than what you intend. Books like Freeing the Natural Voice and The Body Has Its Reasons can bring more awareness to how you subconsciously present yourself to others.

Some people find it helpful to listen back to old calls. Filler words such as "umm" or "like" can be huge culprits in making you seem unsure and uncomfortable. Listen to your tone and the musicality of your voice. Varying your pitch, volume, and tone can be essential to conveying your message.

3 - Review Sales Readiness

If there is one thing we want you to take away from this article, it's this: Being confident and knowledgeable can make a sale. It doesn't matter if you're selling SaaS solutions to a global manufacturer or selling lemonade with your kids in the front yard.

You have to know the product and space more than anyone else. Become an expert on the ins and outs of the market beyond common knowledge. Without a doubt, one of the worst mistakes you can make is to contact a prospect without the correct information in hand.

If you don't have the resources you need, speak up! Set yourself up for success with the right assets. No one will fault you if you don't have to tools you need from the organization to do your job.

4 - Seek Out Similar Deals

Use your loss as motivation to be great in the future! We recommend taking a long look at your pipeline of leads and pinpointing prospects of the same size, market, and potential. Challenge yourself to win these sales to put the lost sale in perspective.

This way, you can learn the intricacies of your target market. The cliché is that "sales is a numbers game," and there is some truth to that wisdom.

5 - Create A Deal Desk

Sales, operations, legal, and finance all have to sign off on a sale. Chasing key stakeholders for signatures can take forever and a potential buyer can rethink their decision during that time. The role of the deal desk is to optimize the internal approval process and make it efficient.

Define everyone's role when putting a deal through to empower them throughout the process. Monitoring progress for each deal and having clearly defined steps in the approval process also lets you update your clients when they have questions on next steps. It's a win-win.

There is so much beyond your control when making a sale. This makes it even more important to be on top of the things you ARE in control of. Bring your A-game to every call and treat each sale as if you wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

At Uvaro, we're passionate about your success and strive to give you the foundation you need to thrive in sales like you never thought possible. We have workshops to help you strengthen the 5 skills mentioned above and ones to help you deal with rejection too.

Check out our Career Success Catalog for more on what we can offer you!