SellingBrew

Insights & Tips

Already a subscriber? Login

Become a subscriber and unlock an information arsenal focused on making your sales operation more effective.

Three Real Reasons Sales Teams Lose

Let’s play Sales Ops Psychic for a minute…

Grab your reason-code report for last quarter’s lost sales. Got it? Ok.

Now…not knowing anything at all about your business or your team…I’m willing to bet…your brew-of-choice…that the number one reason being reported by your sales team is…drumroll, please…

Price!

But wait…I’m not only willing to bet that your sales team believes they lose deals primarily due to price…I’m also willing to bet that they’re wrong.

Why am I so confident?

I just finished reviewing “Why Companies Lose or Win Strategic Sales,” a new research briefing by Rick Reynolds.

Rick and his team at AskForensics do win/loss analysis for a living—we love that kind of information here at SellingBrew.  In fact, his team has researched, investigated, and analyzed nearly $11 billion worth of transactions for some of the largest companies in the world.

And they don’t just do surveys or ask the sales teams…they actually interview the buyers to get to the real reasons behind the losses.

What are those reasons? Here are three that got my attention:

  1. Poor understanding of requirements.
  2. Poor sales presentations and proposals.
  3. Lack of ability to provide proactive ideas.

Hmmmm. These all sound like things that are under the sales team’s direct control.

Does pricing play a role? Absolutely.

But as the research briefing reveals, pricing’s role is not nearly as significant as many sales teams are reporting…particularly when it comes to the larger deals.

Now, that may seem somewhat counter-intuitive. But when you really get below the surface and actually talk to buyers, it turns out that companies are losing the bigger deals for reasons other than price…reasons that are well-within the sales team’s ability to correct.

Of course, these other reasons may not be as convenient a scapegoat as price…but that doesn’t make them any less real.

PS: In the highly-unlikely event that I lost the bet, just look me up on your next visit to my neck of the woods and I’ll buy you that brew 🙂

Get Immediate Access To Everything In The SellingBrew Playbook

Related Resources

  • How to Improve Your Close Rates

    Trial and error with something as important as your close rates is risky. How do you know which strategies and tactics you should use to improve? In this on-demand training webinar, learn effective strategies and tactics for improving your sales team's ability to win---at scale and with less risk.

    View This Webinar
  • Leading Edge Account & Territory Planning

    Sales planning is often perceived as not much more than tactical busywork. In this on-demand training session, you'll learn how innovative sales operations are taking a radically different approach to identify untapped growth opportunities and develop prescriptive account and territory plans.

    View This Webinar
  • How to Deal With Churn

    How can we mitigate churn and retain more of the customers, revenues, and profits we've acquired? In this webinar, learn a simple methodology for figuring out what's best in your situation.

    View This Webinar
  • Successful Sales Ops Pilot Programs

    How do you get your company to accept new sales tools and approaches, while maximizing your odd of success? In this session, learn how to leverage pilot programs and in-market trials to accelerate your progress.

    View This Webinar