Lost sales analysis is a critical part of any sales improvement campaign that is looking at the efficiency, effectiveness and growth potential of the sales function.
Sales data analysis, especially lost sales analysis, is important for 3 reasons:
- Losing sales is expensive, especially at the bottom of the sales funnel.
- It’s the biggest direct opportunity that a sales team has for learning and growth.
- Truly understanding why the sale has been lost can help reduce the amount of waste in the sales and marketing teams – and often save huge amounts of money, money that could be better invested at a higher return
Given this golden opportunity to learn and grow – then why do so many organisations fail to give lost sales analysis the attention it deserves?
Lost Sales Analysis | Your Opportunity for Change and Growth
Data analysis in sales is one of the most under utilised game changers when it comes to reducing waste, improving efficiencies and helping the sales and marketing function to optimise performance, budgets and outputs.
In a world where every lead comes at a cost, and opportunities to quote are hard fought for, it’s no longer good enough to use generic headings like ‘price’, ‘pulled back to move in another direction’, ‘went with another’, ‘not responding to outreach’ when it comes to understanding why deals don’t convert to invoices.
These reasons are too generic, not useful and whilst they get everyone nodding their heads in understanding, they miss the vital question –
What can we do differently next time to increase our win rate?
Data Analysis in Sales
When it comes to using data for sales analysis – what should you be looking at?
There can be many starting points in sales data analysis, some leaders will start with deals that are in the pipeline and formally dispositioned as ‘closed-lost’
Others will look at the sales process and identify decision forks where a deal could be lost, and look at the conversion rate from one stage in the sales process to the next – this is especially useful for when sales pipelines and CRMs are messy, aged, full of low quality data.
Data for sales analysis is all around – if you have a system to start collecting useful sales analysis data – and not every company does, so getting this set up is a good place to start.
If you’re struggling with where to start in your own lost sales data analysis journey or think it’s time your sales function benefited from the insights and learning from understanding more about their lost sales then let’s chat.
We offer a comprehensive Lost Sales Analysis service with Action Plans, Feedback and Support to help you improve sales performance, conversion rates and forecasting
Lost Sales Analysis | You Can Never Start Too Soon
Dive into the real reasons why your sales people are losing sales they should have won…
A closed/lost sales analysis is the perfect opportunity to address the a potential weakness in the sales process, sales function and stop it happening again.
Common Reasons for Lost Sales – Apart from Cost
More often than not sales are lost for a combination of reasons – here are just a few:
- Poor communication: not meeting the buyer where they are in their buying cycle, not engaging key stakeholders, making untested assumptions
- Acting like a sales rep: when buyers are looking for a peer-to-peer exchange with an expert
- Poor product knowledge: hit an run sales techniques that leave buyers feeling frustrated, confused and uncertain
- Mismatched sales pitch: poor discovery during the sales cycle, means the pitch doesn’t tick enough boxes to get to the next stage
- Poor follow-up: giving up too soon in the absence of a solid follow up plan agreed with the buyer and executed in agreement
- Not understanding customer needs: on every level, emotional, logical, financial, business impact, as well as understanding the blockers the buyer needs to navigate internally
- Talking to the wrong people: influencers and referrers engagement without getting key people involved
- Not exploring what competitors are involved, and at what stage
Other reasons for lost sales identified during sales data analysis include:
- Poor market/product fit
- Inability to demonstrate ROI
- Not having a logical and water-tight sales process
- Not impressing / connecting with the buyer as a peer
- Not building a strong sense of urgency and importance
- No distinguishing features from the competition
- Poor qualification
- Poor understanding of the competitive space
- The rep didn’t want it enough
So you can see, with all these reasons in the mix, do you still believe that ‘cost’ is the REAL reason in over 76.2% of closed lost reports?
No, me neither.
Lost Sales Analysis | Unlocking Hidden Sales, Revenue and Margin in Your Sales Pipeline
Now, looking at the list above, and understanding specifically why sales are failing to convert in your business, just think about all the things you might consider doing differently that would immediately help you increase your sales revenue without:
- Increasing headcount
- Spending more on marketing
- Taking months to implement
What would you do?
Well now you can.
Lost sales analysis, and sales data analysis along the sales pipeline will unlock for you the sales results you and your sales team deserve.
Lost Sales Analysis | Understanding Why You’re Losing Sales Gives You Options You Don’t Currently Have!
What would you do if you knew exactly WHY you were losing sales that you should have won?
- Change the strategy?
- Look at marketing?
- Coach the sales team?
- Change the sales deck?
- Review your ROI deck?
- Train the sales team?
- Build stronger case studies?
- Changing your terms?
- Structure pricing differently?
- Modify the sales process?
- Segment your sales team into product/service specialists
- Kill the product?
- Revamp it?
You could do all of these and handfuls more.
But only once you’ve discovered the real reason why you’re losing sales!
How much easier would it be to iron out those causes for lost sales one by one, knowing that it would be a direct and positive hit on your sales bottom line?
After all, these buyers have all been at the very bottom of your sales pipeline, only to fall out at the last minute! So whatever you do to sort out this issue will invariably be a win…
Want to find out more – book a call – and let’s help you round up those lost sales and leave your competitors hungry!
Our Guarantee
With our bespoke sales analysis, sales audits, and smart growth strategies based on those findings, you can start to see improvements in days. Not months or quarters!
Once we’ve done the initial assessment with you, if we don’t feel we can help you then we will discuss this with you and signpost you to someone who can help you.
Your success is our success.