When the deal is lost, only then the real selling starts

The complex sales process

Every sale goes through a sales process: longer or shorter depending on your products.

The complex sales process involves telephone conversations, organizing web seminars, email inquiries for information, replying questions and more questions, sending documentation on features and functions, explaining benefits, set up meetings, make price quotes, circumventing challenging propositions of competitors.

Although very different in all cases, still there are patterns and similarities in all sales processes.

The Lost Deal

If you don’t get invited for further meetings and price or specific negotiations which will lead to “Close the Sale”, you probably won’t hear from the prospect for a while.
Thus:
- You call him in order to find out about the progress or what is hampering or delaying the decision.
or
- Unannounced you get the message: “We have chosen for a different vendor”.
In both cases you just have lost the deal!

Always investigate

If you hang up or don’t reply the email immediately, then you are probably bringing to an end all conversations. In that case you are sure to have lost the deal.
If you don’t investigate, you will never know why you have lost the deal.

Start inquiring and investigating with the appropriate questions in order to find out more.
As a first you need to know who has on the deal.
This information the prospect should tell you or confirm you (as you could should know the winning competitor).

Even though people don’t want to tell anything, if you can have a conversation by being gentle and pose some open ended questions people will tell you something: more than they want to tell.
Now you will need your sales skills.

In a complex sale, there are several people involved. You can contact each of them.
The more people, the more talking, the more clues: thus a higher chance to get information from the prospects’ side.
Moreover as several people are involved in the decision making, there will be always people who do not agree with the decision. They will tell more or describe the reasons for the decision. You will probably know who was on your side.

The official reasons and the reasons given in confidence should give you a clue what action or proposition to take next.

The loss is higher than the lost deal

If you give up now, the investment made by your company in this sales process is a complete loss as it adds up:
- Not getting the sale is less revenue to support the operational costs of the company
- Complex sales process investment is lost
- Making the competition stronger in the market

The costs involved are not to be under estimated. The losses neither.

What do you do in case you have lost a sale?
Investigate and report or forget all about it immediately?

Read in part 2: about The Raider of the Lost Deals