by Amy Keuper, VP Sales

By implementing one simple custom field within your Opportunity management object, you can easily run post-mortem analysis on your lost deals.

Create a custom pick-list field for “Primary Reason Lost” with selections such as:

• No budget
• Went with other vendor
• Decided not to do anything right now
• Price objection/needed less expensive option
• Fell off map
• Unknown/would not say

You might also create a place to house comments relative to the loss since there’s always more to the story, but forcing your team to identify the main reason you did not win will help you understand and rectify problems.

Running the percentages on lost opportunities will tell you critical information such as:

• You’re consistently losing to competitors and should revise your positioning.
• You’re getting push back on price and should see if you can make adjustments in either your pricing model or value proposition.
• Your prospects are going dark or are not candid with you because your sales reps aren’t developing real relationships.

By tweaking your report for different periods of time, you can see trends. Perhaps you lost mostly to a competitor in 2010 but in 2011 you believe you lost mostly due to lack of budgets, which speaks more about the general economy and less about your market share. So, you’ll work harder going forward to help your prospects build the case internally for purchase.

While it’s painful to lose business, it’s vital to capture why and respond accordingly.