In our article, “Wonder Why You Didn’t Close The Deal?” we talked about, no matter how painful, it’s always best to ask your lost prospect why they didn’t accept your offer.

We have a bit more advice for you that was submitted to us by one of our more successful clients.  Take the information from your debrief, analyze it, and see if there were any misunderstandings or lack of information on the customer’s part.

This doesn’t mean you should go back and immediately and try to re-sell your lost prospect. Instead, try to capture and compile information on all your losses or “no decisions” so you can improve or make necessary changes.

You may want to pursue these prospects in the future.  Some you may need to forgo, but others you may have a future opportunity to sell to. This way you can allocate your sales resources in the prospects that you could possibly convince. Many sales professional have actually turned a loss into a win by doing this.

Plus, keep in mind that the most successful organizations only sell to their ideal prospects. So in addition to getting valuable feedback to improve your processes, it might also help if you re-define your ideal prospects.