Want Greater Sales Success?
Look at your LOST Sales?
The lost sales analysis is an excellent sales tool. It really helps measure success against competition based on sales that are lost.
When a sale is lost to competition it also means that the future revenue stream associated with the revenue may also be lost as well as any “service or specialty” sales. Normally, we only count the sales that are won. On the surface, that makes sense because those are dollars that we can take to the bank.
What about the sales (deals) each person loses? To understand this let’s do a calculation of lost sales.
1. What is the value of all opportunities the sales person quoted? This is the potential business. What was the total business won? What was the total business lost? How do these results affect my monthly forecast? In addition to the lost business we should ask ourselves a few questions to see the real cost of lost sales:
• How much time, expense (samples, drawings, mock up’s lunches, travel, etc) went into each lost deal?
• When looking at all our people are some causing more costs with less return, are some losing more business ; what can you learn by doing a little analysis?
• Why did the sales person REALLY lose the business? Do we factually know?
• Was this deal real and was it truly qualified?
• If we don’t know and if the sales person can only “guess” there is one person who really knows the answer: THE LOST CUSTOMER.
KEY IDEA: Lost Sales Analysis for greater sales!
Try this: The Business Loss Review.
Select a few key deals that were lost and contact the lost customer. This can be an excellent “Flip Call.”
Contact the lost customer and let them know:
1. Who you are.
2. Why you are calling… “As part of our company continued and on going efforts of continuous improvement and total customer satisfaction…we periodically and informally contact customers to hear from them first hand why we both won business and why we lost business.”
3. Ask for permission to talk about why you lost their business.
4. Have your questions prepared in advance
5. Determine the real reasons: did our person understand all the factors in the deal? Why did the “other guy” win…? (Maybe we lost because of something out of our control.). What was the customer’s honest opinion of our sales rep? How did he or she represent us? Anything that you as the manager should know or be aware of?
6. (One last Chance) Ask: “If there was one thing we could have done better or different that would have helped us win the business, what would that be?” Obviously, if you can address it ask if there is a chance to capture the business (or at least have an opportunity for the next opportunity.
7. Review the findings with your sales person (and the rest of the staff) these are real world examples that each person in the group can learn from. You can even ask the group: “Given the background and the facts…what would you have done? What did you learn?
Key Learning? (Also, Action Steps and Specifics)
Want a fresh, objective perspective on business development, call us @ 630-560-3614 or complete our contact form – Kash Development Corporation.
