Reasons for Closed Lost Sales and How to Minimize or Avoid Them with NetHunt CRM

Here is how to prevent loss of sales with NetHunt CRM.

There isn’t a single business that’s never lost a deal. With an around 5% to 10% conversion rate, most niches have cutthroat competition with more losses than wins. You can ignore the lost deals until your business goes under, or you can get to the bottom of the closed lost reasons and do something about it before it’s too late.

Sorting through spreadsheets and emails to find lost business reasons is tedious and often fruitless. Luckily, there’s a better way. NetHunt CRM helps you track, recover, and prevent lost sales — and in this post, we’ll show you how.

Top reasons for lost sales opportunities

What decides the outcome between closed won vs closed lost? Who or what is responsible for losing your profit? There are no simple answers, so let’s go over all the possible reasons.

Internal reasons: promises, product, and service

Writing off closed lost deals as the prospect’s fault is easy. Discovering the real reason within your company is hard. No one wants to be the scapegoat and shoulder the burden of responsibility. But if you frame the lost deals as a learning experience, you might discover the internal reasons for lost sales opportunities, such as:

• Inconsistent or misleading marketing. For example, if your ads promise an affordable solution, but it’s priced 10% above the niche average, you’ll soon see the prospects’ backs. To prevent such issues, ensure your marketing and sales teams are on the same page. Your message should be consistent throughout the pipeline to avoid confusion and wasting time.
• Unqualified leads. Not all leads convert, but qualification can reduce the wasted efforts on trying to close deals that would never happen. Analyze the data on the won deals to determine the best leads and qualify them before nurturing them.
• Unclear unique value proposition (UVP). If your offer doesn’t stand out among dozens of competitors, the prospects won’t have a compelling reason to choose you. Solving customers’ problems and adding value can help with this issue, especially if you address the clients’ feedback and requests.
• Poor sales and customer support performance. If you fail to schedule a call or demo when the prospect is ready, you won’t have another chance to win them over. Cohesive omnichannel communication, fast response time, and timely follow-ups are critical at every sales pipeline stage. However, tracking communication metrics can be challenging unless you use convenient tools, like NetHunt CRM.

External reasons: Time, money, and people

Sometimes, the sale is lost, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Many deals fall through even if your sales team does everything right. The most common external closed lost reasons include:

• Budget limitations. Low expense limits prevent most deals. But you can try to bypass them by emphasizing the value your offer brings to the table. Focus on ROI and benefits to the prospect’s bottom line. You can also offer one-time deals or flexible payment plans to win the deals. Sometimes, rethinking your pricing may also be necessary.
• Unsuitable timeframe. For instance, the lead won’t convert whatever you do if their company’s budgeting period is over and no additional expenses can be authorized. In this case, you can either write off the deal or return to it later. Besides, your onboarding and rollout timeline may not be suitable for the prospect.
• Wrong contacts. Walking middle management through your pipeline won’t matter if the CEO or COO isn’t interested in your offer. You can minimize the time wasted on nurturing leads by focusing on decision-makers during lead generation and qualification.

How to address lost sales opportunities

Losing sales isn’t the end of the world. But doing nothing about it could mean the end of your business.

The first goal of closed lost analysis is to understand the cause. Instead of assuming the prospects’ reasons, have your sales managers ask them during calls, chats, or in follow-up emails. The more you can learn, the better. For example, if the prospect chose another solution, try to find out which one and why. But don’t take too much of the lead’s time to avoid unnecessary friction.

Log these findings for easy analysis. For example, with NetHunt CRM, you can set up a required “Lost reason” field for every record at the Lost stage of the pipeline. It can be particularly useful to track both qualitative and quantitative data. Text fields work best for the former, but for the latter, you’ll need a drop-down menu with generic closed lost reasons examples, like “Low budget” or “Chose competitor.”

With this data at your fingertips, look for patterns. One-time losses can be attributed to miscommunication or poor lead qualification, but even those can uncover hidden issues within your team.

But if you notice systemic trends, you’ll need big changes fast. Suppose 50% of your lost sales claim low budget as the cause. In this case, you can introduce cheaper alternatives or rework your marketing strategy to attract leads who can afford your price range.

Remember to stop and evaluate your efforts 🤔. If your changes clearly show why sales were lost and help reduce those losses, you’re on the right track. If not, you’ll need to make further adjustments. It is a complex iterative process, but NetHunt CRM can make it easier and faster to minimize your sales lost.

How to avoid losing sales with NetHunt CRM

Will you still lose sales if you use NetHunt CRM? Yes, because no business has a 100% conversion rate. But NetHunt CRM will make converting leads and winning deals much easier. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

Improved lead qualification

One of the primary causes of salesperson failure is working with unqualified leads. You’ll win more sales if you work with the right leads, and that’s what NetHunt can help with. Once you generate leads, NetHunt CRM will centralize all your contacts and deal data in a single database with easy access for your whole team. Detailed records, convenient filters, and custom views will help your team uncover and prioritize high-value leads effectively.

Once you identify the ideal customer persona (ICP), you can score the leads based on their demographics, email opens and clicks, and other parameters NetHunt CRM collects and stores for you.

Automated lead tracking and nurturing

The most important reason for salespeople to follow up on a sale is to show the leads they care, building a strong positive relationship. Instead of relying on calendar reminders, use NetHunt CRM for managing leads. Your every interaction with the lead will automatically appear in the Timeline section of your customer record.

NetHunt CRM will also schedule and deliver personalized follow-ups, schedule calls, and demos. Additionally, our CRM improves handoffs between departments. For instance, once the deal moves to the Won state, NetHunt CRM automatically assigns a Customer Success manager to handle the client’s needs. Different team members can tag each other if the customer requires extra attention to stay happy.

Automated sales process, including lead tracking and nurturing, will minimize the chances of any deal falling through the cracks because of a forgotten follow-up or ignored message. After all, instant responses to new leads are known to improve conversion. Besides, with the routine tasks taken care of, your sales team can focus on face-to-face time with leads to increase conversions.

Detailed pipeline visualization

NetHunt CRM pipelines clearly visualize every deal in progress.

💡 You can create multiple custom pipelines to reflect every sales strategy you try, and the dashboard allows you to see all the deals and zoom in on individual issues.

For example, if you notice a deal gets stuck at an early stage, look at the latest activity logs. You’ll find all relevant messages to help you understand why the lead isn’t progressing. With timely adjustments to the sales process, you prevent neglect and can turn losing deals into wins.

Personalized communication

One-on-one communication isn’t viable when you’re dealing with dozens of hundreds of leads. But with NetHunt CRM, you can divide your contacts into segments and develop customized emails for nurturing drip campaigns tailored to a specific demographic, location, or industry.

Such a personalized approach will increase the chances of winning deals. Coupled with NetHunt’s automated workflows, drip campaigns guarantee your leads will never feel neglected or forgotten.

Final thoughts

Treat losing sales as a learning opportunity. Analyze the qualitative and quantitative data on the lost deals to identify the internal and external causes and get insights into preventing missed opportunities in the future. Increasing the percentage of won deals is an iterative process, so remember to keep analyzing and reevaluating your approach.

NetHunt CRM is the perfect sales tool for that. The secure database keeps track of all your contacts and deals, including every email, chat message, and phone call. Custom pipelines visualize the sales process and highlight the neglected deals. At the same time, automated workflows, along with customized nurturing campaigns, ensure your leads are taken care of at every stage of the pipeline.

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