Learn from your Loses

Don’t linger on them for too long though

Everyone loses a sale. It happens to the best of salespeople every day. What separates the great ones from the ok ones is what they do after the lose.

Losing a sell is not the end of the world, in fact it’s part of the process. So when you lose your first sale (or 100th for that matter) do not fret. Take some time to reflect on the process and the lose.

What could you have done differently?

What additional information or education would help close a similar sell next time?

What additional screening would help you speed up the time to sell or no sell?

Spending some time reflecting on these kinds of questions will help you continue to improve your sales process. Remember you are good at sales and you need to build a revenue stream that will support a larger team and a full time sales person. Until you have that revenue stream you are that sales person. So understand your sales process and how you can shorten the time from lead to sale closed (won or lost).

While it is good to reflect on your lost sales and learn from the process, do not linger on the lost sale. If you linger too long you will miss the next opportunity and get down on yourself for the lose. So take some time to reflect on questions like those above. If fact set aside some time in your week to learn from wins and loses. Make that 15-30 mins. In this time dig deep into the process you followed and find ways to make it better. If it’s a long sales process you make need 30-60mins. But do not spend much more time than that. Remember, spending more time will not undo the lost sale. It will not cause that potential customer to change their mind. So reflect, learn, grown, and forget. After your time is up it’s time to focus on the next sale. Find the next potential customer, apply your learnings and close that sale!

Remember:

You cannot unlose a sale.

You can learn from every win or lose.

Set aside time each week to learn from your loses and then forget them.