This is one of my favourites. And it is one of my favourites because I also fall into the trap believing that I can win all deals. Losing is inevitable. Sales people need to be ready for this scenario.
Sales people are stubborn, they like winning. It is in their blood and their mindset. And this is expected as they need to have such mindset to push forward a deal. Sometimes though such mindset makes them illusory. And we all come to a stage we cannot believe we lost a deal.
The reality though as well as what statistics show only one deal out of around ten (average but this might differ depending on various factors) will be won. The rest will not!
Often we blame others and external factors we lost a deal. Most of the times though it is our fault we lost them. There can be many reasons to lose a deal, from not identifying and qualifying properly the opportunity, not following them closely when they are in advanced stage in the pipeline, not approaching the right stakeholders and many many more.
Accepting the fact noted above is the first step for a healthy sales life. Of course, accepting we sometimes lose doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do what we can to win the deal. By accepting, I don’t mean stop fighting for it.
The second step after accepting this fact, is to use this experience for our benefit. One thing we can do is to learn and use the experience from a lost deal into the next one. Try to find out what went bad, what should be improved next time.
Losing a battle is an amazing school to learn.
Happy Selling.
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