Have you experienced winning a deal that came from a lost opportunity? How did you do it? Leave a comment below! 
Defining lost opportunity
Imagine this sales scenario: You are moving through the sales process with a new prospect and he/she is very excited to work with you. For some reason, however, before you get a chance to close the prospect loses interest. You’re not alone. A study from HubSpot shows that almost half the deals are lost due to budget and the other half is because of timing. Other reasons for a loss of interest are as follows are because of the lack of the prospect’s authority, no time to review or wanting more time to review the deal, and lack of urgency. Your deal became a back-burner item and it just fizzled out. Being diligent, you reach out multiple times but eventually decide that you can’t waste any more time and move on. At that point, you label the deal as a lost opportunity and end it. Think about all those deals and lost opportunities. Could there be a treasure in that trash?
YES! There is.
A lost opportunity
One company thought The Sales Evangelist was a lost opportunity. Donald’s sales team had used a particular software and actually liked it. With changes happening in the TSE organization and the pandemic, however, they didn’t get to use the software as much and canceled the service. In this case, Donald was already a customer but canceled the service to focus resources on more immediate needs.
Due to Covid-19, the software company wasn’t doing too well. Luckily, one member of their team figured out a way to move through it by looking at the list of people who had canceled their subscription. The company figured these cancelations were customers who, at one point, saw the value of their product. They asked themselves how they could re-generate interest and get these customers back.
Donald was one of the customers they reached out to. In one of Donald’s previous podcasts, he talked about making an offer so good, the prospects can’t refuse. Through that email, Donald got an offer he couldn’t refuse. The software hadn’t been overly expensive when he was their customer, costing $50/month, but the email invited Donald to come back at 50% off, $25/month, for 6 months. Donald was happy to accept the offer.
Had the software company focused on looking for new business alone, they would have had to educate new clients about their software and convince people to use their software. It would have been a much harder uphill battle. Instead, they had the wisdom to focus on the people who had already shown some loyalty. While it took some work to bring these customers back, it was far less than what it would have taken to look for new clients altogether.
Generate more deals
Visit your CRM and look out for lost opportunities. Do your research and understand why they became lost opportunities. It is best if you know why they dropped your service and address the reasons why these customers dropped their accounts. There are many different ways you can spark their interest again:
- Offer a smaller package with an opportunity to scale up in the coming months.
- Offer a service or solution that will help them solve a new or current problem.
- Offer smaller modules.
All you need to do is be creative to ensure that you are offering great customer service while reinvigorating your accounts.
Understand the timing
Remember that 25% of deals fall away due to bad timing and reasons will vary. As a salesperson, you want to be sensitive to the reasons why the timing might be wrong. Look at accounts at least three months after they decide to drop the service. This is generally enough time for your clients to self-correct any issues that may have prevented them from working with you further.
Urgency
When you offer a discounted deal, let the prospect know it is only good for a limited amount of time to create some urgency.
Even if your customers aren’t ready to sign on again, at least you’ve been able to touch base and get your company in front of them.
Salespeople should be looking at the next deal but in times like these, it’s great to revisit previous accounts as well. Get ready to go on a treasure hunt!
“How To Generate Interest In Lost Opportunities” episode resources
If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns.
This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data, manage custom fields, and get powerful reporting on your sales. Try Crmble now for free at www.crmble.com/tse. This course is also brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It’s a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.donaldk4.sg-host.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077.
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