The 7 Benefits of Sales Loss Analysis
Have you ever heard the saying “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results”? While there may be a debate about whether Einstein actually said it, the message within rings true.
When your sales team is failing to convert sales, pushing them to make more calls or retake their training isn’t necessarily going to improve your statistics.
According to research, in 70% of businesses, the majority of the sales team fail to meet their quotas. That’s a lot of missed opportunities – and a lot of missed money.
This is where sales loss analysis comes in. Instead of doing the same thing over and over, investigate what isn’t working and make a change to get the results you need.
If you’re not convinced, here are seven major benefits to help you understand why it’s so important for every business to carry out sales loss analysis.
1. Figure out how to improve sales
Improving sales is often one of the main reasons why businesses carry out sales loss analysis. It could be that the sales figures aren’t where they need to be, or that the business is doing great but you feel it could be making even more money.
Even small tweaks in what your sales team does can have a massive impact on their conversion rates. But don’t treat your team as a whole. By analysing which sales have been lost and why, means you can work with each staff member on an individual basis, ensuring that each person on your sales team is playing to their strengths.
2. Hone the entire sales process
When you only focus on the closing point, it can be easy to miss something in the sales process that isn’t working as well as it should be. Following the process from start to finish for each lead means you can gain a greater understanding of where any weaknesses lie, and how these things may be costing you conversions. This means speaking to lost prospects at every stage of the process to find out why they dropped out, rather than just at the end. Fixing these issues helps to protect your brand integrity by providing a first-class experience.
3. Identify training opportunities
We’re all individuals with differing skills, knowledge and personalities yet the majority of sales training is quite generic and aimed at a sales team. By analysing the work of each staff member individually, you can identify anyone who may need retraining or additional support. Again, we can’t emphasise enough the importance of asking the prospects themselves why they didn’t cross the conversion line. This way, you can ensure that future training opportunities address knowledge or skill gaps among your team. It could also save you money on training as you can provide relevant training for only the individuals that need it, not the whole team.
4. Discover your star players
Sales loss analysis shouldn’t be a one-off assessment of your sales processes. By conducting regular analysis of the individual members on your sales team, you can identify who the strongest and weakest performers are. This doesn’t mean that weaker performers should be berated.
Everyone can be a star player if assigned to the correct projects. By uncovering individual strengths, you can make data-led decisions on who is best suited to deal with different types and sizes of businesses or subject areas. This creates a win-win situation – the team member has more job satisfaction, leading to optimal performance and ultimately more sales for the client.
5. Reignite lapsed deals
Not every lost sale is lost forever. It may not have been the right time for that prospect, or maybe it wasn’t followed up sufficiently. By going through previous leads that weren’t converted, you can assess which might still have potential and follow up with them. Three months down the line, that ‘no’ might become a ‘yes’.
In fact, we’ve found that between 15% and 20% of the prospects we talk to during this process haven’t bought the product or service from anywhere else. They are also willing to start up a conversation with our client again.
6. Improve your marketing
Knowing why sales have been lost will give you the opportunity to refocus and improve your marketing. So if you are getting feedback from prospects that your product or services are too expensive, focus your marketing on justifying the costs and show people what they get for that extra expense. Or if you discover that you are targeting completely the wrong audience, you can change tack completely. Knowledge is power and sales loss analysis helps you regain that power.
7. Benchmark your sales process against your competitors
Have you ever wondered why a prospect chose one of your competitors instead of purchasing from you? Sales loss analysis enables you to find this out – straight from the prospect’s mouth.
In short, discover what your competitors do well, so you can do it better!
Check out some of our other blogs and take a look at some of our case studies to get more of an understanding of what we do! If you’d like to discuss how sales loss analysis could benefit your business or find out more about how we do it, fill out your details here! Or give us a call to chat on 0115 882 0116.
