Turning Your Closed-Lost Deals into Year-End Wins
This is one of the questions my clients ask the most.
"Matte, we have many closed lost opportunities. What do we do?".
It's that time of the year.
Pipeline, Closing, Pipeline, Closing, Pipeline, Closing.
EOY (End of Year) push.
And yes, some business can come from unchartered territories, like your closed lost.
First of all, let's get the basics:
What is a closed loss, and what's the right timeframe to recall it?
A closed lost deal is a deal that went through some part of your sales cycle and then went lost at some point.
The right timeframe usually to get back in touch with closed loss is a window of 9-3 months window.
Lost deals, most recent, usually are not that responsive. Too fresh.
The good news is that, in my experience, you can get something out of your close loss.
If categorized correctly (closed lost reasons), you can revamp some or most of them.
How I Would Do It
Build The List
First, get into your CRM and download a report of all your closed lost within 3-9 months.
Again, not too far away, not too recent.
Prepare the table:
Name
Surname
Email
Company Name
Last Activity Date
Closed Lost Reason
Deal Amount
And anything you need to qualify them: i.e. certain products they bought, closed lost reasons, etc.
Having a neat and clean list of 100 max opportunities is very important. Not less, not more.
Prepare the Offer
You have to give them something. Remember, they refused to work with you once.
Prepare an offering encouraging them to talk to you - something special, such as a discount or something related to your product or service.
Prioritise by Lost Reason
It is essential to personalize the message based on the lost reason.
If somebody was lost for pricing, you should leverage that. If somebody went lost for a product feature that is now live, lead with that.
Avoid the spread and pray sequences and tune them to be relevant.
Outreach
You should have a mix of calls, emails and LinkedIn.
Call first. These days, it seems to be one of the best channels for this kind of campaign.
Then, emails (they can be personalized) and save them all on the sales navigator to leverage any insights you get.
Try to work the list quickly. There should be a nice, soft touch every 3 business days.
KPI's
Try to touch all these accounts at least 3-4 times before closing the campaign.
You should aim at least for a >50% open rate and hopefully a 5-10% interest. (cold to discovery).
Bonus point
A bonus which will result in better results is to leverage something that happened to them in the meantime.
They went lost for a specific reason, which is no longer there.
For example, they refused to work with you because of some budget constraints. Did you learn that the company is doing well and might have some budget left?
Or a feature you didn't have, and now you have.
It would be important, almost crucial, to win over the lost reason.
Final thoughts
You can't do this every month; these campaigns work if done one or two per year.
They are a focused effort and have to bring value.
If you keep pounding your lost every month, throwing at them emails and calls all year around, everything I have shown doesn't really work.
Closed lost can't be treated like any other cold prospect.
They know you and tried to buy from you, but something went wrong.
It's a broken relationship that you have to fix it first.
Lead with value, give them something uniquely for them, and only after asking for something in return.
Thanks for reading this far. I will see you all next week.
