--- title: "How To Leverage Lost Deals: “There Is ‘Gold’ In Lost Deals”" description: Most sales organizations have a treasure trove of ideal prospects and business intelligence under their collective noses, but they don’t leverage it! If your organization has used its CRM system for years, provided that there has been a semblance of pipeline management discipline, then you likely have a database of Lost Deals going back as long as […] --- # Sales Outcomes Open main menu Close main menu [Sales Solutions](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-solutions) [Sales Enablement](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-enablement) # How To Leverage Lost Deals: “There Is ‘Gold’ In Lost Deals” [Hernan Vera](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera) [Share this blog post on Twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=I+found+this+interesting+blog+post&url=https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals) [Share this blog post on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals) [Share this blog post on LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals) Most sales organizations have a treasure trove of ideal prospects and business intelligence under their collective noses, **but they don’t leverage it!** **If your organization has used its CRM system for years,** provided that there has been a semblance of pipeline management discipline, **then** **you likely have a database of *Lost Deals* going back as long as you’ve had your CRM.** ***Does your sales team regularly run a Lost Deals report from two, three, four, or five-plus years ago?** If they don’t, this simple and easy activity should become a regular part of territory planning and prospecting.* ***Does the marketing team use** **Lost Deal data to sharpen their marketing activities?** If they don’t, they are missing the opportunity to target individuals that at one point, expressed a need for your firm’s services.* ## **How To Leverage *Lost Deals* To Accelerate Revenue Growth** 1. [**Have Your CRM or Sales Operations Team Develop A Report**](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#DevelopReport) 2. [**Work With Your Team to Segment and Prioritize**](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#SegmentAndPrioritize) 3. [**Prioritize *Lost Deals***](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#PrioritizeLostDeals) 4. **[Track and Manage *Lost Deal* Re-Engagement Efforts](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#TrackAndManage)** ## **How To Leverage *Lost Deals* To Prepare for the Future** 1. [**Define What “Lost” Means**](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#DefineLost) 2. [**Attach at Least One, but Ideally Multiple Contacts to the Opportunity**](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#AttachMultipleContacts) 3. **[Require meaningful Reason Lost information from the salesperson.](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals#RequireLostReason)** ### **How to Leverage *Lost Deals* To Accelerate Revenue Growth** ### 1. Have your CRM or Sales Operations team develop a report **Have your CRM or Sales Operations team develop a report** that every salesperson can run for her territory, vertical, or assigned account base. ### 2. Work With Your Team to Segment and Prioritize Work with your team to segment and prioritize the report output. **We recommend starting with meaningful *Lost Deal* amounts – start with average *Lost Deal *size on up that contributes 80% of sales growth.** ### 3. Prioritize *Lost Deals* **Prioritize *Lost Deals* within your crucial industry segments and most competitive products and solutions.** Your time is limited, so allocate sales and marketing efforts to where you’ve had the most success. ### 4. Track and Manage *Lost Deal* Re-Engagement Efforts You have multiple options to track *Lost Deal* re-engagement efforts, including recording activities on the *Lost Deal* records, cloning the *Lost Deal* into a new opportunity, or creating a new Lead record. **We prefer creating a new lead record for the salesperson, but any of the options can work.** ### **How  to Leverage *Lost Deals* to Prepare for the Future** **Three actions are required to strengthen business intelligence from *Lost Deals*:** 1. Define What Lost Means We recommend that any deal proposed (salesperson submitted a price) can only end up Won or Lost. **We recommend a “Not Pursued” sales stage for opportunities that don’t make it to the proposal.** ### 2. Attach at Least One, but Ideally Multiple Contacts to the Opportunity Attach at least one, but ideally multiple contacts to the opportunity. B2B sellers rarely engage only with a single person on a deal. Knowing the various people involved in a *Lost Deal* from years ago can shorten the re-engagement sales cycle. Associating multiple contacts with an opportunity also helps marketing with their targeting efforts. ### 3. Require Meaningful Reason Lost Information from Salesperson Require meaningful Reason Lost information from the salesperson. Most companies miss the value of this piece of information. It’s easy to have salespeople select a picklist value option. Still, a brief description of why the deal was lost and the customer decision criteria can significantly help the deal re-engagement process.   ### **Most likely, the accounts from *Lost Deals* are buying from a competitor, or they may now be willing to revisit the need for change. ** ***Lost Deal* re-engagement efforts jointly led by the sales and marketing team can deliver significant revenue increases by easily re-establishing business relationships and re-opening selling opportunities. ** ***Lost Deal* re-engagement efforts are an essential element of modern successful sales teams that leverage their CRM solutions.** **If your sales and marketing teams don’t have a formal *Lost Deal* re-engagement effort, [now is the time to start.](https://salesoutcomes.com/contact-us/)** ## For more Tips on How to Leverage Lost Deals, [Click Here to Subscribe to Two-Bullet-Tuesday](https://salesoutcomes.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=bd9e3fde30500bfb3b09549c6&id=25f5207c75)   ### Leave a Comment ## Related Articles [Marketing Operations](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/marketing-operations) [Marketing Strategy](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/marketing-strategy) ### [Look Beyond Deals Won For B2B Marketing ROI](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-measure-marketing-roi-beyond-deals-won) ***[    Need more info on How to Measure Marketing ROI, Click Here to Subscribe to Two-Bullet-Tuesday](https://salesoutcomes.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?u=bd9e3fde30500bfb3b09549c6&id=29cc4c3444&e=7c7733f6b0)*** [Hernan Vera](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera) [Read More](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-measure-marketing-roi-beyond-deals-won) [Sales Operations](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-operations) [Sales Solutions](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-solutions) [Sales Enablement](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/tag/sales-enablement) ### [Your CRM Contact Data: Lightning or Lightning Bug?](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/your-crm-contact-data-lightning-or-lightning-bug) ***Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it. — Salvador Dali*** **Customer and prospect contact data is frequently imperfect or incomplete.** You can’t let that... [Hernan Vera](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera) [Read More](https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/your-crm-contact-data-lightning-or-lightning-bug) #### About - Menu Item One - Menu Item Two - Menu Item Three #### Services - Menu Item One - Menu Item Two - Menu Item Three #### News - Menu Item One - Menu Item Two - Menu Item Three Follow us on Facebook Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on Twitter Follow us on Instagram ```json { "@context" : "https://schema.org", "@type" : "BlogPosting", "author" : { "@type" : "Person", "name" : "Hernan Vera", "url" : "https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/author/hernan-vera" }, "dateModified" : "2022-10-26T20:43:58.565Z", "datePublished" : "2020-09-21T15:56:38.000Z", "headline" : "How To Leverage Lost Deals: “There Is ‘Gold’ In Lost Deals”", "mainEntityOfPage" : { "@id" : "https://www2.salesoutcomes.com/sales-outcomes-b2b-sales-marketing-insights/how-to-leverage-lost-deals", "@type" : "WebPage" }, "publisher" : { "@type" : "Organization", "logo" : { "@type" : "ImageObject" }, "name" : "Sales Outcomes" } } ```