You Lost the Sale: Don't Get Mad, Get Smart

Gregory Peck in "Twelve O'Clock High" (1949)

The centerpiece of the World War II move, "Twelve O'Clock High", is a debriefing that takes place after a mission.  The navigator was three minutes off on his bomb release and missed the target, and, of course, there was hell to pay at the debriefing.  The consequences of that kind of mistake are enormous--much greater than losing an order.  (Although some bosses may disagree.)  I wrote about the importance of the "debrief" in a previous posting.
Now I want to discuss the importance of analyzing the lost sale--of understanding how it was lost and how to prevent future losses.
We often just want to forget that we lost that big order; even more, we don't want anyone to know that we lost it--most of all our bosses or our colleagues.
Baseball players don't have the luxury of ignoring mistakes.  Their strike outs or errors are shown on the JumboTron for all to see and criticize.  When a sales person loses an order, it's easy to hide it--usually--unless you've bragged about getting it before you actually got it (see my post on Overconfidence).  But, did you ever notice that a major league batter often heads down to the clubhouse after a bad at bat to look at the video to analyze what he did wrong.  That's what I'm talking about here.
In the military, there is no detail that is too small to be brought up on the debriefing.  In the "lost order" category, there is no detail too small to be discussed with your boss or colleagues.  You're all in this together and you need to find a solution to the lost order.  George Santayana famously said: "Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it."
The answers to these questions must be brutally honest:
1.  Was the order lost because of price?  Really?  Orders are rarely lost because of price, so the answer is not the obvious one.
2.  Did you lose it because of poor follow up?  Read my post on follow up.
3.  Did your competitor introduce some features that your product doesn't have?
4.  Did your competitor have a better relationship with the customer?  Really? Then check out my posts on Transactional and Relational Sales.  Relationships are critical to sales success.
5.  Are you sure you were absolutely clear about the capabilities of your product and your company?  Did you spend the time to present your company and your products and service capabilities?
6.  Have you talked to the customer and asked who won the order and what the reasons that he chose the competitor rather than you--have you "debriefed" the customer?
7.  Can you meet with the customer and discuss the reasons that he chose the competition and not you?
Often, our attitude is--"okay, I lost it, now let's move on to the next one."  Well, you're going to lose the next one if you don't understand how you lost the last one. Don't be afraid to dissect the lost order--even to the point of interviewing the customer who went with the competition.  Don't get mad, GET SMART!