From failure, we learn. It is a mantra many of us have repeated over the course of our lives to give us the motivation we need to try again once we fail. But for some sales reps, instead of motivation, that sentence becomes an excuse. Some sales reps don’t actually take the time to reflect on the sale and learn what they could be doing better. According to Craig McAndrews, writing for HubSpot, there are three questions to ask yourself after every missed sale.

Questions to Ask Yourself After a Sale Falls Through

What was the Prospect’s Need?

You must have approached this particular prospective customer for a reason. There are a few questions to ask yourself after a sale falls through. What was your reason? Did you feel as if the prospect's company was lacking something that you could provide for them? Was there a problem the prospect was facing that needed to be solved? How quickly did that problem need to be solved? Did the need end up being what you thought it was? Or did you discover that the prospect was in need of something else entirely different than what you had thought? 

Why Did the Prospect not Decide to Buy?

If you are lucky, the prospective customer will have told you exactly why they did not decide to buy from you at the end of your sales pitch. If the prospect did not, it’s time to review the context clues from the sales meeting or call. What did the prospect seem to focus on during your sales pitch? If you can’t recall anything that sparked the prospect's interest in particular, maybe you need to work on better engagement techniques. One technique includes thinking of questions to ask, like asking a prospect open-​ended questions to get them more involved in the conversation. Or maybe the prospect seemed all in for a sale, but then hesitated when you mentioned the price. And instead of talking about it with you, the prospect just turned down your offer on the spot. After a time, asking yourself this question will become second nature. Then, maybe it will also come to mind during a missed sale before you leave your meeting. When it does, you can ask the prospect directly what you could have improved on to take out the guesswork during your later reflection altogether. 

What is the last question to ask yourself? You will have to check out McAndrews’ article to find out. Learning from your mistakes will give you a higher chance of landing more sales going forward.