September 2020

Marc Benioff and I are changin' the world one 'Closed-Lost' at a time...! 

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It was celebrity CEO Marc Benioff who popularized the phrase ‘Closed-Lost’ and ‘Closed-Won’ through wide adoption of his indispensable CRM platform, SalesForce.  Unfortunately for Marc, I’m taking ‘Closed-Lost’ outside and dumping it in the trash bin…and I’m gonna be just as famous as Marc for doing so.  (heh heh!)
 
Was it my BFF Marc who sat down on Fridays with his regional sales VPs to discuss weekly C-L data that shaped selling strategies?  Was it Benny who held meetings with product execs discussing how C-L insights directed necessary changes to match market needs?   Was it BoffMan who scrubbed C-L data to make decisions about skills training support for his sales team?
 
I learned a ton throughout the years doing all of the above, and it motivated me to make a call to my buddy and chat about how we could improve selling and reporting behaviors of B2B and enterprise sellers.
 
So I called him yesterday to chat about how antiquated his ‘Closed-Lost’ opportunity label is.  After we chatted about his upcoming Pismo Beach vacation plans, I dove in: “hey BenBen…we gotta talk…we gotta change the ‘Closed-Lost’ name to ‘CLOSED-LEARNING’.” 
 
“I’m likin' what I'm hearin', Michael, what’s your thinking here?” Marc responded. 
 
(Hmmm, this might go easier than I previously thought.)
 
“Marky-Marc, listen…B2B and enterprise selling is hard enough without reinforcing to our sellers that they’re losing.  I mean, the most important part of not winning a deal is what we learn.  Seems to me, BigBen that we need to emphasize LEARNING….riiiiiiiiight?”
 
“I’m in,” he replied, “so what’s your plan?”
 
My plan is simple: when we “don’t win” a particular piece of business, we require the sellers – through ‘closed-learning’ pulldown menu options - to provide insights against specific elements of our offering.  Then we farm those insights to the right constituents in our org; for example, our product people should learn where our offering fell short against client wants and needs.
 
In a perfect world, we should be capturing the following data from all of our sellers to help adjust and boost our selling strategies and go-to-market actions:

1. Product match: how closely does our offering match the needs of our clients?
2. Price: how competitive are we in the market with our pricing?  Did we “not win” that deal because of price? 
3. Selling approach: how effectively is our team presenting our value proposition and shaping it to the needs of our prospects?
4. Obstacles and objections: how are our sellers dealing with the common and specific obstacles that separate us from getting to 'closed-WON'?

Of course there are many more deal and selling elements that your org can learn from losing a deal, but let's start on the ground floor.
 
I explained this to my buddy Marc and he sighed…
 
“What’s wrong, BigBenBoff?” I asked.
 
“Michael, of course this all makes sense – you and I both know it’s simple stuff – but it’s not gonna happen.  You’re never gonna get this data from your sellers,” Marc Benioff, Master of the CRM universe responded.
 
Not yet ready to call myself Master of anything, I nonetheless have some confidence and experience and therefore responded quietly, “I can train reps to get this data, Marc....I can!”
 
Marc wanted to know how I could do that and I responded the same way I'm responding to you here: you’re just gonna have to hire me to find out!
 
Happy Fall!

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