Why does a salesperson lose a sale?
6 Reasons Salespeople Win or Lose a Sale
Decisions aren’t always rational.
June 23, 2017
Summary.
Why does a salesperson lose a sale? There’s a tendency to assume that a sale is lost because the product was inferior in some way. However, buyers often rank all the feature sets of the competing products as being roughly equal. This suggests that other factors separate the sales winner from the losers.
In order to identify these hidden decision making factors, more than 230 buyers completed a 76-part survey. The key research findings include: 1) the sales strategy buyers prefer; 2) how evaluation committee politics influences vendor selection; 3) the tendency to select the market leader; 4) the impact of price; 5) the propensity for no decision; and 6) which type of salesperson buyers prefer.
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New!
HBR Learning
Marketing Essentials Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Marketing Essentials. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Learn how to communicate with your customers—strategically.