Insights  /  Buyer Research · 5 min read

Ask the People Who Said No

Your CRM records what happened in a lost deal, not why. Structured buyer interviews with the people who did not buy are the cheapest research most B2B companies never run.

What the dropdown cannot tell you

Every B2B company has a field in its CRM called something like closed lost reason. It usually has six options in a dropdown. Price. Timing. Went with competitor. No budget. No decision. Other.

That field is filled in by the person who lost the deal, from memory, at the end of a quarter, about a conversation that ended in a way they would rather not dwell on.

Three groups, not one

A useful study covers people who bought, people who chose a competitor, and people who did nothing at all. The last group is the largest in almost every market and the one nobody studies.

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