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You lost a deal. It stings. The prospect went with a competitor, or decided to “wait,” or just ghosted. You move on to the next opportunity, but you never really understand WHY you lost. This guide shows you how to analyze 10-20 lost deals to find patterns, build battle cards, and improve your win rate.

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The Lost Deal Problem

Your reality:
  • 😞 Lose deals but don’t know why
  • 🤷 Prospect says “not the right fit” (vague)
  • 🏆 Competitor wins, you don’t know their pitch
  • 📉 Win rate stuck at 20-30%
  • 🔁 Making same mistakes repeatedly
The truth: Every lost deal contains lessons. You just need to extract them.

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What You’ll Achieve

With 10-20 lost deal recordings:
  • ✅ Identify top reasons you lose (not guesses, data)
  • ✅ Build competitive battle cards based on real objections
  • ✅ Improve objection handling with proven responses
  • ✅ Find early warning signs of deals that will die
  • ✅ Increase win rate 5-10% in next quarter
Time investment: 2 hours for analysis. ROI: Winning 2-3 more deals/quarter = 50K−50K-500K+ depending on deal size.

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Prerequisites

BuildBetter account
10-20 recordings of lost deals (more is better)
Mix of lost to competitor vs lost to “no decision”

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Step 1: Gather Lost Deal Recordings

[screenshot: Upload interface for lost deal calls]
1

Upload Lost Deal Calls

Collect recordings from:
  • Discovery calls that went nowhere
  • Demos where prospect went cold
  • Final calls before they chose competitor
  • Pricing discussions that stalled
Upload to BuildBetter and tag: “Lost Deal”
2

Add Context Tags

Tag each with:
  • Lost to: [Competitor name] or “No decision”
  • Deal size
  • Industry/segment
  • Stage lost (discovery, demo, negotiation)

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Step 2: Find Why You Lost

[screenshot: Chat analyzing lost deals]
1

Ask Chat to Analyze

Query: “Why did we lose these deals? What are the common objections and concerns?”Example output:
Top Reasons for Lost Deals (18 analyzed):

1. Price (11 deals - 61%)
   - "Too expensive for our budget"
   - "Competitor is 40% cheaper"
   - "Can't justify ROI"

2. Missing Features (7 deals - 39%)
   - "Need Salesforce integration" (4 mentions)
   - "Lacks mobile app" (3 mentions)

3. Implementation Complexity (5 deals - 28%)
   - "Sounds too complicated to set up"
   - "Don't have resources to implement"

4. Timing (4 deals - 22%)
   - "Not ready yet"
   - "Re-evaluate in 6 months"
2

Compare to Won Deals

Upload 10 won deal recordings too.Query: “Compare my won deals to lost deals. What did I do differently?”Reveals: What works vs what doesn’t

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Step 3: Build Battle Cards

[screenshot: Competitive battle card document]
1

Generate Competitive Intelligence

For deals lost to specific competitor:Query: “What did prospects say about [Competitor X]? What did they like? What concerns did they have?”Creates battle card content:
  • Why they considered competitor
  • What competitor emphasized
  • Where competitor is weak
  • How to position against them
2

Create Objection Responses

Query: “For each common objection, generate recommended responses based on successful handling in won deals.”Builds your objection library with proven answers.

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Step 4: Improve Win Rate

Apply learnings to future deals:
Update pricing pitch to address ROI concerns
Qualify out bad-fit prospects earlier (save time)
Emphasize differentiators vs competitors
Accelerate deals showing “not ready” signs
[screenshot: Win rate trending up after implementing changes]

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Next Steps

Deal Intelligence

Advanced deal tracking and forecasting

Sales Playbook

Build comprehensive sales methodology
To be expanded: This is a stub. Full content coming soon with detailed workflows, real examples, and step-by-step battle card creation.