Why They Didn't Buy: The Win/Loss Script

Lost a client you were sure you'd win? "It was the price" is almost never the real reason. This is how to find out what was.

A four-page fillable PDF for finding out why you actually lost, from the buyer, through somebody with nothing riding on the answer.

Ask a sales team why a deal was lost and the answer is price. It is plausible, because price is always a factor in something. It is unfalsifiable inside the company, because nobody is going to phone the buyer and check. And it exonerates everyone in the room, because price is set upstairs. So the loss gets filed under price and the company discounts next time, which is how it teaches itself to solve a problem it does not have.

This is the instrument that gets the real reason.

WHAT'S INSIDE

The six steps — interview the buyer, wait until it is final, send someone neutral, process before verdict, what were we told, write it as a change. Each one with the trap underneath it. People describe a process honestly long after they have stopped being candid about verdicts.

The warning-signal question — what you were told during the process, and what you changed as a result. This is the question almost nobody asks and it is the one that pays.

The six tests — source, independence, process, the warning, the winner, owner and date.

A worked example — one lost deal, the reason the team gave, and the two reasons the buyer gave.

The findings sheet — with owner and date fields, so the output is a change rather than a lesson.

Instrument No. 08 of The Assignment, published Monday 16 November 2026. A new task every Monday.

Who made this

I started Sweet Peanut, a Vancouver baby-clothes company, in 2006, grew it into more than 1,500 stores, including Harrods and Nordstrom, across four continents, and sold it. Before that I spent ten years in advertising at BBDO, Cossette and McCann, finishing as VP and General Manager of McCann Vancouver. Since then I've run my own consultancy, taught business school for sixteen years, and written marketing textbooks for Pearson.

Education, not legal, tax or financial advice. For your own business; please don't share or resell. If you coach or teach and want a licence, email me.