lost a deal on a tuesday. got it back on a friday. the week in between taught me everything

tuesday morning. prospect emails. going with a competitor. no real explanation, just "we've decided to move in a different direction."

four months of work. gone before breakfast.

i sat with it for about an hour then did something i'd never done before. instead of sending a polite "thanks for letting me know" reply i just called them.

not to save the deal. i genuinely wanted to understand what happened.

they picked up. we talked for twenty minutes. turns out nothing i did was wrong. their internal situation had changed, a new stakeholder came in last minute with an existing vendor relationship, and the decision got made above my champion's head.

then something shifted in the conversation. they started asking questions about how we handle a specific problem their new vendor apparently doesn't solve well.

friday afternoon they called back. asked if the offer was still on the table.

it was.

has anyone else found that the conversation after a lost deal ended up being more valuable than the entire sales process that came before it?