Closed Lost

In sales, closed-lost is any situation where a prospect has formally declined to complete the sales process and make a purchase or sign up for a contract. It is the opposite of closed-won, which is any situation where a deal has been successfully closed and a prospect becomes a customer.   

Just as with closed-won, closed-lost is a term typically found in customer relationship management (CRM) tools like Salesforce. Here, marking prospects as closed-list gives sales teams a point of reference that they can use to access important information and metrics. Marking lost prospects as closed-lost also prevents other problems such as overinflation of the sales funnel and inaccurate sales performance reports.

There are many reasons why a closed-lost situation might arise. Whether it’s simply a case of a prospect changing their mind or a more complex issue such as a decision-maker inside your organization deciding to terminate a deal, it’s important to record it.