Why aren’t we debriefing more?

Most teams skip one of the most valuable habits in sales: the post-deal debrief.

Not just for losses — for every deal.

Ask:

• Why did we win?
• Why did we negotiate?
• Why did it take so long to close?
• Why did we lose?

When you deconstruct deals, you:

• Raise win rates
• Speed up cycles
• Level up training
• Sharpen your ICP

A simple way to run a debrief:

1. Pick one deal (won and lost) each week.
2. Invite everyone involved — AE, SE, BDR, manager. Keep it under 30 minutes.
3. Ask four questions:
   • What actually happened?
   • What did we do well?
   • What would we do differently?
   • What did we learn about the buyer or market?
4. Capture insights in a shared doc or CRM.
5. Close the loop. Use what you learned to tweak methods, process, coaching and training.

Do this for a quarter and you’ll see patterns no dashboard will ever show you.

(Thanks to Todd Caponi. His post on negotiation sparked this one and got me thinking: why are we negotiating at all?)

Start your first debrief this week. Pick one deal and break it down.