A lost deal enters the CRM as an outcome. The explanation a salesperson carries forward can influence recovery, follow-up and future opportunities.
A salesperson loses an important deal.
The CRM records the loss. The manager reviews the opportunity. The team discusses qualification, competition, pricing or timing.
But another event has already taken place inside the salesperson’s mind.
They have created an explanation for what happened.
“I’m not good at enterprise sales.”
“Our product cannot compete in this market.”
“Buyers never take me seriously.”
Or perhaps:
“I didn’t reach the right stakeholder early enough.”
“The business case wasn’t strong.”
“I need to change how I handle this situation next time.”
The deal is the same. The explanation is not.
That difference is what psychologists call explanatory style.
Explanatory style describes the way people habitually explain positive and negative events.
When something goes wrong, the explanation can differ across three broad dimensions:
This does not mean avoiding responsibility.
A useful explanation should be honest enough to identify what the salesperson could have done differently, without turning one setback into a permanent judgement about their ability or future.
In 1986, Martin Seligman and Peter Schulman studied explanatory style among life-insurance sales agents.
The research included two separate studies.
The first involved 94 experienced insurance agents. Agents scoring in the more optimistic half of the Attributional Style Questionnaire sold 37% more insurance during their first two years than agents in the less optimistic half.
The second followed 103 newly hired agents for one year. Those scoring in the more optimistic half when hired remained in the role at approximately twice the rate and sold more insurance than those in the less optimistic half.
These results are important, but they need to be understood correctly.
The research found that explanatory style was associated with productivity and retention in the insurance-sales populations studied. It did not show that a training programme would automatically produce the same sales increase. It also does not prove that explanatory style is the only reason one salesperson performs better than another.
What it does show is that the way salespeople interpret adversity deserves serious attention.
Modern B2B sales creates no shortage of difficult events:
The event itself matters. But the explanation carried forward can influence what happens next.
A salesperson who interprets buyer silence as proof that the opportunity is dead may stop following up.
Someone who treats one failed enterprise deal as evidence that they cannot sell to senior leaders may avoid similar opportunities.
A salesperson who assumes every loss is caused by price may begin discounting earlier in future conversations.
Over time, these explanations can shape prospecting behaviour, follow-up, confidence, deal strategy and recovery after setbacks.
The CRM may record reduced activity or lost opportunities. It will not necessarily explain what changed in the salesperson’s judgement.
IncaZing does not teach salespeople to think positively regardless of evidence.
Blind optimism can be as commercially dangerous as helplessness.
Instead, we help sales professionals examine the explanation sitting between a difficult event and their next action.
Through role-relevant sales situations, participants are encouraged to ask:
The purpose is to develop a response that is accurate, commercially useful and actionable.
A salesperson should be able to take responsibility without turning one mistake into an identity.
They should also be able to recognise external factors without using them to escape responsibility.
That balance matters.
Sales leaders often respond to performance gaps by adding more knowledge:
These interventions may help. But knowledge will not solve every performance gap.
A salesperson may know what to do and still avoid doing it because of what the previous failure has come to mean.
That is why the human layer behind sales performance needs to be examined alongside activity, process and skill.
The CRM shows the event.
Explanatory style can help us understand what the salesperson carries from that event into the next opportunity.
A lost deal should produce learning—not a permanent judgement.
IncaZing helps sales professionals recognise how they explain setbacks, challenge interpretations that are broader than the evidence and choose a more useful next action.
Because what happens after a lost deal may influence far more than the deal already gone.
It may influence the entire pipeline that follows.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Schulman, P. (1986). Explanatory style as a predictor of productivity and quitting among life insurance sales agents. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 50(4), 832–838.
https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.50.4.832
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Related reading
How salespeople explain a lost deal shapes what they carry into the next one. This article explores explanatory style, self-blame, external blame and how IncaZing turns setbacks into useful learning.
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