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How to Take Your Win Rate to 20-30%

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Co-founder of durhamlane, Richard is a thoughtleader, entrepreneur, and coach who loves helping people and organisations achieve high growth by developing sales skills, mindsets, and processes. With over 20 years of commercial sales experience leading both UK and global organisations, Richard develops talented sales and SDR teams to reach their potential, whilst also helping businesses accelerate their growth through our proven methodology ‘Selling at a Higher Level’. He’s a board member for the Entrepreneur’s Forum and an investor in sales technology startups.

The Hidden Gaps that Kill your Win Rate (and How to Fix Them!)

Is your SDR team struggling to close deals? You’re not alone. Many sales teams find themselves stuck in an endless cycle of chasing leads that never convert, dealing with no-shows, struggling to differentiate themselves from competitors, and the list goes on… BUT what if you could take your win rate to 20-30%?

According to Alex Moreau, our Sales Diagnostics Consultant, the key to higher win rates lies in fixing the most common breakdowns in your sales process. Let’s dive into what’s holding your team back and, more importantly, how to turn things around.

1. Wasting Time on the Wrong Leads?

Not all leads are created equal. If your team is spending too much time on low-intent prospects, your win rate will suffer. On average, 32% of SQLs are rejected because they’re simply not ready to buy.

Why this happens:

MQLs are passed to sales too early.

No clear, standardised qualification framework.

SDRs chase low-fit leads instead of prioritising high potential prospects.

Fix it: Implement a strong lead scoring system using intent signals like website engagement, content downloads, and responses to outreach. (This can reduce the sales cycle times by 25%!)

Illustration of character at desk covered in paperwork

2. Is your Pitch too Generic?

You’ve got the right prospect, but they’re not buying. Why? Because they don’t see the urgency or the value. A weak, feature-heavy pitch can make even the best solution sound boring.

Common pitfalls:

Too much focus on features instead of ROI.

Inconsistent messaging between marketing, sales, and customer success.

No clear reason for the buyer to act now.

Quick tip: Train your sales team on outcome-based and value-driven messaging. Align marketing and sales to tell a consistent and compelling story.

3. Are your Prospects Ghosting you?

You book meetings, but many never happen – that’s a major sales momentum killer. In fact, meetings booked without pre-call engagement content have a 30% no-show rate.

How to avoid this?

Send pre-meeting value content (ROI studies, industry reports, competitor benchmarks) to increase commitment.

Use automated reminders via email, SMS, or calendar invites.
Implement a confirmation email strategy with a question-based CTA

4. Are your SDRs Asking the Right Questions?

A weak discovery process means missed opportunities. Many SDRs fail to uncover deep pain points, leading to stuck deals.

What’s going wrong?

SDRs asking superficial questions instead of exploring strategic challenges.

Decision-makers join too late in the process.

No internal champion to push the deal forward.

The solution: Train your SDRs to ask deeper questions that highlight the cost of inaction. Engage multiple stakeholders early to create internal alignment and involvement.

Illustrated characters sitting at a desk with laptops

5. Why aren’t Prospects Moving Forward?

Even after qualification, deals often fall or get stuck. Prospects ask for “more information” but never re-engage due to:

No clear next steps

SDRs failing to engage multiple decision-makers

Again, buyers not seeing a compelling reason to act

Here’s some actions you could take:

Implement mutual actions plans with clear milestones and responsibilities.

Use structured follow-up cadences with value-driven check-ins.

Address common objections proactively rather than waiting for them to arise.

Illustration of hand with puppet strings and leads moving through hoops

6. Are you Losing Momentum?

Long decision cycles kill deals. If the value isn’t strong enough, buyers delay indefinitely. Deals without an ROI analysis take 35% longer to close.

Let’s get you ahead in the game:

Introduce ROI calculators and cost of inaction analysis.

Engage the prospect’s key departments – whether IT, Finance, Procurement or HR- early to prevent last minute blockers.
Train SDRs on negotiation techniques to speed up closing.

Illustration of B2B sales rep with chart comparing ROI projections and time

7. Are your Deals Falling Apart at the Finish Line?

As painful as it is, we know that a deal isn’t done until the contract is signed. Many deals fall through due to weak internal champions, pricing objections, or lack of differentiation.

However, there’s always something you can do about it.

Here are some tips:

Use peer-based case studies to help internal champions sell your solution.

Reinforce competitive differentiation throughout the entire sales process.

Develop closing playbooks outlining objection-handling techniques for your SDRs. Develop closing playbooks outlining objection-handling techniques for your SDRs.

Illustration of a character at a crossroads

The Takeaway

Taking your win rate to 20-30% isn’t about working harder, but smarter. By tightening up lead qualification, refining your messaging, improving engagement, and consolidating the sales process, you’ll see deals move through the pipeline faster and a close at a higher rate.

Let’s talk about optimising your sales process.