Lost Reasons
Configure clear reasons for lost opportunities and use them consistently when closing Deals.
Lost Reasons help managers understand why opportunities do not close. Examples include Budget, Timing, Competitor, No Response, and Not a Fit.
Lifecycle
Organization Admins can create, rename, reorder, deactivate, and reactivate reasons. Historical Lost Deals retain their reason even when it later becomes inactive.
Required for Lost Deals
A Deal cannot be marked Lost without choosing an active Lost Reason from the same workspace. It is valid for a workspace to have zero active reasons, but users cannot mark a Deal Lost until a reason is added or reactivated.
Choose useful categories
Keep the list small enough to remain consistent. A reason should help the team learn or act—not merely restate that the Deal was lost.
Define actionable categories
Budget, Timing, Competitor, No Response, and Not a Fit are useful examples when colleagues understand the distinction. Budget means affordability or approval prevented the sale; Timing means the need may be valid but the decision is not proceeding now.
Use the reason at closure
When marking a Deal Lost, choose the active reason that best represents the confirmed outcome. Add a Lost Note when the category alone would hide useful context. Do not choose No Response after one missed call merely to close an overdue opportunity.
Managers should review patterns without treating the reason as perfect market research. Consistent usage matters more than a long list. Organization Admins can deactivate an obsolete reason while historical Deals retain its readable label.
Common mistakes include creating overlapping categories, changing a reason to make reports look better, and leaving stalled Deals OPEN indefinitely because the correct reason has not been configured.