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If you’re building or resetting your ABM strategy this year, there’s one number worth sitting with for a moment:
The average SaaS company closes roughly 20% of its qualified opportunities.
That means 80% are lost.
Every quarter. Every year.
Those aren’t just deals that “didn’t work out.”
They’re companies that raised their hand, shared their challenges, and saw your solution as a potential fit.
And yet, most teams move on from them entirely.
The part most teams overlook
When a deal is marked “closed lost,” it’s rarely because the problem went away.
More often, it’s because of things like:
Budget timing
Internal changes
Shifting priorities
Champion turnover
In other words, factors outside of your control.
What is in your control is what you do next.
Because those accounts still:
Know your brand
Understand your value
Have documented pain points
Have already invested time evaluating your solution
That’s not cold demand.
That’s unfinished business.
Why this matters for 2026 planning
As teams plan for the year ahead, the biggest mistake I see is jumping straight into tactics and technology.
But before any of that, there’s a more important question to answer:
What are the business priorities for the year ahead?
Once you have clarity there, account selection becomes much simpler.
Instead of starting with thousands of net-new accounts, you can:
Anchor your strategy to the company’s priorities
Identify the segments that support those goals
Filter down to closed-lost opportunities from the last 2+ years
This gives you a focused, high-intent list built on real history, not assumptions.
Why this approach works
Closed-lost accounts already have context.
They’ve already evaluated your product.
They already know your team.
That changes everything.
When you start here:
Conversations move faster
Sales alignment improves
Messaging becomes more relevant
And pipeline becomes more predictable
You’re not convincing someone you exist.
You’re picking up a conversation that was already started.
The shift for 2026
The teams that win next year won’t be the ones doing more.
They’ll be the ones doing less, better.
Clear priorities.
Tighter account selection.
And a strategy built around accounts that already showed intent.
That’s the foundation I’m helping teams build moving forward.
