Why Technical Teams Lose Deals (And It Has Nothing to Do With Their Work)

Last year I spent time in 20 cities talking to over 1,000 leaders, founders, and technical teams.

I expected to hear a range of challenges. What I didn't expect was to hear the same story, almost word for word, in every room.

Nobody said, "We have so much business we don't know what to do with it."

What they said instead:

"We're busy, but it's the wrong work." "We can't explain what makes us different." "We fix problems all day, but we can't win the room."

That's not a capacity problem. That's a communication problem. And in B2B, it's costing companies millions.

The $12M Lesson

Here's a story I keep coming back to.

A VP of Engineering walks into a client presentation. He's spent hundreds of hours preparing. The deck is technically flawless — 40 slides on MEP sequencing, every detail accounted for.

Twenty minutes in, the client interrupts.

"This is great. But why you?"

He didn't have an answer.

They lost the project to a competitor whose work wasn't better. They just explained it better — and connected with the people in the room.

The project was $12M.

I've watched this play out more times than I can count. Brilliant execution. Weak positioning. A team that could run circles around the competition but couldn't tell their own story.

The Real Problem

Technical teams are trained to solve problems, not to sell. They go deep on the what and the how. But buyers don't buy what you do. They buy what changes for them when you do it.

That gap — between capability and communication — is where revenue leaks.

And here's what makes it worse: most companies don't even know the leak exists. They assume losing a deal means the competitor was cheaper, or the relationship wasn't there, or the timing was off.

Sometimes that's true. More often, they lost the room before the Q&A started.

What I've Learned After 28 Years

I've closed over $100M in B2B deals across manufacturing, design, and the built environment. And the teams that win consistently aren't the most technically advanced. They're the ones who can walk into any room and make the buyer feel seen.

That means knowing the difference between a feature and an outcome. Between a capability and a result. Between a pitch and a conversation.

It's a skill. It can be taught. And it's exactly what most technical teams are never given the chance to learn.

The Pattern Doesn't Lie

The research backs this up:

• 82% of B2B decision-makers say sales reps are unprepared to engage

• 57% say reps don't understand their industry

• 70% say reps can't answer their questions

We don't have a tools problem. We have a communication problem.

If your team is excellent at the work but struggling to win the work, that's the gap I help close. It's what my Master the Message framework is built around — and it's the core of how I work as a Fractional CRO with B2B companies ready to scale beyond founder-led sales.

The question isn't whether your team is good enough. It almost certainly is.

The question is whether they can prove it in a 30-minute conversation with someone who doesn't speak their language.

If the answer is not yet — let's talk.

Apply for a CRO Readiness Call →

Monique Lecomte is a Fractional Chief Revenue Officer with 28+ years of B2B leadership experience and $100M+ in closed enterprise deals. She helps growing B2B companies build scalable revenue engines through her Master the Message framework and Fractional CRO engagements.