When I think about this rule, I think about the time we waste in our sales cycle. We waste time chasing prospects that will never be our customers. We have no idea what their real needs are, we just want to assume that they need the service or product we have.
Then, let’s assume we land on the right prospect, we tend to spend too much time qualifying and disqualifying the prospect. Yes, I said disqualifying the prospects. We get emotionally engaged in deals that we haven’t actually won and may never win. We spend time following up, sending emails, leaving voicemails, and adding and updating them in our pipeline. In reality, they should have never been entered in our pipeline.
How do we work smarter? Start by asking yourself these questions
- How much time am I spending chasing instead of prospecting?
- If I had this time back to prospect, how would that impact my business?
Once we realize the impact on our business, we can then start to be intentional about cleaning up the waste in our sales cycle.
First, we need to create an ideal client profile and focus on it. An ideal client profile will keep us focused on prospects that are most likely to be our clients.
In addition, we need to polish our ability to qualify or disqualify a prospect as quickly as possible. This will reduce wasted time in our sales cycle and allow us to keep moving forward with clients that are ready to work with us and allow us to stop chasing those who may never be our client.
Find ways you are WASTING time in your cycle and find ways to clean it up. Work smarter, not harder.
