Sometimes things that look good in the beginning turn out to be weeds

The latest issue of A Chip off the Block is The Garden Edition and talks about  The Top 10 Things Sales Taught Me About Gardening here is my TeleSales Twist on Point #2.

Sometimes things that looks good in the beginning turns out to be a weed

Prospects that:

• Fit your target market
• Buy what you sell
• Have money to spend
  seem like a great place to
  spend time & effort.

What happens when we spend that time and effort BUT determine the business is NOT worth the headaches that come with it. Perhaps the signs weren’t what we thought they were. The key is pull the account out of your garden when you recognize it for what it is! Just because you spent lots of time, energy, and resources to get to this point, does NOT mean you leave a weed in your garden.

These are the worst – I’ve got one in my garden right now, my friend Cris JUST said yesterday “and that Lynn is a healthy weed” (ok so she actually said it twice about two different plants)

I have a choice (now that I know) , I can keep it in there – where it will start to take over all the work I’ve done.  You probably have accounts like this right now. You’ve spent the past ## of months learning about

• what they buy
• who they buy it from
• how they make decisions
• who the players are
• etc

Yes you can recite all this in excruciating detail. Perhaps you’ve even “had the opportunity to quote”. Yet you haven’t gotten any business OR moved any closer to earning it.

With the assumption you really have asked all the qualifying questions of multiple people – now for the difficult question to ask youself:

If I continue to spend time with this account, what will I lose out of somewhere else?

As crazy as that sounds, it is one of the decisions we are making without thinking about it!

Back in my garden; I can weed around… my weeds, feed them plant food, nurture them – in the end I’ll still have a weed. Not my goal – it will be a beautiful weed, but again – not my goal to have a garden full of beautiful, healthy weeds.

As you are working your way through your current day’s activity – ask yourself the question “If I continue to spend time with this account, what will I lose out of somewhere else?” and STOP calling if you can see where you can make better money somewhere else by utilizing your time more wisely.