Everything Looks Like a Meal to a Starving Man

The hungrier you get, the more willing you are to eat something that isn’t really good for you. If you’re starving, all of your discipline around eating goes straight out the window, doesn’t it? That’s why you’re not supposed to wait until you are starving to eat (and why you never want to go the grocery store when you are hungry). When you’re starving you make bad decisions.

I could stop writing this post right here and you would understand the point I’m making, wouldn’t you?

When you go long periods without prospecting, your pipeline dries up. You become more and more desperate for something–anything–to put in your pipeline. And then, your standards are gone. The idea that you should pursue your dream clients is gone, and with it, qualifying. Instead, every lead is automatically an opportunity, and all opportunities are good.

That prospect that spends a lot of money in your space but buys on price alone suddenly becomes a real opportunity–if only you could lower your prices. That nightmare prospect who doesn’t appreciate the value that you create suddenly becomes an object of desire. The prospect with a potential deal, the one with hair all over it, is transformed as if by magic into a dream client. That too small prospect, the one that will cost you more to serve than you can possibly make, is now worthy of your time and attention.

This is why prospecting is critical. If you always have a healthy pipeline then you never get so desperate that you feel that you have to pursue non-opportunities. To a starving person, even something awful looks like a meal.

Questions

Why do you get desperate for opportunities?

What actions do you need to take to keep from being desperate?

What happens when you do a poor job of qualifying?