Act Sooner

Acting sooner is better than acting later.

Begin nurturing your dream clients sooner. The longer you wait to engage with your very best (even if they’re your coldest prospective customers) the longer it will take you to win their business. Start nurturing sooner.

You want to engage all the stakeholders who are going weigh in on a decision to select you and your solution sooner. The deeper you get into discovery work, the more likely that the stakeholders whose needs you have not addressed in discovery will begin to resist the change you are selling. The sooner you build consensus, the faster you win an opportunity.

The sooner you bring your executive management team into an opportunity, the sooner you demonstrate your company’s commitment to serving your dream client. Involving your leadership team also means that you begin to build the necessary consensus inside your business sooner, massively increasing your odds of winning and massively increasing your chances of executing. Bring your resources to bear on an opportunity sooner.

The sooner you gain the commitments you need to move your prospective dream client through their decision-making process, the faster you win the opportunity that you create. The more time it takes you to gain these commitments, the more time you will have lost, and the more time your prospective client will have lost when it comes to getting the better results you can provide. Gain the commitments you need sooner.

The sooner you discuss the necessary investment, the sooner you can begin to justify the difference between price and cost. The sooner you establish that you are focused on strategic outcomes, the sooner your dream client will recognize that there is a difference between your price and their cost, as well as a difference between your price and your competitor’s lower price (if that be the case). The sooner you help them justify the difference, the greater likelihood you have of gaining the necessary investment to deliver the results.

In all things regarding human relationships slow is fast and fast is slow. But don’t let this truth make you believe that waiting is an effective strategy. The sooner you do what is necessary, the better. The longer you resist doing what you need to do, the more you put at risk the outcomes you seek.