Jeb: Say Yes To The Right People

[rifat28dddd]

I think part of the answer lies in curating the type of business that you’ve taken. I said yes to every job when I first started, and it’s just not the best technique. I realized that every yes that I’m telling a company is also saying no to another opportunity.

When I started Sales Gravy, I took anything because I had to build. Some of those yeses came back to haunt me because they were taking me away from other things. Some of them turned out to be the greatest yeses I ever said yes to, because they changed the organization.

I don’t think, as an entrepreneur, you have much of a malta telegram data choice. It’s really nice to idealistically say that all customers aren’t good customers, but when you’re trying to pay the light bill, any customer is a good customer. I think what happens over time is that there’s a curve.

As you grow and get more mature, you can be pickier with what you want. It’s no different for a salesperson. If you’ve got a full pipeline, you can be really picky about the deals that you’re going to work on so that you spend your time on the most lucrative deals with the highest probability of closing.

If you’ve got an empty pipeline, you’re going to take anybody that calls or says yes. You’re going to show up. You’re going to drive across town for eight hours, in order to go see a company for 20 minutes that may or may not do business with you, ever.

But when you’re full, you don’t have to. This is part of being an entrepreneur. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying yes when you get started. You just start teaching yourself what not to do through the mistakes that you make.