At the end of the day, I sat with the owner of the company in his own office, which was also fairly messy. On his wall, he has a poster which states that “A Clean Desk Is The Sign Of A Dirty Mind.” I pointed at his desk, and at the poster, and said “I’m not sure you’re setting a really good example for your employees, especially Carl (the top salesperson).”

“I don’t care about neatness,” he said, “I care about results, and Carl brings in a lot of business.”

The question, of course, is whether he could be bringing in even more business if he was better organized. You can probably guess what I think!

Everything In Its Place

The secret to organization is simply to put everything in its place. If that place really is on the top of your desk — or on top of your chair! — then that’s where whatever we’re talking about should be. But if it’s not, it should be somewhere else. That might be a file folder, in a file cabinet, in a file room. It might be a digital folder, on a computer desktop, or somewhere deeper inside the file structure. It might be in the trash! I’m not saying that your desktop, physical or digital, must be perfectly neat and organized at all times, but here’s what I want you to ask yourself: Is there any upside to the kind of mess you see in this picture?

Now ask yourself this: What would Carl likely find if he took the time to look through every piece of paper in his workspace? I think he’d find that most of the documents are no longer current to his workflow. I think he’d also find some lost opportunity!

Lost Opportunity

This is really the critical issue. I’ve been saying for a long time that selling is mostly about follow-up. And please understand, I’m not just talking about persistence. I’m talking about follow-up that’s appropriate to the situation at hand. I have seen far too many printing salespeople miss out on opportunities because they were blindly persistent when they should have employed something more creative in terms of follow-up, but that’s a topic for another day. For today, it’s pretty simple. If you miss an opportunity because you didn’t follow up on time because it was hidden under the clutter in your workspace, that’s an indefensible loss.

I actually forced Carl to dig though his clutter as part of the follow-up to my onsite visit. He found 5 quotes that he’d never followed up. He also found 23 leads that he’d never followed up on. He even found a job jacket for an order that had never been put into production. He swears that he’s seen the light, and that he’s going to get himself and keep himself better organized. I’m confident that if he does that, he will bring in even more business and make more money.

I agree, although I’m not sure that you can always know right from the start. Still, any time that you’re unlikely to succeed, especially in something that involves a long chase, you’re better off figuring that out sooner rather than later.

Yup, It’s A Duck!

One of my high school teachers introduced me to the Duck Test about 50 years ago. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Here’s how that applies to the “slow no.” If it looks like a poor use of time, based either on instinct or past experience, then it probably is a poor use of your time.

When I reviewed my client’s most recent “slow no” experience with him, he admitted that there were at least a couple of points during the long process where he should have realized that he was wasting his time. “I’ve been there and done that,” he said, “but I guess I didn’t learn anything from the experience.

”Tip #1: Learn from experience, and recognize the patterns of both failure and success. When experience — or instinct! — tells you that you should be looking for a better opportunity, do just that!

Customer Management

I had a conversation with another client some years back about customer management. Her position, as I recall, was that firm customer management is critical because (a) it’s part of great customer service, and (b) because it’s the best way to keep them from making you crazy. This small business owner was never afraid to tell a customer: “Here’s what I need from you.”

At this point, we need to separate the “slow” from the “no.” If you can accelerate the process of getting to the final decision, you’re probably better off. And you can often do that by setting expectations and accompanying timelines.

Tip #2: Don’t be afraid to manage your customers, with “firm” being a key word. Yes, there’s a line that you don’t want to cross, but again, if you’re unlikely to succeed, you do want to know that sooner rather than later.

Probability Of Success

Now let’s move from “slow” to “no” and consider how to measure your probability of success. On one hand, you can guess at it. On the other hand, you can actually ask the person who’s most likely to know!

This might be thought of as a “trial closing” question, and it’s a question you can ask at both at multiple times and multiple points in the selling process: “Based on where we are right now, what would you say are the chances that you’ll move forward with this and that I’ll get the order?

”A high likelihood would suggest that you hang in there. A low likelihood suggests that you might be heading for a “slow no.” A high likelihood of moving forward coupled with a low likelihood that you’ll get the order should at the very least get you thinking about what you could be/should be doing differently to increase your probability of success.

Tip #3: Don’t guess, ask! There’s a huge difference between I think I have a chance and I know I have a chance. Remember, too, that this can be measured more accurately than just good or not-so-good. I frequently ask my own prospects to give me a percentage, and I’ve learned that I can often sell myself into a 50% likelihood but almost never into a 10% chance. Just like you, I want more yes’s than no’s, and especially slow no’s!