You’re Spending Time on This Sales Opportunity. But Can You Actually Win It?

Every Opportunity costs something before you ever win or lose it. You're investing time and attention in meetings, research, proposal work, internal resources and follow-up.

And every hour invested in one Opportunity is an hour you can't invest somewhere else.

So there's a question worth asking:

Can you actually win this business?

Hope isn't evidence

Salespeople need optimism, but optimism becomes expensive when it substitutes for evidence.

The buyer likes you. That's encouraging. They've requested a proposal. Also encouraging. You've had several meetings. Good.

None of those things, by itself, tells you whether you can win.

What would have to be true for you to win?

Instead of relying on how promising the Opportunity feels, look at the conditions that would actually have to exist for it to become business:

Does the buyer have a compelling reason to act?

Do you understand how the decision will be made?

Are the people who can influence or approve the purchase involved?

Do you know what matters most to the buyer?

Do you understand what you're really competing against?

Are there unresolved obstacles that could prevent the purchase?

Is there evidence of genuine buyer commitment?

Then ask another important question: What don't you know yet?

The gaps in your understanding may be just as important as the evidence you already have.

Don't let past effort make the decision for you

The more time you've invested in an Opportunity, the harder it can be to step away. You've already put so much into it. Maybe one more meeting will change things. Maybe next month will be different.

Sometimes persistence wins business. Sometimes it simply consumes more selling time.

The effort you've already invested shouldn't determine whether you keep investing. The Opportunity itself should justify that decision.

Sometimes closing more business means pursuing less

The cost of an Opportunity you can't win isn't merely the lost deal. It's the other business you might have won with the time you spent pursuing it.

Sales Blueprint Architect can help surface risks, assumptions and missing information so you have a clearer basis for deciding what an Opportunity deserves from you.

Sometimes that means investing more. Sometimes it means changing your approach. And sometimes it means putting your time somewhere you have a better chance of winning.

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