The Shiny Object Syndrome

Salespeople who chase shiny objects in their pipeline are like stock pickers — both live a feast-or-famine existence and have short lifespans.

The “Shiny Object Syndrome” is the attraction to sales opportunities you believe will close — to the exclusion of everything else in the pipeline. This undisciplined sales behavior may produce a nice deal now and then, but when Murphy's Law comes to visit, and the few deals you are chasing fail to materialize, you are left with a dried-up pipeline, and nothing to work on.

Sales is inherently unpredictable. Even seemingly promising opportunities can encounter unexpected obstacles. Market conditions, customer priorities, budget constraints, internal reorgs and other dynamics can change with no warning. Relying heavily on a small number of attractive opportunities leaves you vulnerable to these uncertainties, and increases the chances of disappointment. Diversifying your sales efforts across multiple opportunities helps mitigate this risk and provides a buffer against potential unexpected setbacks.

By concentrating your efforts on only a few opportunities, you may inadvertently overlook other potential high-value opportunities. Customer priorities and budgets can change unexpectedly in your favor as well — but will have no impact on your sales performance if your attention is elsewhere.

Overcommitting your attention to a limited number of opportunities also leads to neglecting other important contributors to sales performance, such as lead generation, qualifying new leads, developing prospects into opportunities, servicing the needs of deals further along in the sales process, and nurturing existing accounts. Balancing your attention among each stage of the sales process allows for a more comprehensive and sustainable sales approach.

High performing salespeople do not pick winners. They balance their sales activity among each stage of the pipeline, and invest a day or two each week on the shiny objects (moving the Top Ten deals toward close). Stick to your sales process, distribute your attention, and positive value will accumulate in your pipeline over time.?Balancing your sales activity is like watering the lawn — it is difficult to see the grass grow, but it always does.

Who are the most successful investment professionals on Wall Street? Not the stock pickers — it is the fund managers who invest in a diversified portfolio of opportunities. Guessing who will close is risky and unsustainable behavior. In startups, there is this thing called running-out-of-money. In sales, there is this thing called an empty commission check. Both serve as excellent reminders that over-investing your time in a few deals is a bad idea.

While it's natural in sales to have greater confidence in a few specific opportunities, becoming too fixated on a small number of deals carries inherent risk. Just because you are working hard every day does not mean you are going to be rewarded. In the long run, chasing shiny objects will almost always underperform a balanced sales approach, and your world will become an emotional and financial roller coaster.