Are You a Sales Perfectionist?

“So how are you doing?” the surgeon asked, walking into the pre-op room. “Forget about me, how are you doing? Feeling up to this?” My surgeon chuckled, “Yeah, I'm good.”

Three hours earlier, after a quick visit with my doctor, Richard and I walked into the Emergency Room of our local hospital. A few tests later, I was being wheeled into surgery for an appendectomy.

It was late Monday afternoon after Thanksgiving holiday weekend and my surgeon my have thought he was going home soon to eat dinner and relax. Nope. Or maybe he needed to get back to his office, check email, return patient calls, or sign insurance paperwork sitting in an overflowing in box. I have no idea the conditions that this surgeon found himself - but this was an emergency so now he was doing what he really gets paid for: surgery.

It really does not matter that everything in this man’s life and practice be ideal and ‘perfect’ before he takes out my appendix. More people need to be ‘operating’ this way. Because I’ve noticed for a lot of people, when it comes to selling, the conditions around them must be perfect to begin.

But rarely do we get all our "conditions" met. Clean desk. Near empty in-box. To do list all checked off. Social media all updated. Think again. Trying to ensure that everything is in perfect order before you start selling is the fastest way to never start selling. 

So what’s the answer? It comes down to focus. Get rid of this notion that everything must be ‘perfect’ for you to engage in the most fundamental and critical of all business tasks: selling. All the stuff you want to handle will be there later. And when you start selling more, some of those pesky issues you feel you need to handle now will be handled by bringing in more revenue. I’ve done sales and marketing with a clean desk and a messy one and I don’t recall the clean one ever getting me better results.   

So consider this: what conditions do you find yourself insisting have to be met before you truly execute sales and business building activities?

Do you require everything be ‘perfect’ before you start selling? Like my surgeon was that day, my it a priority. Before it really is an emergency.