What impedes your business

A couple weeks ago, I traveled from Philadelphia on the Acela’s lovely, coastal route towards Boston for a speaking engagement. During the trip, for about 25 minutes, I — and the 20 people in his vicinity — couldn’t help but hear a sales manager’s conundrum played out by phone.

Apparently a client was ready to sign a contract with this gentleman’s company via a member of his sales team. However, the signing was waylaid because of some internal rigmarole.

His boss was somehow tied in with the delay. The salesperson was having a meltdown, and the guy on the train spent 25 minutes calming her down, providing direction, and blazing a path internally to make things happen.

He knew that if the new client didn’t sign the contract pronto, the buyer might change his or her mind. Something might go awry. 

A client might slip through the cracks. 

The machinations he had to go through were absurd. Bureaucracy or internal politics or the boss’s ego — whatever it was — caused him to waste 25 precious minutes of his life and his salesperson’s to get a new client. To convince the internal players to accept a client. Crazy.

Where does business — from sponsors, donors, funders, or customers — get held up in your organization?

Find the obstacles and mow them down. Life is too short, and you’re wasting opportunity.