You Have Not Yet Booked the Revenue

You have been calling on your dream client forever. Actually, you’ve been calling a little longer than that. You finally managed to pin down the person who cares the most about what you do, about the value you create, and about the exact problems you solve.

You have a meeting with your dream client, and it couldn’t have gone any better. You shared some ideas about your view of things, and they asked amazingly relevant questions, questions that allowed you to answer in a way that convinced them they are right in your sweet spot. On your way out of the meeting, your first discovery meeting, they asked, “What do we do next?”

Boom! This, ladies and gentleman, is a deal.

Not. So. Fast. This is potentially an opportunity. It is potentially an exceptional opportunity, the kind that comes around every year or two, when you are working hard, and when the Gods of prospecting are smiling on you. This may be a deal, but right now, it is not a win.

The fact that you have a potentially big deal changes nothing. It doesn’t mean that you can stop nurturing other potential dream clients because to do so is to tempt fate. Even though this opportunity is safely lodged in your pipeline, you are not absolved of your responsibility to prospect and create additional opportunities. Even though your sales manager may be every bit as excited as you, creating a single opportunity, no matter how large, and no matter how certain you are that you will win, doesn’t mean you can sit on that deal like a Mother Hen, doing nothing for 39 hours a week while you sit on this deal, waiting confidently for it to hatch.

The truth of the matter is, there is a great reason to celebrate creating new opportunities. In fact, opportunity creation is undervalued. Way undervalued. But, even though you have cause for joy, you do not have cause to let up. You have not yet booked the revenue, and until you have done so, it’s business as usual, postponing the real celebration until you have won the deal.