How to Develop a Patient Impatience

A lot of things about sales are contradictory. They are paradoxical. Like fast is slow and slow is fast.

You want to be patient in pursuing your dream client, nurturing the relationships you need, creating value before attempting to claim any, and being professionally persistent longer than you might believe is necessary. You want to be impatient in the creation of new opportunities and building your pipeline.

You want to be patient in the process of working with your dream clients to help them discover something about themselves, in the collaboration of the right solution, and in building the consensus necessary to move forward with you and your solution. You want to be impatient in helping them produce the results they need, taking no more time than is necessary to gain the 10 commitments that allow you to create a win their business.

It pays to be patient in human relationships, taking the time necessary to understand other people, listening to them and giving them time, and caring deeply about them and the outcomes they need. It also pays to be impatient when it comes to generating the new results that will help them move the better future state they need, reducing the time it takes to get them there.

There is a certain tension here. That tension is what creates better results. You want (and need) to work with a great sense of urgency, but that urgency can’t be so tactical that it prevents you from generating the outcomes you need. You can’t put your need for speed above human relationships, and you can’t make any transaction so important that it works against your long-term results, results like developing trust, developing relationships, and building a preference to work with you. You need a patient impatience, an urgency that is governed by an approach that allows you to produce these outcomes.

If you are not creating the opportunities and results you need now, trying to go faster with individuals will slow you down, and doing more work prospecting, opening relationships, and creating new opportunities are what will speed things up.