So many …….. , so little time.

The blues never changed much.

Between blues’ founding father Robert Johnson and one of the latest artists to ever add anything new to the genre, Robert Cray, probably the only thing that really changed is the electrification of the instruments.

Oh and the lyrics. Actually. Robert Cray’s topics were not always bluesy. “So many women, so little time”, were his words. Can’t take that as a sad bluesy line.

Today, I take that into a commercial context and I hear: so many opportunities, so little time.

With the economy now in top gear across almost all sectors, our sales world seems awash with opportunities today. Funding fest, tenders at high tide, investments inferno.

But, so little time to pursue all of those opportunities…… successfully.

Because pursuing opportunities successfully does not only mean closing ALL opportunities, but rather closing the RIGHT ones. The ones that are good for your business. The ones that fit your strategy, your operational capabilities and capacity, your financial breadth, your risk profile, your culture.

To identify those opportunities, you need a structured approach to opportunity assessment. An approach in which multiple disciplines of your organization take part, not just the sales side, but also the operational side, the HR side, training, finance, maybe purchasing, IT, in other words, every function that will be solicited in the execution in case of a successful pursuit.

Only such an approach will create a priority list in your opportunities, which will make it visible what opportunities best to assign your sales capacity to.

Because that is another aspect of the high tide in business: your sales capacity can often not be expanded at the same pace as the growth in opportunities. Getting the right folks on board has a leadtime too and having inexperienced people or people who are not yet properly embedded in your market and your products and culture running around trying to catch every fish, will not deliver you the healthy new business you want.

Therefore: rather than living the Robert Cray lyrics “Now every night’s a different town”, it is better to prioritise and focus. Determine first what are the best opportunities for you,

Preferrably with a sound and proven methodology.