The following is an excerpt from Konrath's book Agile Selling.
Hope is rampant in sales. We need it to keep going—but we also need to avoid being fooled by false hope. The longer a deal stays in your sales pipeline, the less likely you are to ever close it, even if your prospect claims that he or she desperately needs your offering.
Purging your pipeline regularly keeps you honest with yourself. To do so, get in touch with your long-term prospects to see what's happening. Find out if they're still serious about making a change, and if so, realistically when.
5 warning signs your sales opportunity won't close. If you experience any of these warning signs, don't delude yourself into thinking they'll close. If the sales process does get stalled out and you leave it in your pipeline, the only person who loses is you.
1. Not sure when they'll change. If they're hemming and hawing about when they'll change, they're not a prospect right now.
2. Shift in priorities. If they tell you other, more urgent priorities have emerged, they're not going to be buying in the near future.
