For some reason, there is often a sense of comfort when a prospective client asks us to do or provide something - see a demo, send me information, etc. We believe we have a solution that may meet their needs and we take their request as a sign that they may also believe that. As sales reps, happy to stay engaged with this prospect, we march off to provide the requested information. This prospective client may very well want this information and have a real plan to evaluate our solution and actually make a go/no-go decision on purchasing from us or not.

On the other hand, they may be making this request for any number of other reasons - and we may be playing along for any number of reasons. Those reasons can include:

• They are too nice to tell you that have no intention of spending a dime with you.
• They are busy and the fastest way to get rid of you is to send you on an errand.
• They are really good at kicking the tires, but have no history of actually buying.
• They stay in the eternal sales cycle never actually moving forward on anything. Professional window shoppers exist in every company.
• They are afraid if they tell you "no" that you will keep trying to sell them. No one enjoys being on the receiving end of this tactic.
• Your pursuit makes them feel important (ugly truth alert!).
• They think they have some power to make this decision. Meanwhile, someone else is actually making the decision at some other level.
• We feel "safe" to simply stay engaged in the sales cycle. We have something to report on our activity tracker, in our pipelines and during our team meeting updates. We've bought another week of activity.
• You look so happy when they ask you for something.

Those just a few of the reasons sales reps are asked to run these errands. How do sales reps stop being gophers? One way is to lay out the next few steps or commitments on both sides. Next time you are asked to run an errand, ask what decision they plan to make once you provide the requested information and by when. For example, if they ask to see a demo of your software. Find out what they hope to gain from the demo (the demo may not be what they even need) and what decision they plan to make upon seeing the demo (no-go, take the next step, involve other decision makers, etc) and by when they plan to make the decision (is there even a timeline?).

It feels "safe" to stay engaged and really....it's a collosal waste of time. Stop playing it "safe" and start helping your clients make decisions that will ultimately help their businesses succeed. Get commitments before you run the errand - everyone wins when you have an efficient process.

(This week's Meeting to Win focus is on Playing to Win instead of Playing to NOT Lose. Meeting to Win provides a new, fresh sales team meeting agenda every week for our Subscribers. Start having productive sales team meetings that result in superior sales performance with Meeting to Win.)