But you can't keep stacking 'higher priority' opportunities atop the less promising leads, otherwise there will never be any follow up. Not all business opportunities are created equal and to treat a low potential or low yield opportunity the same as you would a game changing opportunity is just soft-headed.

Related: How This Simple Trick Can Keep You Organized Every Day Bottom of the pile. This can be easily fixed either by delegating effectively, getting a highly organized assistant to nag you into getting things done, or training and discipline.

This isn't a case of being too busy it's being too disorganized. The task gets pushed and pushed, and pretty soon the opportunity is gone. How often do we find ourselves with hundreds of tasks that would take only a moment to complete, but we become so overwhelmed in the minutia that we don't get them done? Or we tell ourselves that because it will only take a minute we don't have to worry about it. Having too many things on your plate may at first seem to be the exact same condition on as being too busy, but it really isn't. You make time to be successful, and if that means biting the bullet and hiring more staff or weeding out the low performers, then that's what you need to do. Not having time to follow up is akin to saying you don't have time to be successful. You had better hope that this clientele size matches up with your ability to make a profit or you will 'too busy' yourself into bankruptcy. Customers who don't want to get poor service or have inordinate wait-time go elsewhere, and you're left with a clientele that is the appropriate size for your capacity to deliver. Not following up because you are too busy resolves itself in the same way that water finds its own level. Related: 5 Easy Ways to Lose Customers (Infographic) In fact, I have lost more deals because of a lack of follow up than I have lost to price, to competition, or to outbreaks of the plague (an admittedly low percentage of my losses), added together.

I've seem more deals evaporate that way than ones that collapse. Either I will get someone else to do fill it or, I will realize that my immediate need wasn't all that immediate - or indeed, even a need. But I have an immediate need, and if they aren't there immediately, well, there can be only two outcomes. They have bigger and more exciting quotes to write I get that, too. Some vendors (and I admit I have been one) practically make you beg for a quote. I see a lack of follow up torpedoing more deals than a lack of showing up. Related: Instead of Worrying About Products vs. When you sell hammers, all you see is nails. Instead, too many solution providers come into a sales call with a solution in mind and then expend copious amounts of energy trying to convince the customer that the prefabricated solution will fit the customer's needs. When you show up intellectually it means you are truly listening to your customer's needs and pain points and crafting a solution to their problems. Showing up is more than merely putting in a physical appearance. Hero Images | Getty ImagesĮntrepreneurs often fail on both these counts. But if Woody is right, then I (another man whose history of poor judgment and worse choices would give a prudent person pause) would offer that the other 20 percent of success is following up. Now granted, Woody Allen also defended dating his adopted daughter by saying, 'The heart wants what it wants,' so holding him up as a paragon of sound judgment may not be my best move. Woody Allen once said that 80 percent of success in life is just showing up.

As well as simply being too many.