From the longest of a (really) long sales funnel, a lesson in patience.

I recall receiving an email from PMG agency’s founder and CEO, George Popstefanov, asking about the possibility of my doing workshops for his team.  I wrote back, an exchange of emails ensued, leading to a letter of proposal.  Soon after I was on my way to Ft. Worth, Texas to conduct a day of back-to-back sessions.

Time elapsed from first contact to my boarding a plane:  a relatively fast two months, which in retrospect strikes me as fairly efficient.

The same was pretty much true when Ted Johnson, President and CEO of Hadley Exhibits, reached out; we exchanged emails, leading to my trip to Buffalo to conduct a day of workshops.   Time elapsed from initial email to visit:  about two months, again pretty darn fast.

I get a fair number of overtures like these; most are not nearly as serious as George’s and Ted’s.  The majority are from window shoppers, or people wanting to know how much I charge, or fulfilling a request from one of their superiors. 

Even with these most unlikely of asks, I dutifully respond, knowing most will find their way to the dustbin of, “I’m not really interested,” to “I really have no money for this,” to, “I really don’t have the time to orchestrate this, and my team is too busy to attend anyway.”

In October, however, I received this:

“We are seeking to facilitate a training session for our Account teams and I was intrigued to inquire if this is a service you offer around your book the Art of Client Service and the fundamentals of client service. "I am excited to hear back from you soon.”

I wrote back; again there was an exchange of emails.  Soon thereafter, I conducted a post-Covid Zoom workshop for a group of about 50 agency people, all of whom presumably were interested in getting better at client service.  From inception to session completion took roughly seven weeks, by my standards amazingly fast.

Except, as I later discovered, it was anything but.

As I was establishing new folders for this soon-to-be-workshop-client, I discovered I already had done so, from the very same client, from more than eight years prior.  The person who made the initial contact is no longer with the firm, but the founder/CEO remains.  He apparently was behind the first contact in 2016, decided to not move forward, only to return to this a month ago.

If I hadn’t been the dutiful Account weenie keeping meticulous records, I never would have recalled the events of recent but appropriately disposable history.  Neither, I suspect, did the CEO or the person he empowered to oversee the session I conducted, given both failed to make even a passing reference to it.

I had forgotten, and so, presumably, had they.

There are times when things come together very quickly.  There are times that never come together.  And there are times like this most recent one, where  years elapse, with someone given up for lost suddenly materializes, as if by miracle.

The next time someone approaches you with an inquiry and you know it’s as perishable as spoiled milk, stop and think before you say “No, I won’t.”  An overture might take weeks, or months, a year, on more than eight years to develop, but sometimes the longest of long-term prospects in the longest sales funnel decide “Now is the time.”  You will be glad you did the work you did, even when it seemed pointless.

If there’s a message to extract from this story, it’s this:  patience (sometimes) is its own reward.  This certainly is the lesson here, a perfect, true story for this time of year, where gratitude should be a prevailing sentiment.

If you have traveled this this holiday season or planning to do so, have great ones and travel safe!

• #patience
• #sales funnel
• #advertising
• #marketing