How comfortable are you with loose ends?

My background in psychology tells me that there are some personalities that are far more comfortable with loose ends than other personalities. Is it a quirk, a hardwiring issue, or lack of focus? I don't know. Maybe it's a blend of all three. It could be they just don't care enough.

What I do know is that customers do not like loose ends. In fact, in my first study of customer preferences when I started this business I discovered that a lack of follow-through was the number one irritant for customers. In my latest study of sales excellence, I discovered that the number one way salespeople earn trust with customers is delivering on their promises.

I have known many promising young salespeople over the years whose major obstacle to success was their comfort level with loose ends. This is a polite way of saying they're disorganized. Are they victims of a digital world where everything is stored for them in a database somewhere? That would be an interesting thing to study. It's kind of like using a calculator to do simple math. You wonder if people learn the skill to multiply in their heads or on paper.

I do know that "in the old days" (before PDA's, etc.) we taught salespeople to write things down in their organizers, to never leave a customer's parking lot without recording the next step in their organizer. Few things slip through the cracks when you write stuff down. This is especially true when you complete a sales call by asking the customer, "What's the next step from here?" Record their answers and recap what you will do for them. Be sure it's all in writing.

For some of you this may be overkill. Which reputation would you rather carry around: being too organized or someone too comfortable with loose ends?

by Tom Reilly https://www.tomreillytraining.com/index.htm