EP. 258: Every Deal You Work Is a Deal You’re Not Working- Truth #21

Every Opportunity Has an Opportunity Cost

When Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris started ASLAN 30 years ago, Tab noticed something frustrating.

He felt like he was working harder than Tom, yet Tom was producing more revenue.

The lesson was not that Tom had found a way to avoid work. He had learned to be more selective about where he invested it.

That distinction matters because selling time is finite. Between customer meetings, prospecting, CRM updates, preparation, internal conversations, travel, and follow-up, sellers only have so many hours available to actively pursue opportunities.

If a seller can realistically work ten opportunities well, choosing the wrong ten has consequences.

“Every time you’re working on a deal, you’re losing a deal.”
— Tom Stanfill

That does not mean every opportunity you pursue should be guaranteed to close. It means every opportunity should earn the amount of time you are investing in it.

ASLAN recommends starting with three questions.

Question 1: Is the Opportunity Real?

Interest is not the same thing as intent.

A prospect may want to learn about your solution. They may be curious about the market. They may happily take a meeting and ask thoughtful questions.

None of that necessarily means they are going to buy.

Tom describes the most important signal as a compelling event. Is there something happening in the organization that requires action? Is the company committed to solving the problem? Is this part of a funded initiative or strategic priority? Does something need to change by a certain date?

The real estate example from the episode makes the distinction obvious.

Someone saying, “I love houses and I’d like to see what’s available,” is very different from someone saying, “We have to move by June.”

Both people may tour homes... Only one has a compelling event.

The same distinction shows up in B2B sales every day. Someone can sincerely believe their CRM needs improvement, sales managers need development, or their team could benefit from training. But if the initiative has no organizational support, no urgency, and no commitment to act, the opportunity may not yet be real.

That does not mean the seller should abandon the account. The seller may be able to create demand and help make the opportunity real.

It simply means they should understand what kind of opportunity they are investing in.

A deal that already has organizational momentum should usually receive a different level of attention than one where the seller still needs to create the reason to act.

Ask Both Why and Who

A compelling event also needs a source.

Why is the organization considering a change?

And who is driving it?

A contact saying, “We really need to fix this,” can sound encouraging until the seller discovers that no executive supports the initiative and the contact still has to convince the organization that the problem matters.

That information changes the opportunity.

ASLAN’s point is not that sellers should only pursue perfectly qualified deals. It is that they should live in reality about what they have.

If the initiative is not yet supported, the seller knows what has to happen next. If it is fully funded and tied to a corporate priority, the seller can justify investing more time.

Qualification becomes less about labeling the deal “good” or “bad” and more about understanding what deserves to happen next.

Question 2: Can You Actually Win?

This is where Tom believes sellers often miss the biggest risk.

An opportunity can be completely real and still be a bad opportunity for you.

The company has a budget. The initiative is funded. Executives are involved. A buying process is underway.

But can you win?

ASLAN recommends looking at several factors.

Does the buyer actually value what makes your solution different? Do you have access to the stakeholders influencing the decision? How do those stakeholders feel about your approach? Is there loyalty to a competitor or incumbent provider? Does the buying process allow your strengths to become visible? Do the customer’s decision drivers align with what you uniquely offer?

Notice the perspective behind those questions.

It is not:

Do we believe our solution is differentiated?

It is:

Does the customer believe our solution is differentiated?

That is a very different question.

A seller can give a brilliant presentation about what makes their solution unique and walk away convinced the customer understood it. But unless the buyer has actually demonstrated that they value the difference, the seller may simply be projecting their own point of view onto the opportunity.

Rank Does Not Equal Influence

The “Can You Win?” question also requires sellers to understand the politics surrounding the opportunity.

Modern buying decisions often involve multiple stakeholders, and the person with the highest title is not always the person with the greatest influence.

ASLAN has long emphasized that rank does not equal influence.

Who is actually shaping the decision? Who supports your recommendation? Who prefers the incumbent? Whose priorities align with what you offer? Who can quietly block the decision even if they never appear on the organizational chart as the final decision-maker?

The seller may not always get access to everyone.

But that uncertainty should become part of the qualification, not disappear because the seller wants the deal to be strong.

If you cannot determine how the key players feel, that does not automatically mean “walk away.”

It means the uncertainty belongs in the score.

Sometimes the Right Move Is to Change the Buying Process

The customer's decision-making process matters too.

Tom and Tab discuss an opportunity ASLAN pursued where the prospect's process did not allow ASLAN to demonstrate some of the things that mattered most to making a sound decision.

The brand was large. The opportunity was exciting. The process was moving.

So ASLAN participated anyway.

Looking back, the better move may have been to push harder for a different process or choose not to invest if the conditions did not change.

This is where qualification gives sellers leverage.

When a deal scores poorly, and the seller can clearly articulate why, it becomes easier to say:

If you want this level of investment from us, we need a genuine partnership in the evaluation process.

That is not arrogance.

It is recognizing that the seller’s time, solution experts, executives, and organizational resources have value too.

A highly qualified opportunity deserves those resources.

An opportunity with very little probability of winning may not.

Question 3: Is It Worth Winning?

This is usually the most intuitive question.

How large is the opportunity? What is the immediate revenue? What could the account become over time?

But revenue alone does not determine whether a deal is valuable.

Tom asks sellers a revealing question:

Have you ever won a deal you wish you hadn’t won?

Most experienced sellers have.

Maybe the account required far more customization than expected. Maybe serving the customer consumed resources that eliminated the margin. Maybe the opportunity distracted the organization from a better market. Maybe the customer was simply exhausting to work with.

Tab shares his own experience of pursuing business that looked attractive because it could open an entirely new market.

The problem?

ASLAN did not need another market badly enough to justify the time required to build it.

The opportunity consumed resources that could have gone toward stronger opportunities in markets the company already understood.

That is the hidden cost sellers often miss.

A deal can produce revenue and still be a poor investment.

Build Qualification Around Your Reality

There are many established opportunity qualification frameworks in sales.

ASLAN’s point is not that sellers should ignore them.

It is that no generic framework perfectly captures what makes an opportunity attractive for your organization, your solution, and your competitive position.

For example, ASLAN evaluates what Tom calls the rep effect.

How much does seller capability influence revenue in this organization?

If the seller has significant influence over whether customers buy, an organization may have a much stronger reason to invest in sales training. If the product largely sells itself and leadership views sellers primarily as order processors, the opportunity may fit very differently.

That criterion is specific to ASLAN.

Your criteria should be specific to you.

Under the three larger questions, build the factors that actually predict success for your business:

Is it real?
Can we win?
Is it worth winning?

Then score them consistently.

The score does not make the decision for the seller. It makes the reality harder to ignore.

Put On a Different Hat When You Qualify

Perhaps the most counterintuitive advice in the episode is how sellers should approach qualification emotionally.

1. When you are selling, be optimistic.

2. When you are qualifying, try to kill the deal.

Tom argues that sellers need a different mental posture when assessing an opportunity. Instead of looking for evidence that confirms why they will win, deliberately search for the reasons they will not.

• Where is the compelling event weak?

• Which stakeholder is missing?

• What evidence says the buyer values your differentiation?

• Who has stronger competitive loyalty?

• What part of the decision process works against you?

• What are you assuming instead of knowing?

That skepticism is not negativity. It is protection against confirmation bias.

“When we go to analyze a deal, we need to try to kill it.”
— Tom Stanfill

A strong opportunity should survive scrutiny.

And if it does not, the seller has learned something valuable before investing another month pursuing it.

Qualify From the Customer’s Perspective

There is one final ASLAN distinction that runs through the episode.

Sellers frequently answer qualification questions from their own perspective.

“Do they value our unique approach?”

Of course they do.

“Do we have a strong relationship?”

It feels like it.

“Do we have a competitive advantage?”

They seemed excited during the presentation.

ASLAN encourages sellers to replace those assumptions with evidence.

What would the customer say?

Did they explicitly describe your solution as different?

Did they tell you why that difference matters?

What did they say about the competitor they have worked with for ten years?

Have you asked how loyal they are?

If you do not know, the answer is not “probably.”

The answer is I don’t know.

That may be the most Other-Centered® element of opportunity qualification.

You cannot accurately assess the deal while looking only through your own lens.

Every Deal Has to Earn Your Time

Good qualification does more than improve a forecast.

It gives sellers back time.

• Time to pursue opportunities they can actually win.

• Time to create new opportunities when the pipeline is thin.

• Time to prepare properly for the deals that deserve deeper investment.

It also builds credibility inside the organization. When sellers repeatedly bring executives and solution experts into deals that never go anywhere, people eventually stop trusting their judgment.

When a seller can explain why an opportunity is real, why the organization is positioned to win, and why the business is worth winning, people are far more willing to invest alongside them.

That is why Truth #21 sounds negative but is ultimately about winning more.

Every deal you work is a deal you’re not working. Choose accordingly.