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A s we drive along the roads each day we make split-second decisions. These decisions can have zero or life changing consequences, or anything in between. A yellow light can occur when driving slow or fast, far from the intersection or right in it. Once in a while we blow through a “risky” yellow light and pray for the best. Yellow lights Sometimes we don’t want to slow down, but when we blow through the intersection, we run the risk of getting into a costly collision.
June Jewell
Preliminary conversations with a prospective client regarding a project they are hoping to win and start in the next three months are going really well. Your team is getting very excited and already tasting the fruits of a big win. This project is a real game changer for the firm, and would add more than $1 million in revenue over the next two years. You can feel the momentum building, and the client is about to make a decision to select your firm. In passing, they jokingly mention they wanted to start the project a year ago but couldn’t get the funding. You smile and ignore the statement – this is too good to be true – and it is. How lucky to be here at the right time when they “Yellow lights in business come in many forms but all have something in common – they all have potential consequences that are unknown.”
Yellow lights occur in your work and business every day. Your employees often make crucial decisions that impact the risk, profitability, and health of your organization without realizing it. This is because we don’t like to rock the boat, question our clients when they make a request, or even follow instructions that just don’t seem right. Very often it seems much easier to ignore these questionable situations – we don’t have time, we don’t want to appear untrusting. But we all know that a yellow light can turn red at any moment. Yellow lights in business come in many forms but all have something in common – they all have potential consequences that are unknown. Stopping at yellow lights may seem very inconvenient, even risky – what if we offend our client by questioning their decision? Here is a typical example of a situation that happens every day in business, yet most professionals, and especially untrained seller- doers, will ignore until it is too late:
See JUNE JEWELL, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER June 20, 2016, ISSUE 1157
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