Your prospects and clients are very busy people. Their jobs require them to make many decisions daily, and frequently with a sense of urgency. From the moment you connect by email, voicemail, or in a live conversation, the clock is running and your prospect is judging…judging whether you act in a professional and competent manner; judging whether or not you open the conversation with confidence and knowledge of this person’s role and of the work being done; and judging as to whether they want to invest time with you in a conversation or move on the tasks and people they deem as more worthy of their time. Here is the bottom line: you have many opportunities to make guiding suggestions for direction early and often in the relationship but that is an extremely challenging task if you don’t know where the client or prospect is in their decision process and if you don’t know where your client is in their decision process, there is no way that you can know where you are in your sales process. In this NLE Quick Tip, Rob Mosley discusses how you are perceived, whether it be a trusted advisor, vendor or order taker, and that perception is directly tied to your ability to engage at each stage of the client decision process and better align your solution early and often.