I feel good about my writing
if I have 3 stories in submissions
(i.e. in the sales funnel).
If I don’t have those 3 stories,
I move my ass
and get stories submitted.
Now, it is really easy,
when I’m feeling lazy,
to say the 3 stories I subbed
to X, Y, and Z agents
in the spring of 2009
are still in the funnel.
But that would be a lie
because those deals are dead.
So I regularly clear my submission/sales funnel
of all the dead wood,
and I focus on the new deals.
John Mongillo has similar thinking
about sales funnels.
“The fact of the matter is
that the average pipeline
should be lean and mean,
and not puffed up and flabby.
A lean pipeline is great
for the psyche and
forces the salesperson
to generate new opportunities
because staring at
the same names and numbers
week after week
is nothing but draining.”
Clear the dead wood
in your sales funnel.
Focus on the legitimate opportunities.