The other day I was asked how I could have the highest sales in the company yet I had the fewest quotes in our system.
There are two winners in any contest: the person who takes first place, and the first person to walk away.
Some people view sales as a numbers game, where the more projects you quote the more orders you win. They indescrimantly throw their time and resources after all projects. Most of these guys stink at sales and their numbers (and commission checks) reflect it!
My approach (and that of every high performance salesman I’ve met) is to focus on the winners. We pick the promissing projects and put all our resources into winning. We know that our time is precious. Unless an activity moves a key project closer to an order, we don’t waste our time!