You Lost Me At "Hello"

Most salespeople believe deals are lost at the close

When the prospect says, “Your price is too high,” or when a competitor edges them out in the final round.

But here’s the truth: deals are almost never lost at the finish line. They’re lost at the start (at “hello”)

By the time a prospect is seeking proposals, the odds are stacked against you. Their preferences are already formed, their shortlist is already narrowed, and if you weren’t in front of them before this moment and bringing them to the point of need, someone else was.

So, you’ve been reduced to a vendor fighting on price instead of a trusted partner shaping the decision. FWIW, Butler Street has been tracking win rates on responding to cold RFPs for 12 years and the average win rate is just under 9%. By comparison, high performing sellers have a win ratio of 60%+. 

Want to know their secrets?

1. They Don’t Allow Pipeline Panic

Salespeople by nature are optimists.  They think everyone loves them and frankly, they need to have that defense mechanism to counteract all the “no’s” they get.  Problem is too many salespeople fall into the optimist pipeline cycle. The pipeline looks healthy, so prospecting activity slows. After all, “Why spend time on new outreach when I’ve got all these deals to close?”

Fast-forward a few months: those deals have stalled or slipped away, and suddenly the pipeline is empty. Cue the frantic scramble…calls, emails, outreach in every direction.

We call this pipeline panic. And it’s not caused by bad luck. It’s caused by bad habits.

Reactive prospecting is like trying to plant seeds the day you realize you’re hungry. By the time you need results, it’s too late to grow anything meaningful.

2. They Commit to Daily and Weekly Prospecting Habits

Top performers understand this difference instinctively: Prospecting is not about timing; it’s about habit.

When prospecting is woven into your daily routine, you don’t worry about “when” to call. You don’t wait until the pipeline is dry. You prospect because it’s what professionals do. It’s the sellers job!

Habits create consistency. And consistency builds trust.

So, when your prospect enters the Buying/Decision Process, from identifying needs to investigating options, you’re already in the conversation. You’ve built credibility before there was even a deal on the table. You just may have created the opportunity by finding a gap! That’s the difference between showing up as a trusted advisor and showing up as just another option.

3. Proof: A Client’s Turning Point: From Panic to Predictable

One of our healthcare staffing clients experienced this firsthand.

Their team had fallen into the feast-or-famine cycle. Prospecting happened only when numbers were down. And when they finally reached out to prospects, they were showing up late in the buying process, competing on cost rather than value.

We introduced them to a new way of working: a 12-week touch plan supported by an AI Coach.

Instead of sporadic, last-minute outreach, every rep committed to a structured, repeatable cadence of calls, emails, and insights with each touch tied directly to their prospects’ operating reality. We taught them how to create messages that matter.  How to give value rather than ask for orders and how to stay “in the habit”  The plan wasn’t about hitting a number of dials. It was about building a consistent rhythm that turned prospecting into second nature.

Within 12 months, the shift was undeniable.

• They grew revenue faster than industry averages and significantly over prior year

• They built a healthier, more predictable pipeline

• They secured long-term partnerships because prospects saw them as trusted advisors, not transactional vendors

It wasn’t magic. It was habit.

No prospecting, no meetings.  No meetings, no sales. No change, no change.

Here’s the lesson: You don’t lose deals at the close. You lose them at “hello.”

I learned this lesson the hard way early in my sales career after spending way too much time and energy responding to client’s requests for proposal and thinking I had a winning response. I lost. And lost again. Fortunately, I had leaders who helped me turn it into a successful failure because the feeling of losing (and knowing you’ve got nothing close to closing) is worse than the joy of winning. 

We’re not going to win every deal, but we can win every day.

The daily decision is to make prospecting a habit. To stay top of mind. To add value before the need arises. That’s how you shift from chasing deals to creating demand. That’s how you Become the Only Choice®.

If your team is relying on bursts of activity to “catch up” on prospecting, you’re already behind. The sellers who win are those who build the discipline of consistent, client-centered outreach, day in and day out.

At Butler Street, we help sales teams transform prospecting from a grind into a growth engine. Our training and tools, from touch plans to value messaging to AI Coaching support, equip professionals to stop losing at “hello” and start winning long before the close.  If you want to experience this kind of change, let’s make that change together!