March, Two Years, the Extension

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as ever. Your century today, and the enquiry in it is a good one that will not become money for two years.

Two firms both take a promising call,
Same want, same wish, same not-yet-all.
One quotes, and chases, and gives it up,
One writes the date and lets it rest.
Two years go by. One phone still rings.
Which firm had learned what waiting brings?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two firms in the same trade, and the work, all together now, was equally good. Each took an enquiry in March from a woman who wanted the thing done, meant it, and could not do it yet, because the money was going into something else that year.

The first treated her as a sale that had not happened. He quoted anyway, and followed up in April, and again in May, each message a little more hopeful than the last. She replied twice, apologetically, and then stopped replying, because there is nothing to say to a man who keeps asking a question you have already answered.

By June he had written her off, and the writing off is the part worth watching. He moved her out of his mind and out of his book, since she was not going to buy, and a man cannot carry unbought customers about with him for ever.

Two years later she was ready. What she had by then was a vague memory of a firm that had pestered her, and no memory at all of the name, and so she began again from nothing and rang somebody else.

He never knew. That is the ordinary shape of this loss: it does not arrive as a rejection, it arrives as nothing, and the man in question goes on believing that enquiry was simply a poor one.

The second firm did something that took about four minutes.

She asked one question first: when do you think this becomes a real job for you? The woman said probably after the extension, so two years, perhaps three. Then she wrote in her book: March, two years, the extension, and told the woman plainly that she would put a note in and get in touch about then, and that in the meantime she would send the occasional letter which the woman was free to ignore.

No quote. No chasing. The whole thing off the table in one exchange, and both of them relieved.

What followed for two years was four letters a year that had nothing to sell, of the sort the chandler carried across the market square. And in the February of the third year, a note: I have you down for about now, and I have two weeks in May, shall I hold one.

She said yes within the day, and she had not spoken to anybody else, because there had never been a moment when she was in the market and he was not in her mind.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Most enquiries are not a yes or a no. They are a not yet, and the only thing they need from you is a date. A trade that recognises only two answers must force every enquiry into one of them, which means chasing the ones who cannot buy until they go quiet, and then discarding people who were never refusing at all. The customer has done nothing wrong; she has simply arrived early, which is the commonest thing a customer can do.

So ask the timing question early, plainly, and before the quote: when does this become a real job for you? It costs nothing, it embarrasses nobody, and it converts an awkward pursuit into an appointment. Then write the date down and say you have written it down, since the saying is what stops her feeling chased and starts her feeling remembered.

And then leave her alone, in the particular way this letter means. Not silence, which lets a name fade to nothing, and not chasing, which makes the name unwelcome, but the ordinary rhythm of being in touch with nothing to sell, so that the trade is still there in her mind when the year finally turns. The whole of your advantage in year three is that she never had to go looking.

Two cautions. Believe the date she gives you and do not shave it, since a man who says two years and rings at eight months has told her the note was a sales tactic. And keep the not-yets in the same book as the customers, because a list of dated future work is the calmest thing a small business can own, and most trades keep no such list at all, having thrown all of it away in June.

Three questions, and go back through last year's dead enquiries:

1. How many were nos, and how many were not-yets? Read them again. Most will be the second, and every one of them was treated as the first, and none of them ever said no to anybody.
2. What is your timing question? Write your trade's version of when does this become a real job for you, and ask it before the quote rather than after the silence.
3. Where does the date live? If the answer is your memory, it is already gone. A book, a note, a reminder in the month before, and a plain sentence in February saying you have them down for about now.

The Answer to the Riddle

Which firm had learned what waiting brings?

The one that stopped selling in March and wrote a date instead. Both were given the same good enquiry by the same honest woman, and one of them spent three months trying to turn a not-yet into a yes, which cannot be done, and succeeded only in becoming a name she was glad to stop hearing from. The other spent four minutes, kept in touch with nothing to sell for two years, and asked one question in February. The work was always going to happen. The only question was whose name was in her head when it did.

The verse:

Not every no is truly no,
Most are a not-yet in disguise.
Ask when, and write it down, and go,
And be the name that's there in May.

Until next time. Go and find last year's dead enquiries, ask each of them when it becomes a real job, and put the dates in a book.

P.S. There is a quieter benefit that owners report afterwards and never expect. A book of dated not-yets changes how a thin month feels, because a thin month with forty names in it, each with a season attached, is a different thing from a thin month with an empty diary and no evidence that anybody wants you at all.

Also in the archive: The Coal Man's Little Book, The Follow-Up Formula: Why the Second Message Makes the Sale and The Ones Who Went Quiet.