Lessons from the Gridiron —Farquharson/Tedsco

Let's hear it from the master.

"You can play hard. You can play aggressive. You can give 120 percent, but if one guy is out of position then someone's running through the line of scrimmage and he's going to gain a bunch of yards."
—Coach Bill Belichick, New England Patriots

Create a foolproof system that lets you efficiently move companies and key business influencers through the suspect-prospect-customer funnel. A rule-of-thumb for the printing industry is that it takes 250 suspects to generate three repeat customers, one of which has the potential to become a top-10 account. Train all team members with customer interaction responsibilities to identify and track anything that smells like an opportunity. Don't be scared, but you need to put a lot of "customer candidates" (i.e., suspects) into the pipeline.