I recently wrote about how, in the corporate space and for those doing sales, achieving yearend targets could be a (major) breakthrough or a (massive) breakdown. With all things being equal — support on resources given, unique value proposition conveyed and other externally required factors — it becomes up to the salesman himself to go for the close, and close it as quickly as possible. This can only happen, though, if his sales practice is supported by a strong pipeline, driven by efforts and activities he does to identify opportunities along the way.
Opportunity identification these days is very much different now compared to how it was before the pandemic. Less than a year ago, when everyone was rushing like mad to go to work and meetings and beat the morning traffic, one could sniff opportunities by engaging in face-to-face conversations, the context of which depends on the perspective of the person you are meeting with, and how you can frame the conversation in the process. A couple of minutes later, you could be going home with a new project to propose on, and how you could then call out that opportunity based on the current sales stage.