“Should I do this… or not do this?”

Waiting for my flight back to Boston in the dwindling sunlight, across from Gate E24, I gazed at a sandwich, a thankfully vegetarian portobello mushroom with aioli mayonnaise, mozzarella cheese and tomato with pesto spread on focaccia bread sandwich. A  fine-looking-ready-to-go-with-four-hours-until-I’m-home sandwich. I’d had only a light breakfast and I’d missed lunch.

So, I did it…

I snatched it from the cooler. I paid for it. I found private space near the gate in which to devour my kill. I opened it, I sniffed it (the green pesto, red tomato, creamy mozzarella, and garlic smelled as good as the description), and I ate it.

Appetite sated, I casually picked at the wrapper, idly eyeing the nutrition information.

Oh! Oh! 850 calories, 430 calories from fat, 54% of daily cholesterol, 35% of sodium.  And on it went. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off my diet. Oh, my, why hadn’t I looked at this before I ate it?

“Unbelievable,” I said aloud. “Unbelievable!” I’d eaten a meatless something that looked good and sounded good… and IT WASN’T GOOD FOR ME!  I felt baited and switched. I felt misled. I felt… really stupid because I was in such a rush and I felt so hungry that I hadn’t first read the label.

Every felt that E24 urge? Hungry and, thus, pursuing potential clients that, on the surface, looked good and yet, if we’d invested a bit more time to read their “nutrition labels” – their industry information, their culture, their relationships with companies like ours – we could have asked: Do they really fit our sales “diets”? Or are they, like the sandwich at gate E24, look-good, sound-good diversions that will take us off the diet that we should be on, leaving us feeling foolish and regretful?

 Nick Miller trains banks and credit unions to attract and expand relationships with business clients through better skills, sales strategies, and execution. He is President of Clarity Advantage based in Concord, MA. Additional articles on Clarity’s web site.