Are You Waiting for the Perfect Time?

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A Perfect Failure Part 6:
Wait for the Perfect Time
🕒 3 min read 

By Frank Hurtte


This may be the most expensive and most popular failure of them all. I've heard thousands of variations on the theme. In rapid-fire order, here are the top five:

  • "My customers are really busy in the morning" (or the afternoon, or any other time).
  • "The big guys are in the middle of budgeting, vacation season, or the holidays."
  • "They've got another project."
  • "They're just finishing a shutdown" (or any other named event).
  • "Let's wait until things settle down."

Here's an observation from someone who's spent a lifetime serving industrial customers: things never settle down. Successful people are busy because that's what successful companies do. Engineers always have another project, maintenance managers always have another shutdown scheduled, and purchasing always has some kind of supplier deadline.

If you wait until your customer has nothing on their plate, you'll be waiting long after both of you retire.

The Hard Truth About Timing

New products don't become successful because somebody found the perfect moment. They become successful because somebody started the conversation. Sometimes the timing was terrible. They sold it anyway. No market has ever been created by a seller who waited for the stars to align.

To be perfectly Frank: the perfect time usually belongs to the salesperson who made the call first.

Excellence Has Never Required Perfection

When I look back at the people I've admired most in this profession, I can't remember anyone who knew every specification or delivered the perfect presentation. I remember the ones who answered their phones, kept their promises, admitted when they didn't know something, and cared enough to find the answer.

I remember the salespeople who made customers feel important. I remember the ones who kept learning instead of pretending they'd already learned enough. The best sales professionals will tell you their number one skill is being coachable.

Perfection has always been a shiny gold star, but a terrible sales strategy. Excellence isn't glamorous. It means making the call before you know everything. It means introducing the new product before every star has aligned. It means owning your mistakes and understanding that progress has always mattered more than perfection.

After nearly half a century in distribution, I've reached a conclusion I wish someone had shared with me years ago: the perfect salesperson doesn't exist. The excellent salesperson does.

While the perfect salesperson waits, the excellent one wins. The marketplace has never rewarded the most prepared salesperson. It rewards the one who showed up.

Excellence has never required perfection. It simply requires movement.

Whether you're building a sales culture or re-thinking your approach to customer relationships, River Heights Consulting helps distributors move past paralysis and into action. Let's talk about what movement looks like for your team. Contact us today.


Catch up on the full series:

Part 1: Wait Until You Catch Up https://thedistributorchannel.blogspot.com/2026/08/wait-until-you-catch-up.html

Part 2: Don't Expect Your Company to be Perfect https://thedistributorchannel.blogspot.com/2026/08/dont-expect-your-company-to-be-perfect.html

Part 3: Do Perfect Suppliers Exist https://thedistributorchannel.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-perfect-suppliers-exist.html

Part 4: Encoding & Decoding: Learn the Language of Your Customers https://thedistributorchannel.blogspot.com/2026/08/encoding-decoding-learn-language-of.html

Part 5: Do Perfect Products Exist? https://thedistributorchannel.blogspot.com/2026/08/do-perfect-products-exist.html



TL;DR

Waiting for the perfect moment to reach customers is a myth. Successful companies stay busy, and markets are built by sellers who start conversations early, not those who wait for ideal conditions. Excellence isn't about perfection; it's about showing up, moving forward, and being coachable. The marketplace rewards those who act, not those who hesitate.



About the Author

Frank Hurtte has been in distribution long enough to know that perfection is overrated and movement is everything. He's seen products succeed despite terrible timing and salespeople fail despite perfect preparation. Now he helps distributors cut through the noise and focus on what actually matters: showing up and getting better. When he's not thinking about how to improve sales culture, Frank is probably traveling, writing, or wondering why more people don't answer their phones.














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