Professional sales is a painstaking process, and for good reason. Assumptions can be costly.

I was covering Phoenix from an office in Los Angeles. I had been flying to Arizona several times a month working on a million-dollar sale of a system for the Phoenix office of a New York-based company. For several months, the company president had been flying in from New York to meet me and discuss the project. He finally called and said "I think it’s time to wrap this up. Bring your top technical guy and top financial guy. We’ll go over the system configuration and contract and hopefully send you away with a signature."

We set the meeting for 9:00 AM the following Monday. I met our financial guy from Dallas and technical guy from San Francisco at the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, and we arrived at the customer’s office at 8:55. "Hi," I said to the receptionist. "We’re here to see Harry." That’s when I heard those three little words.

"Harry’s not here," she said. "Harry’s in his office in New York. He’s been waiting there with our attorney and a couple of board members since 9:00 AM New York time."

Of course I had assumed that we would meet where we always met, in Phoenix. Fortunately Harry was willing to reschedule the meeting a week later in New York, where he signed a million-dollar contract two days before the end of our fiscal year.

My failure to ask one simple question had almost cost me most of a year’s quota and my company a million dollars of revenue for the fiscal year. The experience made me a lot more methodical in managing my business and, I believe, earned me the right to warn you not to assume, especially when a few simple questions can clear up any ambiguity.

That said, I wish you clarity and that you never get to hear those three little words.