Classify as Today

The hard conversation

Here's one I have with sellers all the time, and it's rarely popular:

"I know you've called this guy a customer for 12 years. But he hasn't bought from you in three. Right now, today — he's not your customer. He's a prospect at best. And he might be a no-quote."

Most sellers classify their book based on history — who bought from them, who was friendly once, who used to be reliable. That's a museum. It's not a sales book. A sales book has to reflect what's true today, because today is the only place you can actually sell.

Classify as today is the discipline of looking at each name on your list and asking — not "who was this person to me?" but "who are they to me this week?"

It's harder than it sounds. It means admitting some customers aren't really your customers anymore. It means acknowledging that some "relationships" are one-sided. And it means being honest about who's actually going to buy from you in the next 90 days versus who's just been good to catch up with at lunch.

Industry terms this page covers

The three-six-twelve rule

One of the simplest tools for classify-as-today is a question I stole from a guy who sold me insurance.

When a prospect tells me "no, I'm not going to switch right now," I don't argue. I say:

"Got it — totally fine. Three, six, or twelve?" "What do you mean, three, six, or twelve?" "Three months, six months, or twelve months — how soon should I check back to make sure it's still a solid no?"

Watch what that does. It forces the prospect to give you a real time horizon for their "no." They usually land on something like "eh, probably twelve months — who knows what could happen."

Now you've classified them today as a no, and you've scheduled exactly when you'll re-classify them. No more phantom check-ins. No more "I'll call him in a few months." You have a date. Put it in the calendar.

Today: no-quote. Next touch: 12 months. Done. Move your energy to someone who's buying now.

The "why does he want a quote from you?" question

Here's the diagnostic that kills a lot of illusions. A customer keeps asking you for quotes, but you never win anything. Most sellers interpret that as "he's interested, I just haven't nailed the number yet."

Wrong. Ask yourself:

"If this guy wasn't going to use me anyway — why would he be asking me for a quote?"

Three answers, and they're all worth naming out loud:

1. He's using your number to beat up his current supplier.
2. His boss requires three quotes — you're filling out the paperwork, not competing.
3. He's covering himself in case his current guy fails — you're an insurance policy, not a contender.

None of those are "today he wants to work with you." In all three cases, today he's your quote-and-hope at best, probably no-quote if you're being honest.

This is the conversation where a lot of sellers flinch — because admitting the truth means admitting they've been wasting time on this customer for months. Fine. Admit it. The quicker you classify honestly, the quicker you redeploy.

The tell: is he doing anything?

Here's my simple test for whether a customer is actually a customer today.

"If a guy wants to work with you, he'd be doing stuff."

Buying from you. Calling you back. Answering your texts. Introducing you to his team. Doing stuff.

If the only thing he's doing is asking for quotes and then going radio silent when you send them — he's not working with you. He's letting you work for him. Those are different.

Classify-as-today honors this distinction. If he isn't doing anything, he isn't in partner or last-look. He's quote-and-hope or below, regardless of what you wish were true.

Classifying up vs. classifying down

Some sellers hear "classify as today" and get depressed — "oh great, so I have to demote half my book."

That's only half the picture. Classify-as-today also catches the customers who quietly became more valuable without you noticing.

• The prospect who went from ghost to three quotes in a month and bought once — promote them. They might be on the way to last-look.
• The partner who just pulled you into a strategic conversation about next year's volumes — make sure you're not still treating them like a transaction customer.
• The quote-and-hope who suddenly started defending your price internally — they just graduated. Classify up.

The book is a living document. It's supposed to change. What hurts your results isn't having quote-and-hopes — it's calling your quote-and-hopes "customers" and behaving like you've won them when you haven't.

The "closing before the quote" mindset

Classify-as-today connects directly to one of the most expensive beliefs in selling: "quoting is how you close."

It's not. Quoting is how you confirm a deal that's already been closed in a real conversation. If you're quoting before the deal is effectively closed, you're just feeding the factory — running bids that were never going to win.

Here's the reframe: before every quote, ask yourself:

"Given what I know today, am I going to get this work?"

• Yes — quote confidently, you're confirming the close.
• Maybe — don't quote yet. Ask another question. Pull another piece of information. Get yourself to yes or no before the bid goes out.
• No — either decline the quote, or quote at a number that's worth it if lightning strikes.

Most sellers default to quoting anyway, because quoting feels like activity. Activity is not closing. Closing is the conversation. Quoting is the paperwork. Classify-as-today keeps those two straight.

The conversation — running the classification out loud

The most advanced move here is doing the classification with the customer, out loud, honestly. It sounds like:

"Hey — I want to check in on where we really stand. When we started talking six months ago, I had us pegged as a real possibility. But looking at the last 90 days — you've been kind to take my quotes, but none of them have turned into work. So I want to know honestly: today, am I in the running? Or am I quoting and hoping? I'd rather hear the truth than keep guessing."

Some customers will dodge. That's information — they're quote-and-hope. Some customers will say "honestly, not yet, but I like what you're doing, give me six more months" — now you have a real timeline. Some customers will surprise you: "Actually, we've been planning to move some work your way and I haven't gotten around to it." That's information you would not have gotten without asking.

Classifying out loud accelerates the classification. You stop guessing and start knowing.

Common traps

• Historical bias. "He's been my customer for 20 years." Great. What did he buy in the last 12 months? If the answer is zero, the relationship is real but the classification isn't customer today — it's prospect or no-quote.
• Niceness as signal. Pleasant conversations are not the same as active business. A warm voicemail back is not a purchase order.
• Wishful future tense. "They're going to start using us next quarter." Maybe. But today, they're a prospect, not a partner. Book the classification you have, not the one you want.
• Over-classifying down. Don't demote someone to no-quote just because they had a bad quarter. Look at the trend, not the last data point.

Homework — the quarterly reclassification

Every 90 days, sit down with your book and run the three-column exercise:

| Customer name | Classification 90 days ago | Classification today |

For each row:

1. Where are they actually today — partner, last-look, quote-and-hope, quote-and-nope, or no-quote?
2. Did they move up, down, or stay put?
3. For movers: what changed? Was it something you did, something they did, or something in the market?
4. For no-movers: is that right? Or have you been calling them something they stopped being?

Two questions at the end:

• Which three customers did you discover you've been overrating? (You now know where to stop wasting time.)
• Which three did you discover you've been underrating? (You now know where to invest more.)

This is a thirty-minute exercise, four times a year. It's the highest ROI planning work you can do.

Where to go next

• Partnership Progression — the five-bucket framework you're classifying people into
• Moving a customer up — once you've classified honestly, how to move them toward partner
• The Bidding Matrix — classify-as-today + bidding matrix = you quote the right ones and only the right ones
• Information Pull vs. Push — the questioning skill that produces honest classifications
• 3 Buckets of Questions — bucket 3 questions are how you find out who's really in the running

Source: drawn from 46 moments across the live-coaching corpus — including the three-six-twelve rule, the "why does he want a quote from you" diagnostic, and the close-before-you-quote principle. Voice preserved.