My Biggest Competitor Isn't Another Business. It's "I'll Do It Later."
I was doing some research recently, trying to get clear on who I should actually consider a competitor.
Not in a paranoid way. More of a practical one. If someone is looking for what I do, who else are they looking at? What other businesses or consultants should I be paying attention to?
I found myself looking at business development consultants, fractional sales support, RevOps professionals, and anyone who seemed even remotely adjacent to what I do.
And somewhere in the middle of that research, something shifted.
I realized I wasn't actually competing with any of them.
Not primarily, anyway.
My biggest competitor is a mindset.
"I'll Do It Later."
You know this person.
You might be this person.
They're capable. They're smart. They genuinely care about their business.
And they have every intention of staying on top of their pipeline. But the follow-up lives in their inbox somewhere.
The CRM will get updated later.
The prospect who said, "Circle back next quarter," is somewhere in their memory, right next to seventeen other things they're supposed to remember.
The research they meant to do on that warm lead? They'll get to it when things slow down.
Except things don't really slow down.
The work just changes shape.
"I'll remember to follow up."
"It's in my inbox somewhere."
"I'll update the CRM later."
"I can research that myself."
I've seen this pattern in almost every founder-led business I've worked with or talked to. Not because founders are disorganized. Because they're running a business with finite time and attention, and business development almost always loses to delivery, client work, and whatever is most urgent today.
The pipeline doesn't scream.
The client on the phone does.
The deadline does.
The team question does.
The prospect sitting in your CRM doesn't.
So the pipeline waits.
What I'm Actually Competing Against
When I thought about it honestly, the real obstacle between a founder and working with someone like me isn't another consultant offering a better price or a flashier service.
It's the belief that the pipeline can live in someone's head until they get around to it.
It's "I'll do it later" said with full intention and zero follow-through.
Not because the founder doesn't care.
Because later never really comes.
Something else always fills that space first.
And by the time they notice the pipeline has stalled, a few warm leads have gone cold, a few conversations have been buried, and a prospect who said, "Let me think about it," or "This is something we're looking at for next quarter," three months ago has moved on to someone who actually followed up.
Most of those losses don't feel dramatic in the moment.
That's part of the problem.
One missed follow-up here.
One forgotten conversation there.
One prospect who slips through the cracks because everyone assumed someone else would get back to them.
Individually, they don't seem like much, but collectively, they become a pipeline that never quite performs the way it should.
That's the competitor I'm up against. Not even a business.
It's a belief.
The Belief That Memory Is a System
Here's what I've noticed working inside the early stages of founder-led pipelines.
Most founders don't have a follow-up problem because they're bad at follow-up.
They have a follow-up problem because follow-up was never assigned to anyone.
It just floats in the background, waiting for someone to have time.
Everyone is technically capable of doing it.
The founder can research a prospect.
The team can update the CRM.
Someone can send the follow-up message.
But capable isn't the same as responsible.
But, being able to do the work isn't the same as owning whether it actually gets done.
When nobody truly owns it, the work gets done inconsistently at best and not at all at worst.
Memory is not a pipeline.
Good intentions are not a system.
If the only reason an opportunity moves forward is because someone happened to remember it, that's not a process. That's luck.
The founders I've seen grow consistently aren't necessarily better at remembering things.
They've built a process that doesn't depend on remembering at all.
Someone knows who needs attention.
Someone knows what was last discussed.
Someone knows what should happen next and when.
That clarity is what keeps opportunities moving instead of stalling out in someone's inbox.
What My Job Actually Is
I used to think about my work in terms of what I do: prospect research, lead management, follow-up, pipeline organization, relationship tracking.
But sitting with this realization, I think my job is something more specific than that.
My job is to show founders that there's a better way to manage the early stages of their pipeline than hoping they'll get to it.
Not another tool.
Not another CRM they'll update for two weeks and then abandon.
Not a system so complicated it creates more work than it solves.
Just clear ownership over what happens after someone shows interest.
Someone tracking the conversations.
Someone knowing when to follow up and when to let go.
Someone making sure the right opportunities don't disappear because nobody had time to pay attention to them.
The goal isn't just a cleaner pipeline.
It's getting that mental load out of the founder's head so they can focus on leading the business instead of trying to remember everything.
That's what I do.
And most of the time, the founder I'm talking to already knows they need it.
They've already felt the cost of "I'll do it later."
They've already lost a lead they meant to follow up with.
They've already had that moment of opening their inbox and realizing a warm conversation died because nobody kept it going.
They just haven't decided yet that the better solution is to stop making themselves the system.
I'm Not Competing Against Another Business
I'm competing against "I'll do it later."
And later is where a lot of good opportunities quietly disappear.
If your pipeline is somewhere between your memory and your inbox, that's exactly the gap I help close. If “I’ll do it later” has become the way your pipeline gets managed, let’s talk.
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About the Author
Rekea Simmons is a Business Development Strategist who helps founder-led B2B businesses manage the early stages of the sales pipeline. Her work focuses on prospect research, lead management, relationship management, and the systems that keep opportunities moving from first interaction to qualified conversation.
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