Last year, I was privileged to run many residential sales calls when we had more leads than salespeople who could handle them. It was revealing, to say the least. I recall the days of old, in the 1970s, when "one-leggers" (translation: a customer meeting in which only the husband or wife is present) were considered a waste of time.

And guess what? Thanks to our attitudes, they were a waste of time. Had we had the right attitude that one-leggers could be just as productive, and often more so, we would have saved ourselves a lot of grief.