Best Practice: Avoid Paralysis by Analysis

Over analyzing can be one of the biggest obstacles of being efficient in sales.  Keeping it Simple and not Painting Seagulls in the Picture are 2 overlapping topics here.
An example of paralysis by analysis would be actions such as but not limited to:

• Freezing up and not calling prospects because it's before or after business hours (assuming).
• In any capacity, assuming that you know how the prospect will interpret or react to something.
• Completing a lengthy and time consuming cost comparison of a statement before ever getting any sort of committments.
• Laying out an elaborate proposal, email/fax, or any sort of proposal without getting upfront contracts or committments from your prospect.
• Researching in too much depth about a lead or prospect.  You don't need to know how to build the car per say, sometimes you just need to know a high level overview.

The devil can be in the details and remember that it is our responsibility as sales professionals to keep it simple, ask questions that evoke responses that lead to our discovery, and attempt to get the prospect to talk at least 70% compared to our 30%.
In the payment solutions industry, when reviewing a merchant statement, the confident sales professional knows where to look and what items merit the most attention.  The hesitant sales professional spends time analyzing every line, needing to know what each item represents so as not to miss something imporant.  Meanwhile the confident sales professional has already discussed the opportunity with the prospect and signed the merchant.