eBusiness Weekly
Robert Gonye
The more experienced you get in business the more you realise how important timing is with almost everything.
You like me can’t tell how many ideas you’ve heard about (or come up with myself) that were great ideas at the time, but failed because the market wasn’t ready for them.
Good ideas, bad timing
One of the tech giants listed on the global stock exchange, developed an App that plugged into sales user experience and gave insights/triggers on customers and contacts that could directly input into pre-made, customisable templates and then track the effectiveness of them to give insights on which triggers and messaging had the highest conversion ratios.
Without being technical it was Salesloft + InsideView + Nova.ai baked directly into a CRM platform.
I believe it would rival some of the best sales tools out there today if it was still available. Unfortunately, they developed it in 2006 when the market wasn’t ready, so it died.
We hear of the global brand Uber, guess what it wasn’t the first Uber.
TaxiMagic was the father of the then inventions and pretty much changed how cabs/taxis were booked.
They had to do the incredible task of installing custom hardware in fleets and get a group of the fragmented taxi company market on board.
This was a huge inhibitor to growth. It wasn’t until the market opened up and more efficient ways were developed to create a seamless experience between disparate vehicles, passengers, and financial systems that Uber took off.
Timing in sales
Timing isn’t just critical with business ideas, it’s also extremely critical in sales. Sales used to be a pure numbers game.
Cold calling was basically about making as many calls as you could, saying the same thing over and over again to hopefully catch someone who needed what you had and didn’t know there was a solution like yours available.
I remember seeing sales teams making hundreds of phone calls a week with a generic elevator pitch selling tech- tools, smartphones to be exact.
It almost didn’t matter what their pitch was or if they called and said “your technology partner in smartphones support” and you had problems with your current device, I usually got a meeting.
It’s still somewhat of a numbers game, but it’s not just about how many customers are called or you engage anymore.
It’s about doing the right amount of activities focused around a specific target audience to educate and get them to think so when they finally make the connection and need your solution, you’re the first person they think of.
It’s also about using data to look for indicators about whether or not a prospect is in the market for our services so we can time our outreach to them.
The old way would see us focus the majority of our training on a very specific e-mail approach method called the Why You, Why You Now e-mail approach developed by MJ Hoffman.
It was about doing research on an account and finding a trigger (open new office, launch new product, M &A), and making the connection to how your service can help the company in that situation.
Over time it has developed to “Why You Why You NOW” for a reason.
The idea is to capitalise on the timing of the trigger and get someone to think about your solution as an option they might not have been considering.
While 5-7 years ago this approach worked like a charm, but now it’s been genericised and everyone is doing it so it’s not as effective.
Timing vs execution
With changing trends, now it’s not necessarily about any one specific e-mail or approach anymore. It’s about social selling, rhythms, nurturing and something businesses need to focus on a lot which is “intent data.”
Intent data is all about measuring someone’s actual intent to buy based on their search activities.
It goes beyond just scoring leads based on if they downloaded a white paper or visited your website. It’s about people who are specifically searching for solutions to problems.
Companies with the right tools and automation have thousands of landing pages that are indexed so when you search for a specific solution and land on one of their pages they can see exactly what you are searching for and then provide that data to department sales teams who have solutions that fit so they can reach out to them.
The next generation of sales is all about intent data. It might not tell you the exact name of the person who is searching for a specific type of service, but it can tell you the company name which gives you insight on who you should be calling and when.
For instance, it can tell you every business that has searched for “sales training” reviews that fit your ideal customer profile.
Then you can use that to research the account and send a timely e-mail or a call that significantly increases your chances of getting a response based on the timing.
At the end of the day, there is no cut out 100 percent working formula — a silver bullet to make someone want or need your solution.
However, by mixing up your contact strategy, staying active on social platforms, adding value, and paying attention to intent data and buying triggers you give yourself the best chance to be there when they are ready for your offering and solution.
Robert Gonye is a business growth expert and influencer. He writes in his capacity. For comments and views: [email protected]
