Timing – A Secret Key to Sales Success

Do you enjoy meeting celebrities?

I’ve had the opportunity to meet some through chance encounters and when I was in the music industry in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was arranged for me to meet many star musicians.

One chance encounter I had was on an airline flight from Dallas to Boston when a country star, in the seat next to me, woke me for no apparent reason.  In 2015, I wrote about my encounter with Chris Cagle,  but that article was about how he was opening doors for the new business he had launched.

There was another important lesson from this story that I didn’t write about at the time, and that is about timing. Timing is everything, especially in baseball where, if you swing early you look foolish, and if you’re late you got beat. Timing in selling isn’t very different from timing in baseball but I have a lot to say about it.

First, watch this short video rant on Timing and then come back for the rest of the story about Chris Cagle, timing, and selling.

Who would have guessed that after ignoring him ten years ago, I would not only be a country fan, but I actually wrote and recorded two country songs!  Timing is everything.

Bugs in My Whiskey 

Thanks to Country Music

Timing is everything!

Most salespeople don’t understand timing and tend to take a one-sided look at it.  Before we dive deeper into timing, please check out this article from four years ago about urgency alignment.  My comments about timing will make much more sense when viewed in the context of urgency

Now that you understand the importance of urgency alignment between buyers and sellers, let’s discuss timing alignment.  Consider the following milestones in the sales process and how timing affects your success when trying to:

• Get a first meeting
• Uncover compelling reasons to buy
• Get your important questions answered
• Create urgency
• Reach a stakeholder/decision maker
• Uncover their budget

If the timing isn’t right, then all of those things are difficult to accomplish.  Lack of alignment on timing means you’ll learn that what you are selling them is “nice to have” but not yet a “must have.”  You’ll discover there isn’t a budget.  You’ll find that the conversation is becoming transactional instead of consultative because they are more interested in getting a quote than getting a problem solved.  Why?  They aren’t far enough along on the timeline to admit that they have a problem and if they haven’t admitted to a problem, you can’t talk about a solution.

Timing is easy to recognize.  When the timing is right anyone who calls can get a meeting scheduled.  When the timing is bad, nobody who calls will get a meeting scheduled.  Then there are all the occasions in the middle – the timing is neither good nor bad – where by asking the right questions and getting them to recognize they might have an issue you can help with, you do succeed at scheduling a meeting.

These are the very meetings you want because early on, they aren’t talking with anyone other than you.  If you play your cards right, follow the sales process and use a consultative approach, they may not need to talk with anyone else!  If they view you as a trusted advisor rather than a vendor, the business could be yours.

You’ll never do anything to change the timing on the two ends of the timing spectrum, but for those prospects in the middle, you can create perfect timing!  Need help?

Image generated by Grok AI