Timing is everything..

Think about this:  If you are trying to find new customers, what are the chances you find a prospect that is looking to move some projects forward? The timing is the toughest part right? Sure, you can always find some way to wiggle your way in and start the relationship and that’s great, but sales cycles are long enough as it is.  What if you get a decision maker right when he’s new on the job? Okay..maybe he or she is too overwhelmed and is still figuring out the lay of the land.. but what if you can help him figure out the lay of the land as an unbiased third party. You put together an audit or assessment of his network, telecom architecture, call center programming/vectoring, business continuity plan, network services, etc? Different discovery results for different decision makers of course. The thing is, if a new CFO, CIO, CTO, COO, CRO comes on the scene — they’re not looking to be in “caretaker” mode. They see themselves as coming in and fixing or improving things and all they have is the biased, self preserving story they get from their people in- house.  So you hit these guys when they’re fresh on the scene and you help them figure out what they’re really dealing with. If you do that, I would think you’ve got a ironclad partnership with a new client, no? 

So how do you build a systematic approach to hit these guys when the ink is drying on their business cards? If you read my post a couple days ago titled Sales Lead Hack, you probably know where I’m going with this. Build a google alert that emails you press releases and news flashes on new C-Level decision makers (and promotions). I built a google alert with the search terms ““new cio”, OR “new cto”, OR “new cfo” and got an email telling me about several new hires. One is a new CIO for an regional electrical/cabling/building contractor. The article says he wants to find new revenue streams so I’m going to see if he wants to build a wireless networking practice. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t..but I like my odds.