Business Thoughts, Rants and Observations

B2B 12: dopamine, distraction and sales

Note from Bruce:

I was recently asked by an interesting B2B company to write some blog posts and new business direct mail thoughts. They were interesting because <a> they wanted to focus on a smarter, more intelligent, level of thinking in their communication <b> they truly had an ‘edge’ to them in terms of attitude, and <c> they were interested in taking on specific objections they hear day in and day out in a candid fashion. It was fun for me and I generated maybe 20 draft thoughts for them in less than 3 days. The following shares my favorites <in rough draft form and the name of the company removed>.

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Sales development begins and ends with breaking through everything else that is going on with a decision maker.

Break through and get noticed and you begin.

Don’t break thru and it all ends right then & there.

Of course, what you do to break through and what you say when you have the connection moment dictates the ‘stickiness’ of the connection, but this thought piece is about breaking through.

Some disturbing facts and figures as we think about decision maker time:

During a working day we visit and average of 40 different websites.

In the space of an hour we switch between programs on our computer 36 times.

We consume three times as much information as did did 30 years ago. We communicate more via ‘the cloud’ – email, social networks, online forums, etc. – than directly with people.

And if we don’t reply to an email within a few hours or at the least a day, the sender gets angry – or forgets what they asked in the first place.

In addition.

Every time we feel our mobile phone vibrate or ring or ding … we get a small dopamine injection in our brains. Over time this serves almost like an addiction … which results in us wanting this distraction more and more. So when we aren’t being interrupted we go and seek interruptions <check our twitter accounts, Facebook, pinterest, emails> in order to re-inject the ‘doing chemical’ into our brains <and we feel good within the moments>.

Oops.

The real trouble with this <beyond distraction>?

Every time we are interrupted we need to refocus ourselves afterwards … which takes time and energy, i.e., MORE lost time.

If you are in sales, this is your world.

It isn’t that a decision maker cannot focus on what you say … it is just sensory overload. There is too much stimuli. And the sheer volume of ‘stimuli management’ is challenged depending on the experience filter with which the brain can prioritize the stimuli.

In the end it is an overwhelming combination of too much and an inability from lack of experience to manage.

Here is the good news for sales development.

Interestingly older people, decision makers, may not like to hear this but as we grow older we lose brain <it shrinks>. But it’s not so much a loss as it is a honing. Our brains shrink, becoming more efficient, and, hopefully, less prone to distraction.

That honing is a double win for most decision makers. Less room for random distraction combined with more experienced stuff crammed into it.

This also means that business decision makers are more discerning between ‘setting aside a distraction’ when something relevant & meaningful appears.

What does this mean?

Relevance is the bright shiny object <distraction>.

Not all distractions are created equal.

In general we invest time when interested. We invest time when we believe the experience will have value. Please note that this is not about short attention spans, it is simply about choosing to accept something relevant and meaningful. In business that means a distraction which raises the dopamine level AND the business antennae is of higher value than a simple dopamine distraction.

Basically, we ‘right size’ our attention depending on what it is we have to do.

One researcher calls it ‘different attention strategies for different contexts.’

Therein lies the success to sales development – different attention strategies for different contexts.

Context.

If you don’t understand the decision maker and the context within they are making their decision you will not break thru all the distractions that make up a common work day.

Attention strategies.

If you don’t reach a decision maker with something relevant to what they are thinking, needing or wanting, you will not break thru all the distractions that make up a common work day.

Breaking through is not about “shock & awe.” Breaking through is about engineering sales development. It is methodical strategic planning which adapts to decision maker cues <contextual overlay>.

Sales engineering is certainly a skill. But to master the skill you need to Engineer the dopamine Affect.

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January 19, 2016 by Bruce

Written by Bruce

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B2B 12: dopamine, distraction and sales

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B2B 12: dopamine, distraction and sales

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