Startup Business Tip: Timing Always Beats Speed
To be a DreamStarter and run a successful startup business, you must be able to master patience and have the ability to use timing to your advantage. When you lose a sale, you might not have lost the sale forever, you just didn’t get the sale that day. Tomorrow is on its way, so never stop marketing.
In essence, marketing is all about using the rules of timing to your advantage.
Much like anything, there’s an art to it. In addition to planting many seeds, there are steps you must take in order to ensure success. After all, everything in the sales world comes down to a numbers game.
Lead generators do not live in the world of win or lose. They don’t live a world of all or nothing. They live in the world of timing. It’s about finding people that value your product/service today and acquiring a way to contact them tomorrow.
Lead generators are the fire starters, the planters of seeds, and the ones that take the customer by the hand and say “Come with me if this is what you are looking for.” (I prefer to envision this in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.)
The little spark of interest is all that is needed in this stage, while only a small amount of resources from your business are used.
Of course, there must be an exchange of value between you (the business) and the potential customer.
In most cases, the customer will provide all of their contact information for something FREE offered from the business. This might be information, an intro package, or a quote on a project. The business gets something and the consumer gets something.
The reality of it is now the business gets a seed to plant. More importantly, a seed to harvest and grow.
The more information from the customer that you can acquire the better. However, email is by far the most important method of contact. The reason has to do with the low costs associated with email.
The other ways (direct mail, door to door, phone calls) are inefficient and costly. Phone calls will most likely lead to voicemails which will most likely be deleted and forgotten. Direct Mail is rarely opened these days and the cost is extremely high. But email is fast, effective, trackable, and convenient. As a startup business, you have the ability to reach out and provide useful information at such a low cost that you are insane for not taking advantage of it.
In a previous blog I mentioned just how important it is to create value for your customers. If you do that, you will always have work. What many don’t realize is just how important it is to create value for the consumer BEFORE you even come close to asking for the sale. Increased communication and constant interaction not only shows people that you are interested in gaining their business, but it reminds them just exactly why you are relevant to them. They might not be ready to hand you their credit card today, but that doesn’t mean they won’t tomorrow. Remember, there is a process to it. A farmer can’t grow anything if the steps he/she lives by are out of whack just like a company can’t sell if the steps are backwards. Let’s face it, if you ignore the importance of timing, it’s only a matter of time before you fail.
Timing, even on the highest level of success, plays a major role.
Awhile back, I was working with a small business in efforts of increasing its efficiency, communication, and cash flow. On one slow day, a man came into the business to ask a few questions. I told him I would need to get back to him on some answers. So, I took down his name and number. He said his last name was “Nicotero.” Now, I am not sure about you, but I am a big movie-lover. Especially, a big horror-movie lover. One of the most popular, if not the top make-up artist in all of Hollywood is a man named Greg Nicotero. He has worked on some of the most iconic horror movies to date. But, you might know him from a little show called THE WALKING DEAD. Not only is he director on some of the episodes, but he is the lead special effects, too.
Anyways, back to the story.
So, the man says his last name is Nicotero. Without even thinking, I ask “Any relation to Greg Nicotero?”
The man responds, “Yeah, that’s my son.” I was blown away and immediately began telling him of how much of a fan I am of the Walking Dead and of his son – going back to 1985 when he worked with Tom Savini on George Romero’s Day of the Dead.
As a man that asks a lot of questions when I am interested in something, I started to ask how Greg went from a Pittsburgh guy to one of the top dogs in the movie business. His answer surprised me - “timing”.
Throughout our small discussion, I learned that the man I was speaking to was a prominent doctor in the Pittsburgh area. So, in a jovial manner, I asked “So, what did all of your friends and family think when you told them that your son was going into the make-up business instead of being a doctor.” He replied with “More luck and more timing”.
He indulged me with a very interesting story –
One week in the early 1980’s, Dr. Nicotero decided to take a trip to Italy for a small vacation. For dinner one night, he went to a random ristorante. As he was eating, he saw a friend from many years prior named George Romero. George was also a Pittsburgher and they knew each other from their school days, I believe. George just happened to be in Italy, at that exact restaurant, on that very same day. This just happened to be a total coincidence or a thing called fate. In passing, George mentioned that he will begin filming a new movie that following week back in Pittsburgh at the Monroeville mall. He told Dr. Nicotero to bring his family by if they wanted to see how a movie was made. So, Dr. Nicotero took him up on his offer and invited his son – Greg Nicotero, who was in med school at the time, to visit the movie set at the Monroeville mall during the filming of Dawn of Dead.
As the story goes, Greg Nicotero took an interest with how they were doing makeup since he had some real world experience as a pre-med student. While being on the set, he met Tom Savini – the head makeup artist of Dawn of the Dead. They became friends immediately. Tom mentioned to Greg that there was an open invite to the next time they film another movie in Pittsburgh.
So, when they decided to film the sequel - Day of the Dead, Greg was invited on to the team. The rest is history as Greg Nicotero takes the makeup industry to a whole new level and is eventually hired as the head makeup artist/director of the highest rated television show of all-time – The Walking Dead.
As you can see, timing is a major factor in all parts of life – careers, legacies, and business.
The way I look at it, any startup must adhere to the boxer’s philosophy: Timing always beats speed.
Keep rolling the dice. This might be your time.
