That’s the $64,000 question.
And here is what makes it genuinely fascinating: most of the time, the honest answer is no. Not because the prospect isn’t interested. Not because your proposition doesn’t speak to their situation. But because the buying cycle, for complex B2B services, runs an average of eleven to twelve months, and any given conversation could be landing at month two of that cycle, or month nine, or somewhere in between.
81% of B2B buyers have picked a winner before they ever talk to a sales rep. They spend the first 70% of their buying journey in silent evaluation; researching, comparing, building a mental shortlist, before they initiate contact with anyone. By the time they call you, the decision is often largely made. 6sense
Which raises an interesting question. If they’re not calling you during those first seven months of their buying journey, what are they doing? And are you visible enough during that period to end up on the shortlist when the moment finally arrives?
The priority list problem #
“No one is always busy. It just depends on what number you are on their priority list.”
That observation, from an unknown genius, is one of the most practically useful framings in all of B2B sales. The challenge in every prospect conversation is not whether your proposition is sound. It is whether you have arrived at a moment when their own internal priorities create space for what you offer.
A priority list pyramid makes this concrete. A prospect at the bottom of the list, priority 20 or lower, rarely responds, is always too busy, and cancels scheduled calls. That is not rejection. That is timing. A prospect at the top, priority one to five, responds quickly, asks detailed questions, makes time for calls, and initiates contact rather than just responding.
The same prospect can move between those positions over months. A budget decision, a contract renewal, a change in leadership, a project that finally gets approved; any of these can move your proposition from background noise to the top of the priority list within weeks.
The question is whether you are still in their orbit when that movement happens.
Just the right amount #
Just the right amount of communication is a fine balance. We don’t want to be seen to be pestering, but we would like to be well-known.
Just the right amount has a great deal to do with relevancy. Timing and relevance have replaced frequency as the primary drivers of response. If our products or services are uppermost in the minds of our buyers; if the contact arrives at a moment when something in their world has shifted and what we offer is suddenly more salient, then our buyers are going to be more receptive. We might even get thanked for contacting them. martal
The challenge is that we cannot see their priority list from outside. We cannot know whether this week’s call arrives at moment of high receptivity or low. We can only know what they tell us.
The two questions to ask #
This is where the graceful handling of the “not now” moment becomes one of the most commercially valuable skills in B2B development.
When the time is not right, it is always a great idea to ask two things. First: may I call back later? Second, and more importantly: when might that time be?
That second question is the one most people don’t ask. They accept the “not now,” make a note to call back at some unspecified point, and lose the specific intelligence that would have made the next contact meaningful rather than speculative.
Forrester’s research found that 86% of B2B purchases stall at some point during the process, often because a single stakeholder’s concerns went unaddressed early. The “when” question is the early signal that prevents a stall from becoming a permanent dead end. A prospect who says “try me again in January when the budget review is done” has just handed you a diarised commercial opportunity with a specific trigger attached to it. That is not a setback. That is the most valuable entry in your call-back rota. martal
The growing book #
A growing book of future call-backs is tremendously valuable.
Not just because it gives you people to contact. But because every “not now, try me in the spring” conversation represents a prospect who has self-selected as potentially interested, has given you a specific timing window, and has implicitly agreed that a conversation at that point would be appropriate rather than presumptuous. They have moved themselves from an unknown position on the priority list to a known future position.
The call-back book, maintained consistently and worked systematically, is the mechanism by which the “not now” moments accumulate into a pipeline that eventually contains all the conversations you need.
The right amount of communication: visible, relevant, not pestering, keeps you on the priority list between those calls. The Hub, the LinkedIn presence, the occasional email with something genuinely useful, these are the touches that mean when January comes and the budget review is done and the prospect picks up the phone, they already know who you are. Not as a stranger making a cold call. As someone they have been aware of, whose thinking they have encountered, who has been quietly present in the background of their professional life.
That is what being well-known looks like. Not fame. Familiarity.
It’s good to talk. Conversations improve conversions.
Thank you for reading.
Author: Richard Bull-Domican, founder of New Era Financial Introductions, a B2B lead generation consultancy with over twenty years of experience. The perspectives shared here come from two decades in the field; not theory, but practice.
I create small, digestible guides on Gumroad for business owners who hate aggressive tactics and prefer relationship-led approaches. New resources are added regularly. For longer reads on lead generation and the human side of sales, follow me on Medium and join the daily conversation on LinkedIn.
Gumroad: https://richardbulldomican.gumroad.com/
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbulldomican/
