No matter what you sell or who you are selling to, buyers are always in one of three buying modes. Most salespeople are quite familiar with two of them:

• Status Quo – “We believe what we have is sufficient, and we see no reason to change, so we'll keep buying from our current supplier.”
• Searching for Alternatives – “We know what we have is no longer sufficient and have started talking to several other suppliers.”

In between these two, however, lies the buying mode with the greatest opportunity, namely the …

• Window of Dissatisfaction: “We know what we have is no longer sufficient, and we’ve put doing something about it on our ‘to do’ list, but we haven’t found the time to start searching for alternatives.”

In other words … When you find a decision maker after they realize what they have is no longer sufficient but before they have started the process of searching for alternatives, you have found them in the Window of Dissatisfaction!

When you start 'seeing' the Window of Dissatisfaction, you’ve got the beginnings of a competitive edge – an unfair advantage that will help you close more sales, shorten your sales cycles, and increase your average deal size.

Have you ever noticed that as soon as you buy a new car you see it all over the road?

When women get pregnant, suddenly they start seeing other pregnant women everywhere. When couples give birth of to their first child, they stop noticing pregnant women and now start seeing babies around every corner. This is called selective perception. We tend to see the things that reinforce what we believe, or the things we can relate to. The rest we usually disregard.

The Trigger Events we experience change what we see. Every time we experience a Trigger Event a new version of selective perception is created. We begin to notice things that were always there. We just did not 'see' them.

Why is this important? By focusing on those who recently experienced a Trigger Event you can use the words, visuals, or scenarios, that are highly likely to resonate with them. In sales, that means saying the words that will capture your prospects attention. In marketing, that means using the words or visuals that will make your advertising jump out of the page and get noticed by those readers who recently experience a Trigger Event and are most likely to become your customers.

Research shows that the average sales person is five times more likely to make a sale when they have the right timing.

Buying Modes
To master timing you need to understand that, no matter what you sell or to whom, buyers are always in one of three Buying Modes:

1. Status Quo: Status Quo is when a buyer perceives the product or service they are currently using meets, or exceeds, their needs.
2. Window of Dissatisfaction: A Window of Dissatisfaction occurs after a buyer realizes that their current solution no longer meets their needs but before they start the process of searching for alternative solutions.
3. Searching for Alternatives: Searching for Alternatives is when a buyer realizes their current solution no longer meets their needs and is actively searching for alternative solutions.

Timing - getting in front of the right buyers at exactly the right time - is getting in front of buyers in the Window of Dissatisfaction before your competition. By being first with these motivated buyers you will sell more, sell sooner, and sell at a higher price.