Recently I talked about creating a sense of Urgency during B2B prospecting.

I said it’s a lot harder than in B2C, and you probably shouldn’t try.

At least not until you’ve mastered the Welcome Distraction.

The Welcome Distraction taps into a very human need that everyone has. Literally everyone.

It’s the need to feel some sense of accomplishment, no matter how small.

That need is felt by every human every day.

It’s why even the busiest people will delete their own emails or tidy the break room condiments while coffee brews.

It’s why people start ToDo lists with #1 already done (and crossed out).

It’s why your CEO has a game on their phone and clearing a new level only takes 3 minutes.

Browsing social media feels like a welcome distraction too. With a dopamine hit telling you that you accomplished something — you’re up to date now.

All great outbounding in B2B is tricky. But creating a Welcome Distraction, getting it right, gives you an ‘in’ that’s almost endlessly scalable.

How it works

The diagram above is a typical C-suite person’s day. Very fragmented. The white sections are the minutes between meetings or focused work.

In those ‘down’ periods, your target is going to look for a Welcome Distraction. Ideally one with a sense of accomplishment built into a 1-3 minute duration.

The easiest type of accomplishment is cleaning — deleting, tidying, organizing, or sending away.

The second easiest is closing an open loop — learning, registering, downloading, adding yourself to something.

Early communications

• Your email or DM or voicemail can be forwarded ‘away’ to the right person in their organization
• They can learn something valuable they didn’t know before
  

Later (but still early) communications

• Your reader can be updated about something
• They can click a link, or watch a video, or register for an event
  

Just create the whole thing as a small self-contained accomplishment opportunity. Not just an opportunity for you to talk about yourself.

This is easier than creating B2B urgency

So before you try to convey a sense of urgency, or telling a stranger “I’ll be in your town, how’s Tuesday @2?”, consider packaging your outreach into 3-minute Welcome Distractions (with an accomplishment built in).

Dopamine’s a hell of a drug. Not much of it is work-appropriate. You could own the stage for 3 minutes.

What’s 3 minutes of CEO attention worth? How much do you get now? Less, probably.

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Hi, I’m Dean. I write what a company puts in front of B2B prospects to draw them closer.