In this Q&A video, Global Sales Coach Ryan Dohrn answers a listener’s concern about an anticipated surge in buying activity in Q2/Q3 that could overwhelm sales teams. He emphasizes that buyers purchase when they are ready, not when sellers are ready, and breaks down the sales funnel: roughly 50% of prospects are merely becoming aware, about 40% are researching, and only 5‑10% are ready to buy. To avoid being caught off‑guard, Ryan advises getting ahead of the demand storm by marketing and nurturing prospects a quarter in advance—using drip campaigns, bite‑sized content, and pre‑selling tactics—so prospects encounter the information before they enter the buying decision phase. He also cautions against relying on hard deadlines to force sales, suggesting instead that sellers should align with the buyer’s timeline and seed information well before the buyer’s internal deadlines. The video ends with a call to action for listeners to submit questions, contact Ryan, or visit his website.
Chapters
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn here, your Global Sales Coach. Thanks so much for sending in all your listener questions. Hey, we do our best to get to all of them. We get hundreds of them a week, so thank you so much. This week we're calling out Gary from Altoona, Iowa. Now, if you don't know where Altoona, Iowa is, go and look it up. I happen to be an Iowa farm kid, is where I originally started, so I know where Altoona is. So Gary, thanks for sending in your question. All right, your question is about second quarter. So the question is, My fear, Ryan, is that everybody's going to get back to business in second or third quarter and we're going to be overwhelmed. What do we do to avoid that problem? Well, Gary, I don't know there's anything you can necessarily do to avoid the problem other than try to get in front of it. So here's something to remember, Gary, and everybody: people buy when they are ready to buy, not necessarily when you are ready to sell. So remember that. People buy when they are ready to buy, not necessarily when you are ready to sell. So when you look at the sales funnel, you recognize from an awareness perspective, about 50% of people are looking to be aware, not looking to buy. About approximately 40-some percent of people are looking to research. They're making some decisions, but they're right in that kind of research mode. And you're looking at 5 or 10% of people in any given category are looking to do something. So what you want to think about as you're working towards avoiding that is getting ahead of the storm. Sometimes I'll even say to my customers, I know you're not looking to buy this or that right now. It's the wrong time of year. My hope is that if I get this information in front of you soon enough, it will help you as you kind of get in the midst of your buying decisions. I try to get in front of people. What's interesting, in front of the problem, which means getting in front of What's interesting is the number of people that will say, oh yeah, thanks. Okay, yeah, that is coming up in second quarter, so I do need to start thinking about it now. Or, that's coming up the middle of first quarter, I need to think about that now. Or whatever the circumstance is. Here's the sad but honest truth. A lot of us as salespeople, we sell based on deadlines. Those deadlines are put in place by our boss to force us to do the job that we know we need to do. Your clients are under the same demands. So recognize, rather than use a deadline to push the buy, 'cause most people don't like deadlines, get yourself in front of that deadline significantly, like maybe even a quarter ahead of the game, like a full 3 months ahead of the game. Start seeding your folks, start drip marketing to them, try to get ahead of the rush. So Gary, you're probably pretty darn smart guy to recognize a lot of stuff is gonna come back awake in Q2 and late Q3, et cetera. So do your best to get ahead of the storm. Nothing wrong with marketing in advance. Remember, like half of people are not ready to do anything right now. So it's a good way to get in front of them, market in advance, pre-sell, offer help, offer it in bite-sized chunks. So Gary, good question. All right, friends, love to get your questions. Send them to ryan@ ryandohrn.com and love to train your sales team, speak at your next virtual sales conference, or whatever the case is, go on over to the website, visit it, ryandohrn.com. All right, friends, we'll see you next time.
