It felt like a punch to the abdomen.

Pitching our advertising and marketing providers to a prestigious eCommerce lead, whom we have been interacting with for months, I used to be optimistic we would shut the deal. They liked every thing — our service, our group, our philosophy. After which after sending our last proposal, what occurred?

Silence.

Completely no response. I may virtually hear the crickets chirping.

You realize the horrible feeling:

If you’re inches away from closing a large deal you’ve got been nurturing for months … then met with ice-cold silence. It appears like a punch within the abdomen. So I requested myself:

• “Did I say something wrong?”
• “Did they go with someone else?”
• “Are we priced out of their budget?”

After many weeks of silence, I gave up. Would not you?

BUT WAIT! Quick ahead 9 months later to October 2014 …  

It is a frigid Wednesday afternoon in Baltimore, Maryland. I’m sitting at my desk, prioritizing latest leads in our CRM, when a notification pops up in on my pc:

 

That is an email tracking notification, exhibiting me that the eCommerce firm’s contact from 9 months in the past simply opened my electronic mail … and clicked the hyperlink to our proposal.

I puzzled, may that be an indication they’re once more?

I didn’t need to soar the gun, so I took a psychological word that they’re viewing the proposal and obtained again to work.

Later that day, I get one other notification alert. He is studying our weblog posts:

I’ve my HubSpot Gross sales account related to HubSpot’s advertising and marketing software program that notifies me when a lead is viewing particular pages.The following morning, I get ANOTHER notification. He is studying the case research on our web site:

That is once I knew we would nonetheless have an opportunity.

So I despatched this follow-up electronic mail (names and speak to info have been modified):

 

Two hours later, I get a response:

Throughout our telephone name, he talked about the coincidence between the timing of my follow-up e-mail and their present drawback — they had been trying to associate with a advertising and marketing company.

Oh actually? That’s such a coincidence.  🙂

One week later, they flew down from out-of-state to evaluate our proposal in particular person.

Three weeks later, we closed the deal, value greater than $100,000.

The lesson right here is fairly clear: if I did not have e mail monitoring software program put in, I by no means would have adopted up once more. 9 months of silence would’ve completely ended our relationship:

Nevertheless, since I acquired notifications they have been opening our emails, studying our proposal, studying weblog posts, and viewing our case research … it signaled they had been once more.

Consequently, it alerted me that a silent, previous prospect had turn out to be a scorching, new lead. And that lead rapidly became a six-figure contract.

The success of this deal may be boiled down into three phrases — timing is all the things.

We are able to ship essentially the most persuasive follow-up e-mail ever written, validated by extremely efficient gross sales managers in Fortune 500 corporations …. but when it’s out of context, or despatched on the mistaken time, it’s nugatory.

If I didn’t observe up at that precise time, whereas we had been clearly on their thoughts, we may have misplaced over $100,000 this yr.

In abstract, it’s pretty unimaginable that an e mail device, HubSpot Sales, helped me shut a $100,000+ deal.

With out it, I’d be blinded by the actions of that eCommerce prospect, clueless that they’re re-engaging with our content material. I’d’ve let it slip by, with out ever realizing my pricey mistake.