You’re the AE who’s got it together. You’ve done the research, memorized the features and benefits, and nailed your talk track. You’ve got a pitch-perfect personalized email, and the most detailed buying committee map ever created.
But if you’re reaching out too late in the buyer journey, it’s not going to matter. “Timing is everything in sales — especially when it comes to outbound sales programs,” says David Mansfield, a new business sales manager at ZoomInfo.
Good sales timing isn’t just about being first to respond when a prospect fills out a form or browses your pricing page. Sellers must also understand where the prospect is in the buyer’s journey and provide them with the right kind of engagement — that delivers the best-possible value — at that precise moment.
Here are some common challenges sellers face when trying to time their outreach just right, and how leveraging advanced signals and AI can get your sales team back on track.
1. Separating Signal from Noise
Today’s sellers must sift through intent data from a variety of sources that often live on different platforms. This can sometimes flag false positives or totally miss willing buyers who aren’t exhibiting narrowly defined “intent” behaviors by organizations.
Meanwhile, buyers are dealing with data overload: According to Gartner, 77% of B2B buyers say their latest purchase was very complex or difficult — mainly because of too much information on diverse vendors.
The solution? A more nuanced combination of buying signals that help sellers and buyers connect with each other when the timing is right, with content and information tailored to the moment.
So instead of relying only on traditional intent, sellers can blend online research data with crucial buying signals about recent hires, personnel changes, and even proprietary survey results to build a fuller picture.
“When a prospect is doing legitimate buying research and I provide them with valuable information, it naturally resonates,” says Marcus Williams, an account executive at ZoomInfo. “They start to think, ‘This actually makes sense for us,’ which ultimately leads to more booked meetings. That’s the power of signals.”
2. Finding Out Who’s Really In-Market
Are your prospects coming to the end of a one-year “prove it” deal and looking to scale up with a competing solution? Or did the company recently invest in a competitor, making it unlikely that they’re going to evaluate competitors?
“You don’t want to waste time reaching out to companies that are already locked into a multi-year contract with another vendor, or simply don’t have a need for your product,” Mansfield says.
Signal-based selling can help: investment announcements, partnership agreements, and fresh customer testimonials from podcast appearances or other public statements. This information can all be leveraged to quickly exclude accounts that aren’t interested in your solution now or in the near future — which saves you hours of effort you can spend finding serious prospects instead.
3. Disconnects Between Sales and Marketing
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: sales and marketing alignment is a huge issue for most go-to-market teams, leading to wasted effort, misspent budgets, and eroding trust.
No matter which way the fingers are pointing in the end-of-the-quarter blame game, everyone suffers.
But with the right combination of buying signals, B2B data, and high-quality AI, the painstaking work of scoring, routing and assigning leads happens with unprecedented speed and accuracy.
For example: Let’s say a good-fit prospect tells your account exec to call back in six months. CRM record updated, reminder set, boom, done. But just six weeks later, buyers from that company are back on your website, browsing your product pages and consuming your educational content.
A tool like ZoomInfo Copilot can synthesize those signals with the existing account records, proactively recommending a targeted outreach action for the sales team.
“Maybe now is still not the perfect time, but without that insight, you miss out on low-hanging fruit,” Mansfield says.
Build Relationships with Signal-Based Selling
Timely engagement isn’t just about closing deals faster — it fosters long-term customer relationships, too.
Buyers who feel understood, supported, and confident as they move through the sales funnel tend to convert more quickly. Engaged customers are also more likely to become loyal advocates for your brand, leading to valuable referrals and ongoing business.
Happier customers also means happier sellers — who wouldn’t want to spend less time on dead-end leads and more time driving success for themselves and the entire team?
ZoomInfo Copilot enables real-time detection of buying signals, providing today’s GTM teams with the insights needed to act decisively and capture opportunities that might be hiding in plain sight.
Request a demo today to see how Copilot turns signals into sales, driving 23% pipeline growth for our satisfied customers.