Sales is framed as a game of scale, with simple logic. If you increase activity, you increase opportunity.

More outreach sent create more conversations. More conversations create more pipeline. More pipeline produces more revenue.

That logic is neat, measurable, and operationally comforting. It fits dashboards, targets, and quarterly planning.

It also happens to be increasingly misaligned with how buying actually works today.

It’s not that volume no longer matters at all. It’s that volume has been mistaken for results alone.

Activity has been confused with influence, and those leads have been treated as something to be captured, rather than relationships to be developed.

Sales, particularly in B2B, is no longer best understood as a numbers game. It is better understood as a moment's game.

Moments create relationships.

Relationships create trust.

Trust creates movement.

And movement is what precedes every meaningful decision.

The problem with chasing

When sales teams talk about “chasing leads,” what they usually mean is follow-up.

Repeated attempts to re-engage a prospect who has not responded. In theory, this is persistence. In practice, it is often a signal of misalignment.

Chasing is inherently transactional. It frames the interaction around the seller’s need for progress rather than the buyer’s readiness to move.

The underlying assumption is that if the seller applies enough pressure, enough reminders, nudges, and check-ins. The buyer will eventually buy.

From the buyer’s perspective, however, chasing rarely feels neutral. It feels intrusive. It feels self-serving. And, crucially, it feels familiar.

Modern buyers are highly literate in sales behaviour. They recognise sequences, follow-ups, and manufactured urgency instantly.

Even well-written follow-ups often fail because the intent behind them is transparent. The buyer knows what comes next, and that predictability creates resistance.

This is why response rates decline even as activity increases.

The issue is not message quality in isolation, but the relational posture behind the message. Chasing positions the seller as someone trying to extract value. Once that frame is established, trust becomes harder, not easier, to build.

Why moments work differently

A moment, by contrast, is not designed to advance a deal. It is designed to advance understanding.

Moments are small, intentional interactions that demonstrate relevance without demanding reciprocity. They are not requests. They are contributions. They arrive without an agenda attached and therefore feel safe to receive.

A moment might be an insight shared at the right time.

It might be a point of view that reframes a familiar problem.

It might simply be a signal that someone has paid attention.

What distinguishes a moment from a tactic is intent. The purpose is not to trigger a response; it is to create resonance. That distinction matters because resonance precedes trust, and trust precedes action.

Moments work because they respect the buyer’s autonomy. They acknowledge that readiness cannot be forced, only invited. And they create space for curiosity to emerge naturally rather than defensively.

Emotion and decision-making

There is a persistent myth that B2B decisions are primarily rational.

Spreadsheets, ROI models, and procurement processes are often cited as evidence that emotion plays a minimal role. In reality, these artefacts exist precisely because the decisions themselves carry emotional risk.

Behind every B2B purchase is a human being navigating uncertainty: fear of failure, desire for credibility, and concern about accountability. Rational justification usually follows emotional alignment, not the other way around.

Moments operate at this emotional layer. They do not attempt to persuade directly; they create familiarity, reassurance, and a sense of being understood. These emotions lower cognitive resistance and make rational evaluation possible.

Chasing bypasses this emotional groundwork. It assumes readiness where none exists and attempts to accelerate a process that has not yet begun. Moments, by contrast, prepare the ground quietly and patiently.

The power of micro-moments

One of the most common misconceptions about moments is that they need to be dramatic or highly visible. In practice, it is the accumulation of micro-moments that produces the greatest impact.

A thoughtful comment on an article.

A relevant report shared without commentary beyond “this might be useful.”

A short message acknowledging a challenge the buyer has publicly referenced.

Individually, these actions appear insignificant. Collectively, they build familiarity and credibility. Over time, they establish a pattern: this person consistently adds value without asking for anything in return.

This pattern is powerful because it runs counter to most sales experiences. Buyers are accustomed to conditional engagement — value offered in exchange for attention. Micro-moments break that expectation and, in doing so, differentiate the seller before a conversation ever begins.

Familiarity before intent

By the time a buyer formally engages in a sales conversation, much of the decision has already been shaped.

They have an opinion, positive, neutral, or negative, about the person they are speaking with. That opinion is rarely formed during the first meeting itself.

It is formed through prior exposure.

Repeated, low-pressure interactions create cognitive ease. The seller feels familiar, predictable, and safe. This reduces the perceived risk of engagement and reframes the conversation from “Should I talk to this person?” to “Is now the right time?”

Moments are the mechanism through which this familiarity is built. They do not accelerate intent; they ensure that when intent emerges, friction is minimal.

Measurement and the discomfort of moments

One reason organisations default to chasing is that moments are difficult to measure. Activity can be counted.

Trust cannot.

Sales systems are optimised for visible effort: calls logged, emails sent, meetings booked. Moments often sit outside these frameworks. They happen in comments, messages, shared thinking, and informal exchanges that resist neat categorisation.

This creates organisational tension. What cannot be measured is often undervalued. Yet what is easily measured is not always what matters most.

A high-quality pipeline is rarely the product of maximal activity. It is the product of alignment, timing, and relevance. Moments improve all three, even if quietly.

Timing over persistence

Traditional sales thinking emphasises persistence: the belief that continued follow-up eventually produces results.

Moments shift the emphasis from persistence to timing.

Timing is not controllable in the same way as activity is, but it can be influenced. By maintaining relevance and presence over time, sellers increase the likelihood of being top of mind when a buyer’s context changes.

This is a fundamentally different strategy from chasing. Rather than attempting to force a conversation prematurely, moments ensure that when the moment arrives, the seller is already trusted.

Control, not scale, as a competitive advantage

In an environment saturated with outbound noise, control becomes more valuable than scale.

Moments are controllable. They are selective, intentional, and sustainable.

Rather than exhausting markets with volume, sellers who focus on moments deepen their relevance within a defined audience. They trade breadth for depth, and in doing so, create more durable relationships.

This approach is particularly powerful for founders and senior commercial leaders. Their perspective, experience, and credibility cannot be replicated through automation. Moments allow these assets to be expressed authentically, without dilution.

Not passive, but patient

Creating moments does not mean waiting passively for buyers to act. It requires effort, awareness, and discipline. The difference lies in posture.

Moments are proactive without being aggressive.

Intentional without being intrusive.

Consistent without being overwhelming.

They recognise that trust is built through contribution, not pressure. And that long-term effectiveness often requires short-term restraint.

A different way to think about growth

The cumulative effect of moments is a shift in how growth occurs. Instead of relying on bursts of activity, growth emerges through compounded relationships.

Inbound conversations become more frequent.

Sales cycles shorten.

Engagement quality improves.

These outcomes often appear “organic,” but they are the result of sustained, deliberate behaviour over time.

Let's wrap this up

Chasing leads assumes that attention can be taken.

Creating moments recognises that attention must be earned.

The difference is subtle but profound.

Moments create emotion.

Emotion creates movement.

Movement creates decisions.

For organisations willing to move away from transactional thinking, moments offer a quieter, more predictable path to growth — one built on trust rather than pressure.

Stop chasing people.

Start creating moments worth responding to.

That is how relationships compound.

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