Be a Welcome Distraction, Not an Interruption

Everyone's day, even the busiest person's, is broken into pieces with little bits of white space in between. The few minutes between calls or meetings when you grab a coffee or use the bathroom. A welcome distraction, as opposed to a plain interruption, fits into that space.

It takes advantage of two things. First, everyone needs a mental break every so often, so they go looking for something to distract themselves with. You want to be there in that spot.

Second, and this is the key part, it gives them a tiny sense of accomplishment. We read the news or check our inbox and delete a bunch of stuff because there's a sense of accomplishment in deleting email.

From a sales and marketing point of view, the accomplishment is that your message gets forwarded to someone who will take care of it, if the person is high enough up. Hey, can you look at this, this might be interesting. In social media terms that's sharing. For us it's forwarding or delegating. Or they click on something. Or they spend a moment and read it. At the end of that, they've accomplished something.

So a welcome distraction is welcome because it fits into the white space of their lives. It doesn't try to interrupt a meeting. It's there and ready. It might keep showing up every day until they do something with it. And afterward they feel good, because they closed out that little bit of distraction with something.