The frenzy of the flight boarding process has just finished.

You have a spot for your bags and a plan for the next couple of hours when…

“So, you leaving home or going back?”

The person sitting next to you starts a conversation. And now you’re left wondering whether it will last the entirety of the flight.

Truth is, I enjoy a little chit-chat. Which is maybe why I notice how many people cut these things off from the start:

They sit down, grab giant headphones, and cover those earholes before I can comment on their baseball hat.

Message received!

But a funny thing happens around the time the landing gear descends. The headphones come off. The guard comes down.

I’ve had more conversations in the last 15 minutes of a flight than at any other point.

The reason, I believe, is that we both know we aren’t getting into a long, extended conversation. We’re not far from the gate and the reverse frenzy that ensues once the front door sensor goes “ding.”

It’s safe to chat when there’s an end in sight.

Developers are ​unresponsive to traditional marketing​ because, too often, it comes across like the early flight conversation.

Your lead form, your overpromises, your tutorial that doesn’t actually solve their problem. These all erode trust at a time when it feels risky to engage.

The truth is that there might truly be a long conversation on the other side of that form. Your sales team may supply even more hyperbole than the developer has already seen.

It’s much easier to put on the big headphones.

Your job is to figure out when the landing gear goes down.