How Your Sales Team Can Utilize a “Sense of Urgency” to Close More Deals

To meet sales goals efficiently and effectively, utilizing sales techniques that create a sense of urgency is essential. A sense of urgency can be defined for a sales team as communicating with a prospect that it is vital to act promptly and decisively.

When looking for ways to implement a sense of urgency into your sales process, look no further than your top-performers. One of the most positive subsets of a need for achievement, a critical personality characteristic shared by top-producers, is a sense of urgency.

High-aptitude salespeople are invariably “doers” not “talkers or dreamers.” They get things done because their sense of achievement depends on actual performance and results as opposed to getting around to it “someday.” Review what sales techniques are working for them to see if there are tactics that you can train the rest of your team to do as well.

We have outlined a number of key sales techniques that will help your sales team create a sense of urgency to close more deals.

Asking for the Close

While this may sound like a no-brainer, many new salespeople forget to close the deal with their prospects. Failing to ask for business directly can ruin the entire process and may suggest a lack of confidence to do what ultimately needs to be done.

Giving a quality pitch is totally pointless if the sale or deal is not closed at the end. Prospects may fail to return future calls or follow-up, leaving all previous efforts essentially meaningless. Failing to close a deal is particularly common if salespeople are navigating multiple deals at once. Many salespeople forget to prioritize and focus on their end goal.

Be sure your sales reps are trained adequately at asking for the close at the end of their sales presentations.

Prioritize Pain Points

A problem or “pain point” is the primary motivator for a prospect looking for a new product or service. It is crucial for your salespeople to emphasize the exact solution your company will provide to address their issue or specific need. In doing so, the sale instantly appears more vital.

Regularly referring back to the obstacle being solved will entice prospects further. This is a great sales technique for your salespeople to use to create a sense of urgency. Regardless of whether the prospect has a mere desire or a genuine problem, it is critical that your sales team portrays your product or service as the ultimate solution.

By crafting a sales pitch that reinforces pain points and addresses them with enthusiasm and urgency, sales reps set the stage for prospects to begin see the offer in front of them as the best solution to address their needs.

Keep Urgency Consistent

Springing sudden urgency upon prospects right at the end of a sales pitch is unlikely to have the desired effect. To be a successful sales technique, creating a sense of urgency relies on consistency throughout the entire sales cycle. Then, when the time comes to close the deal, prospects will have clear expectations and deadlines associated with making a decision.

Create Urgency with Time

All great achievers know that time is their mortal enemy, so they go after their goals as if there were no tomorrow. That is exactly what you want in a salesperson who is carrying your business on their shoulders.

An effective method for fast-tracking sales is to keep communications regular and close together. Time is of the essence when closing deals, as your sales reps’ urgent sales messages could easily lose power if too much time is allowed to pass.

However, if prospects suggest a follow-up date that seems too far away, this can be challenging to navigate. The last thing you want is for your sales team to come off as aggressive and pushy.

Train your reps to gently suggest an earlier communication date, and many prospects will likely oblige. Consider equipping your sales team with time-sensitive deals or closing bonuses to encourage prospects to make a decision quicker.

Eliminate Unnecessary Obstacles

If a prospect sees challenges in saying “yes” to your sales reps’ deal, they will probably look elsewhere for an easier option. To combat this, your salespeople must first understand what challenges the prospect is facing in making a decision. Train your sales team to ask key questions that uncover the prospects biggest obstacles, and be sure your salespeople are doing whatever they can, within reason, to reduce or remove these hurdles

In turn, this helps maintain urgency and keeps prospects engaged. If your process becomes too challenging for your prospects, they will look elsewhere. Never overlook removing unnecessary problems as a key technique when selling and maintaining a sense of urgency throughout the sales cycle.

Give Priced Incentives End Dates

It is no secret how important psychology is in sales. If an aspect of your selling process involves an incentive with a specific ending, be sure your salespeople are highlighting this in their sales pitches.

Guide your reps to emphasize the deals available and the expiration dates associated to help move the prospect along in their decision making. Accentuating the positive, or what the prospect will gain by being decisive, as opposed to what they will lose in waiting, can help timed incentives be great motivators to get people to act quickly and without delay.

Build a Sales Team That Understands the Importance of Urgency

When looking to hire new salespeople, there are a few things you can ask in your interviews to determine if you candidates have a need for achievement and, therefore, the urgency needed to succeed.

When interviewing sales candidates, ask them to describe scenarios where they worked through tough challenges, and how they managed to finish them, given everything else they had on their plates. 

What you want to hear are scenarios in which the candidates prioritized well and went after the most important thing on their plate first—and with an intensity and focus that would not be denied. This may have involved the sacrifice of other things, including leisure time, or required burning the midnight oil. Look for candidates that do not procrastinate once they identify a goal that they deem worthy of achieving.

To Summarize

The ability to create urgency within the sales cycle is a tactic all salespeople need to know. Encourage your sales team to implement some (or all) of these sales techniques to create a strong sense of urgency among their prospects and make the buyer’s journey a success for everyone involved.