How to Create Sales Urgency Without Being Pushy
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Brooke Greening:
Creating urgency is not about fake deadlines or questions to trap people or just vague responses like, "Let me know when you're ready." It's about having an honest conversation with someone about what they want and when they want it
Scott Greening: A lot of people think it's sort of like the villain and the bad part and the part that they like least about sales, because we've all sort of experienced the bad, manipulative ways that salespeople are maybe...
Why salespeople have such a low reputation, because of these, these types of things. But we have defined it, and you define it, as motivating people with direction and hope.
Brooke Greening: So the first wobble, and we've talked about this a little bit, but, like, don't give the customer your version of hope. Just don't do that. Don't try to assume what's really important to them. Don't try to paint this picture of what life could be like for them. Listen to what they've said and what was important to them, and that's what we're bringing in to be able to give them hope.
Scott Greening: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. I'm your host, Scott Greening, and we'll be bringing Brooke in to have a conversation that's going to last about the time that it takes you to enjoy your matcha or coffee break, and Brooke will give us some great advice on how we can better handle our sales conversations.
Because if you have to talk to people to make sales, how well you lead those sales conversations are going to make or break your revenue. And let's bring Brooke in.
Hi.
So we, we've got matcha for you today. And this is an important step in our, our podcast- ... life. We're expanding- Yes ... we're expanding the team.
Mm. Yes.
We're starting to. Yeah. So our son, Asher, who's going- ... into seventh grade, is learning how to make drinks from me. And- Yes, you- Yeah, he did 90% of the drink today.
Brooke Greening: Yes, so he is Scott's protege. Scott w- has been great at making matcha lattes, coffee lattes. We do breakfast on Saturday mornings, and he even has a latte pen, and he does bears and bunnies and all of that.
I love it. It's so great. So he did. He made me a great matcha latte.
Scott Greening: So yeah, let's dive in.
All right. So we've been talking about everyone's favorite topic in sales, creating urgency. And over the last couple of episodes, we're kind of reclaiming the idea. We're not, uh... A lot of people think it's sort of like the villain and the bad part and the part that they like least about sales, because we've all sort of experienced the bad, manipulative ways that salespeople are maybe...
Why salespeople have such a low reputation, because of these, these types of things. But we have defined it, and you define it, as motivating people with direction and hope. And so the, the first kind of two episodes ago, we introduced that definition. We talked about why urgency's important. Then last time we dove deep on some of the bad ways that people do that.
Today we're going to try to get your wisdom on what healthy, ethical, uh, appropriate, good urgency looks like.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. Because once you actually take manipulation out of it, when we say, "Okay, you don't have to manipulate, you don't have to be a jerk in order to do urgency," then people are really left wondering, and they're trying to figure out, "Well, what, what do we do?
Is this like some sort of clever closing technique? How do we do this if it's not manipulation?" And it's just helping customers connect what they want when they want it.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And so, so where are we, where are we starting? Maybe it'd be helpful to, to remind us, like how this connects with the rest of what you teach people.
Brooke Greening: I think it's a good reminder to say a lot of times when people are feeling like, "Okay, I have to create urgency," they're still doing it because they're still trying to convince them that they need to buy, and that is not where urgency comes into. Urgency is not trying to convince someone that they need to buy something that they're not entirely sure of.
It's coming when they've said, "Yes, I want to be able to, to do this. Yes, I do want to be able to move forward." Now we're moving forward and giving them direction and hope, and I think that is a big differentiator, and it's important to know that. A lot of times people are using urgency because they're trying to convince them to say yes because they haven't said yes yet.
That is not, that's not where we use it. That's not where we use it in the service framework. We've... If we're walking through our service framework, we've already set the expectations, we've recognized the problem, we've been able to verbalize the value. We've identified the objection, so we've already done those things.
Now we're able to say, "Okay, this is what you want, and now we're going to start talking about what that timeframe looks like." And you would be surprised how many times people really struggle in this. Even when people are ready to, to move forward, they can really slow the whole sales process down, and they can also lose the sale if they're not creating urgency in a way that's giving them direction and hope.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think that helps people understand why this is a different way, right? So we're, it's no longer about whether or not the problem exists.
Brooke Greening: We've already talked about that. We've established there's a problem, that we've established that they're interested in the solution, and we're not using FOMO or fear, you know, fear of missing out or anything like that to try to get them to agree to something. Yeah. So now we're helping them to know, okay, now this is what we can do to be able to move forward.
So hope is helping them see why the change is worth making, and then direction is actually helping them decide when they need to do it and what these next steps are going to look like
Scott Greening: All right. So kind of walk us through a little bit of both of those aspects. And there may be a couple of steps here as we talk about it.
So the first one was answering hope. Why would I want to make this change?
Brooke Greening: Yeah. If we have been doing the sales conversation correctly before we got to this point, we would've started to already understand what's going on and what they are wanting.
We're not talking about creating some sort of dramatic fantasy or really connecting to them emotionally and them being like, "Oh, yes. I really, really want that." No. If we did our job well in the beginning of the sales conversation, they've told us things that they're wanting. So maybe the business owner wants their team to follow up consistently without being reminded.
Maybe they want them to stop handling every sales call themselves. These are some of the things that we hear. Maybe they want to know, like, where are these opportunities standing? Maybe they want to take a vacation, and they don't want to have to check their phone every 17 minutes. Those are the types of things that they've already said.
I am not assuming what is hopeful to them. We've already heard it, and we've already listened to it, and we know those are the things that they want. And that's a big difference.
the very first thing is we should already know what is going to be giving them hope, because we would've already talked about it before we get to this point.
Scott Greening: Yeah. And I think, you know, hope is an emotion. Emotions are not a bad part of selling.
You need to engage people's- ... emotions and all of that. But I think the difference here, and what you're talking about, is by connecting it to the previous parts of the conversation, you're just, like, repeating back the things that the customer has already said. So it's, it's really kind of their words- Mm-hmm
and what they're looking forward to, not so much- Mm-hmm ... you being some great storyteller that's able to, to paint some amazing picture and razzle and dazzle people and that type of thing.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. And I just had, we had a great example of this where I was on a sales call. I was the one that was looking to buy, and they did this really well, and I really appreciated that.
It wasn't a, "Oh, well let's talk about this, let's talk about this, let's try to paint this amazing picture, let's try to push you in a corner." Like, none of that actually happened. They just listened to what I was saying I needed because they actually asked and we were able to have a conversation about that, and then they were able to bring that back.
Not in a manipulative way, but just like, "Hey, these are the things that you said. These were the, like, timeframes you're looking at. These were the pitfalls that you hit before you started working with us. Now this is how we can be able to move forward." And I really, really appreciated that. And it's just a little side note, but if the sales call goes well, there's an excellent chance I will buy.
If the sales call Yeah ... does not go well, I'm out.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I was just, I was just going to say, like, just like we get these little nuggets every once in a while of an insight into Brooke and what to do, and this is one of them. If you, if you want to make a sale to Brooke, follow her advice and, and do that.
Follow my advice. And this person, like, had no idea who you were before the sales call. No. But they, they were- No ... they were a good salesperson. They set the- They were ... expectations at the beginning. Yep. They they didn't exactly do the SERVICE framework, but it was pretty much there. It- So...
Brooke Greening: Yeah ... all that to say, it is not bad to have emotions. It is not bad to be excited about something. But you can completely manipulate that to get someone to, like, get into this frenzy of buying, and I don't think that's serving them at that point. We truly want to know, is this going to be a good fit?
Yeah. And it's, it's what matters to them, not so much what you think should matter to them- Mm-hmm ... And that. So if you were going to kinda summarize this idea of hope what would you say? How would you kind of put that in a sentence or two?
I don't want to hand someone my definition of what their success is going to be.
I do not want to do that. I want to understand what their definition of success is going to look like, and then we can start to figure out, okay, well then how can we be able to do that? And that's where the healthy urgency comes from. Instead of me telling them what it is, I want them to tell me what it, what success is going to look like to them, what hope looks like to them, and then we can have a real conversation of whether we can meet that or not.
Scott Greening: Great. So there were, there's two words. We started with the hope word, but you're providing- Mm-hmm ... direction and hope or hope and direction. Mm-hmm. Why is hope alone not enough?
Brooke Greening: I hear this all the time on my calls when I'm listening to my clients' calls, and they're like, "Yeah, no, that sounds great. I'd really like to be able to move forward."
And then they're like, "Good." And like, it's doesn't, it doesn't move forward. So if you just have someone who's excited to be able to work with you, but there's no clear motivation, then they're, the only thing that they're doing is being inspired at that point. Because we have to have momentum, we have to help them to move forward.
So you have to have direction, and that has to come from doing some homework before you get on the call. Like, we don't want to be winging, okay, what is the next step for them? You want to know very clearly, okay, if the customer wants to move forward with this project, or the retainer or whatever the case is, these are the next steps that need to take place.
You need to know that because you're going to be telling them what those next steps are.
I think the, the hope is creating, it's acknowledging, it's- it's highlighting the desire, but then the direction is, "All right. Let's move. Let's- let's do something with that." Mm-hmm.
Yeah. They need to know that they're moving forward. That's really important. It needs to be very clear. And the other thing is, when we talk about giving direction and hope, especially when you're on a call with them, on a Zoom, in a meeting with them, people want to know that their time has been well spent.
And so when they know there is something to do, what the next step is, they're excited about that because now they're able to move forward. If they don't have that, then it's kind of like, "Well, what was the point of this call? That's good. I enjoyed our conversation, but what's going to happen now?"
Scott Greening: All right.
So you- you highlighted this before, and it is kind of, uh, of a strange reality. I know it seems like completely unbelievable to you but it happens a lot, so a lot of us are kind of in this- this spot where there's a difficulty in moving from hope and excitement and like we've gotten through, the- the person seems ready to buy, and then we have to- Mm
to talk about timing. So like-
Brooke Greening: Yeah ...
Scott Greening: how do we do that? How do we connect the hope with, uh, the timing?
Brooke Greening: Well, I'm going to, I'm going to tell them and I'm going to talk with them with the information that they've already given me. So we should know at this point in regards to what their timeframes are, in regards to what they're needing to get done at that point.
This should not be a surprise. We should already know that. So we're not switching of- all of a sudden into like closing mode. We already know. We're just continuing the conversation. So we're connecting, "Okay, this is what you want, and this is the timing that you want to do it by this..." say you have an event that you have to do, or say you have a new campaign that you want to roll out.
Whatever it is, like they have timing that we should have uncovered earlier on in that conversation, and then that's what we connect it to.
if you don't have that timeframe, then that's when you can ask for it. But again, we're just having an honest, real conversation. So if you didn't get the tim- timeframe before, we're going to be asking for it now, and that's how we can start to connect it.
Scott Greening: All right.
So I know in the best-case scenario and what you do and what you help people know how to do is to get some of those answers so then you're just really just kinda reminding like, " Hey, you said this. You want to start in the next month." Mm-hmm. "This is what that looks like." Do you have like some questions like in case people like forgot, or they're trying to do these different things, but then they get to this point, they're like, "Oh, no.
I don't have the information that I did." Like what are some questions that people could ask to, to maybe get some of that, Timing issues or that
Brooke Greening: Yeah. I- you can just ask simple questions. You can say, "Hey, what are you thinking about the timing?" That can be, like, the easiest one. Just say, "Hey, what is, what does your timing look like?"
That-
Scott Greening: There, there we go.
Brooke Greening: If you don't know, just ask.
Yeah.
Scott Greening: What, like, how would you kinda summarize this timing idea, this timing instruction?
Brooke Greening: I would just say asking about timing is not pressure, but refusing to s- accept like an honest answer, that is when we know it's dealing with pressure.
All right, Brooke, if I'm picking up what you're laying down, some of this seems sort of related to what you were talking last week about real deadlines as opposed to fake deadlines and some of the manipulation stuff. So help- like, let's make that connection about connecting this healthy urgency with the reality of what people are actually facing in their lives.
Oh, absolutely. So healthy urgency is going to be based on reality, and it's for both sides. So we've just talked about in regards to what's happening with the customer and the urgency that they have, what their timelines are, but it's also the same for us. There are things that are going on in our business and with what we're doing that we are allowed to share that it needs to be based on reality.
So one might be there may actually be real timing factors in regards to what we're able to do to help them, in regards to how long it will take to be able to do that. They may have a launch date, so we know how long it takes to be able to get up to that. They may need a lot of work. Like, we may, as we're talking, realize this is going to take months to, to start doing and to implementing, and they need to understand that.
We may have things in regard to limited availability. We have- we may have things in regards to, like, when we can onboard and start things going. We may have things in regards to that we do have different pricings or packages and that those- that there is an incentive by the end of the month. Like, none of that is wrong at all.
It just needs to be based in reality, and helping them to know that just continues to build trust. So we need to know, okay, what, what is the actual things happening in our world and the urgency that's going on for us, and then also for them in regards to their timelines, their timeframes, all of that. So all of it needs to be based in reality.
Every single one. Everything that's happening on their side and everything that's happening on our side. That's how you have healthy urgency where people can move forward with direction, hope, and they can be confident that they're making that right decision.
Scott Greening: Yeah, and we're not just making up stuff to, to make it seem like that those other things are a reality.
So, like, real timing is giving the customer useful information. Mm-hmm. Uh, artificial timing is kind of trying to create anxiety for your benefit, right? Yeah. So you're trying to, to create a false crisis that has to be solved right now. What- Yep ... what happens if you, you get into this and then the customers, for whatever reasons, says maybe not now"?
Brooke Greening: Sure. No, I love that because that can happen in regards to when we f- we give the timeline and this is what we need to do, and then they're- Like, "Nope, we're not ready to move forward." That helps us to know, one, we missed something when it was talking about what was happening and identifying the objections.
So you can go back to our podcast episodes and listen to how we do that in regards to how we validate their concerns, we start clarifying what it is, and then we're able to move forward from there. It very well may be that it is not the right timing. It very well may be that there's a big thing going on in their business, there's something that's happening, somebody's going on maternity leave.
Like, there are different things that are happening in their business, what they're needing, and it is not the best time to move forward. That may be true, or that might be something where they're just, they're still a little hesitant and they're still trying to figure things out. So it's our job to understand, is it really a timing issue, or is there something else going on?
That's the first piece. But then what I want to encourage you guys is that I get excited if someone's not wanting to buy exactly this moment. Because if all we ever do is just make sale after sale after sale after sale in the very first or second call, we have to continue to keep bringing in more leads, and we get on what's called the sales rollercoaster because if we don't have anybody to talk to- Now we're, now we're stuck.
And so when someone is giving me a true, honest, like, "This is not a good time, but in two months we're ready to move forward", that is a great thing. Because I know in two months they're going to be able to move forward, and I know my pipeline is continuing to grow. If all we do is ever just sell right now all the time, we never have a pipeline for when things are going to dry out.
Yeah. Either you have to have just a super big tap of leads that are always- Yep ... coming in. Or- Yep ... or you're going to to run into this situation and, and have this healthy thing. I know, and we, we can't go into it today that... But this is where, like, your CRM and, like, you don't just ignore these people.
Scott Greening: Mm-hmm. Like, you gotta- Oh, no. Yeah ... you gotta keep in touch with them. You gotta, like, prime the pump and remind them about the urgency that they communicated. Maybe someday we'll investigate all that, but not today. So.
Brooke Greening: No, but I do think it's really important, because even... I just want to say this, 'cause some people might be like, "No, no, no, no.
All of my problems would be solved if we had, like, a h- slew of leads coming in all the time, all day, every day." I d- I did that. Like, when I worked at Sunrise Senior Living, we had five or six every day. We would have, like, 30 to 40 conversations that we would be having a month, and we needed not everybody to buy that exact moment.
It needed to be able to be spread out.
Scott Greening: Yeah. I think it's official. We gotta do a couple episodes on pipeline- ... and that. So, let's just touch base on a couple of, like, wobbles or, or common mistakes that you see as we try to help people set up this urgency even better.
Brooke Greening: Sure. So the first wobble, and we've talked about this a little bit, but, like, don't give the customer your version of hope. Just don't do that. Don't try to assume what's really important to them. Don't try to paint this picture of what life could be like for them. Listen to what they've said and what was important to them, and that's what we're bringing in to be able to give them hope.
That's the first one. The second one is don't ask about timing too early. It's like asking for the date before they're ready to go. Just don't do that. If you start asking about the timing and they've not really given you any in- any indication they want to move forward, they're excited about what you're offering, like we've just, we've done it too early, and that really, really hurts trust because that's just telling them we're being a little tone deaf to what's going on.
We need to know that that's something they want to do, that they're interested in moving forward before we start talking about what their timing is.
Scott Greening: Yeah, I was just going to say, like, the service framework is sequential, and this is like step six. So if you're back on- Right ... step two asking these questions,
Brooke Greening: mm,
Scott Greening: maybe jumped the gun
Brooke Greening: a little bit.
I am reminded of when you and I were on our first date- ... and you, and you asked me, and our dates went really fast, by the way. It's a super fun story. I'd love to do just a podcast episode on that. But you literally asked me what I was doing in May. So I think our first date was like- ... in October, and you wanted to know if I wanted to go...
And I was in Iowa at this point. You wanted to know if I had plans and if I would be interested in going somewhere in May, and not even in the same state, in Pennsylvania- ... because you needed a date for the wedding.
Scott Greening: That's right. That's right. Well, you know, we learned from-
Brooke Greening: And I was like, "What?"
Scott Greening: We learn from our mistakes and our benefit.
Thankfully, you didn't end the date at that moment. You were gracious,
Brooke Greening: so. No. But- I went on three more dates with him- Yes ... ladies and gentlemen- That's right ... and then we got engaged.
Scott Greening: Yeah.
Brooke Greening: And it wasn't a shotgun wedding. There you go. That's the, that's the story in like a really tiny nugget. Okay. There
Scott Greening: we go.
Brooke Greening: All right, Brooke, so, like, we got rid of a couple of the wobbles there and embarrassed me, so- ... it was all, all, all good fun. What should people do? Like, what, how should they get started? What, what's the this is the way to put it into action?
Yeah, so in your sales conversations happening this week, I want you to ask yourself two questions. First, I want you to ask yourself, do I know what is going to be possible when we're able to solve these problems for these customers, for these clients? We want to know what is going to be possible for them. We want them to know that and we need to know that.
That's the very first thing. And then two, we just need to ask them what their timing is in it. Just simple did you even ask what their timeframe was? Those are the two questions I want you to know. One, do I, did I hear, did I understand what would be possible for them if we were able to solve the problem?
And then two, did I ask about timing? Those are the two things
Scott Greening: Yeah, and then where we're headed next week, and we'll come back to this a little bit, but then like we, so we do the hope, we do the timing, and then we, we provide guidance, right? Mm-hmm. So the, the next steps. If someone's r- kind of reflecting in that and they're thinking like, do, how do I even know if I'm thinking about urgency the right way?
What, what question would you ask them?
Brooke Greening: I would just say, are we helping the customers connect the future with the timing that they need? That's what we're trying to understand. Like, okay, this is what they want. Are we helping to connect that with the timing that's needed to be able to reach it? Those are the two things that we're working on.
Scott Greening: All right, everybody, Brooke has helped us with another concept here on understanding creating urgency. But as we've mentioned a couple of times already, this is just one part of her service sales framework. And if you're wondering, like, "I think I might start to get this part, but I'm not quite so sure about the others," or, "I even want to know how I'm doing on this part," we'd encourage you to take her service sales assessment, and you can do that at buildingmomentum.info/assessment.
It'll take you about five minutes or so, and then you'll get some great, uh, responses back on what parts of the service sales framework have some opportunities for you to, to either improve and to step into that so that you can make some more sales. Brooke, we've, we've hinted at it, we've talked about it a little bit, we're moving into the final part of the service sales framework.
We've been going through these different parts, about three episodes on each. We're to the last one: explain next steps.
Brooke Greening: Yeah. I love this one. This goes back to my Sunrise Senior Living days because we would have these conversations. We would actually do a health assign- assessment with these, uh, seniors, and we would be talking to the family, and we'd say, "Okay, this is the, these are the problems we found.
These are the things that you're needing. Are we ready to move forward?" And we would have clear next steps for them, and that's what we're going to be talking about. It's so easy to try to just say, "Okay, this is what we're going to do," and they're excited to be able to move forward. But if those next steps are not crystal clear, it's going to be really hard to keep moving things forward
Scott Greening: All right.
To make sure that you don't miss that episode, we encourage you to subscribe to the podcast or to follow us on YouTube, turn those notifications on. We'd love to hear from you through a review or a comment any of those types of things. You can find all of the links for all the different platforms and that or the RSS feed at our website, buildingmomentum.info/matcha is where you get all the podcast info, and you can head there and let us know your question that we might use on a future episode.
Brooke, uh, what's your final thought as we wrap up this part of the service sales framework?
Brooke Greening: Just as we're talking about creating urgency, you don't have to pressure customers into acting today. You want to first help them see what's possible. You want to be able to connect that to the timing that we need in regards to do that, and then we're going to start giving them direction on those steps to be able to accomplish that.
That's what creating healthy urgency looks like. You don't have to pressure them. You don't have to be a jerk, and you're actually serving them and helping them to make a confident decision instead of just trying to be passive about it, and that's what we want to be able to avoid.
Scott Greening: All right. Thanks for helping us think about this in a little bit of a different way.
We hope all of you make some more sales. Until the next time, and you have a great day.
Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.
