“Troy, how do I get my prospect to move faster? My proposal’s been sitting on their desk for three weeks.” I hear some version of this question constantly. The deal looks good. The buyer likes you. Everything seems aligned. And then… nothing. Radio silence. The whole process stalls out.
So the salesperson tries to go back and “create urgency.” They start pushing. Offering discounts for quick decisions. Talking about how much money the prospect is losing every day they don’t act. Trying to manufacture pressure. The problem is that you can’t create urgency that doesn’t exist. And by the time you’re trying to, it’s already too late.
The Sale Was Lost in Investigation
Remember my principle: 80% of your chance to win or lose the sale is determined by the time you ask your last question. That happens in the Investigation phase of the Buyer’s Journey – not at Decision, where you’re trying to create urgency.
If your proposal is sitting on someone’s desk gathering dust, the problem isn’t that you failed to create urgency at the end. The problem is that you failed to discover and understand their actual timeline and priorities during Investigation. The buyer has already made a decision, and that decision is: this doesn’t warrant action right now. Maybe it never will. And all the fancy objection-handling techniques in the world won’t change that. You can’t close your way out of a problem you questioned (or more appropriately, didn’t question) your way into.
Where Urgency Actually Comes From
Urgency exists – or it doesn’t – in the Motivation and Investigation phases.
At Motivation, something creates dissatisfaction with the status quo. A problem is costing money. A competitor is gaining ground. An opportunity is slipping away. Employees are complaining. Customers are threatening to leave. That dissatisfaction creates energy that drives the rest of the buying process. No dissatisfaction, no energy. No energy, no urgency.
At Investigation, the buyer is trying to understand the problem more clearly – what’s actually wrong, what’s causing it, what the implications are, what needs to change. This is where genuine urgency gets defined and prioritized – or where it dissipates because the problem isn’t as significant as initially thought. Rushing through this step (which all too many salespeople do) is ignoring 80% of your ability to win the sale.
If you’re presenting solutions before you’ve thoroughly investigated the problem and its urgency, you’re gambling that urgency exists. And if it doesn’t, your proposal will sit there.
The Questions That Uncover Urgency
Here’s what you need to discover during Investigation – and notice, these are all questions for the customer to answer, not statements for you to make:
Does it genuinely benefit them to act sooner? Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. We’re always in love with the benefits of our products, and we always think sooner is better. But does the prospect feel that way? Is there a genuine advantage to acting now versus later? This is one of those moments where it helps immensely to think like the customer; would you act if you were the customer?
What’s the cost of inaction? Does your prospect have a goal to reach, and what you’re selling is essential to reaching it? Is something happening right now that’s costing money each day it continues? Is the problem creating regular complaints from employees or customers?
Are there barriers to implementation? Do departments need reorganization? Facilities renovated? New staff hired? If your prospect genuinely can’t use – or can’t maximize the use of – your solution yet, you serve them better by helping them plan the staged implementation rather than pushing for a premature decision.
What are the overall corporate priorities? Even if there’s urgency within a department, there might be other priorities the company wants to address first. Maybe they’re revamping their production plant to handle elevated sales, and your financial software – however valuable – isn’t the most urgent priority right now.
Understanding the overall context of the sale is one of the greatest weaknesses I see in salespeople. It’s hard to recognize that your solution lives within the scope of your customer’s entire business, not at the center of it.
The Customer Has to Articulate It
This is critical: The customer has to articulate the consequences of not acting and the benefits of acting sooner. Not you. If you’re telling them they need to act now, it won’t work. If they’re telling you why they need to act now, you have a shot. Contentions only become fact in the sales process when the customer either states them or agrees that your contentions are statements of fact.
A good friend refers to this as “their window being open.” The customer can have needs. You can have the perfect solution. But if their window – their timing – isn’t open, you’re throwing rocks at a closed window. Sure, sometimes you can break the window. But have you ever seen a window owner be delighted that you broke it?
The Tired Tactics Don’t Work Anymore
“If you buy today, it’s at this price, but if you buy next week, the price goes up.”
I tried this crap when I was a brand new car salesman – and customers shoved it down my throat. “So, if I call back Monday and want to buy this car at that price, you won’t sell it to me for that?” they asked, knowing full well that I would. It only took two instances of that happening for me to banish that technique from my repertoire forever. And yet, I still see it being used.
Modern buyers see through this garbage. They know you’re manufacturing pressure. And it makes them uncomfortable. Remember: comfortable customers buy. Pressured customers delay, ghost, or buy from someone who doesn’t make them feel manipulated. What you can do is discover, channel, and accentuate urgency that already exists. You cannot create it from nothing.
The Equation for a Sale to Happen
Need (articulated by customer) + Solution (articulated by salesperson and agreed to by customer) + Timing = Sale
All three elements have to be present. Two out of three doesn’t close deals. If the timing isn’t right – if their window isn’t open – the sale won’t happen. Not because you failed at closing. Because you didn’t discover during Investigation that the timing wasn’t aligned.
When the Sale Still Doesn’t Happen
Even if you do everything right – conduct thorough Investigation, discover genuine urgency, align your solution with their timeline – the sale still sometimes won’t happen.
Because we sell to human beings. Priorities shift. Budgets get redirected. Decision makers leave. Unforeseen circumstances arise. But this approach gives you the best shot. It surfaces timing issues early, when you can still qualify out or adjust your approach. It prevents you from wasting weeks on proposals that were never going to move forward. And it positions you as a consultant who understands their business rather than a salesperson trying to manufacture pressure.
Navigating Urgency
Stop trying to create urgency at the Decision phase. Start discovering it at the Investigation phase.
Ask questions designed to understand their actual timeline and priorities. Surface the real consequences of inaction. Understand the barriers to implementation. Get clarity on where your solution fits within their overall business priorities. And let the customer articulate why acting matters – or doesn’t.
If urgency genuinely exists, your thorough Investigation will uncover it and your proposal will align with it. If urgency doesn’t exist, you’ll discover that too – and you can decide whether to invest more time or move on to opportunities where the window is actually open.
You can’t create urgency. But you can discover it, understand it, and build your entire sales approach around it.
That’s not manipulation. That’s professional selling.
