In today’s selling environment, creating a sense of urgency in buyers seems to be rising to the top of the list for the top-selling professionals. The important question seems to be learning how to accomplish this.
Retailers are learning how to better do this as well. Black Friday has now turned into a contest to see who can open the soonest on Thanksgiving. We will learn more about this shortly.
The definition of “urgency” is “an impulse that impels…” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). So from a sales perspective, we are looking to create an impulse in a prospect that will impel them to buy something from us, and soon.
Back to Black Friday…this was first called Black Friday in 1932 and has, for many years, been the largest shopping day of the year. Urgency was created by retailers with low price. People stand in line for hours waiting for a low price — not good service, or even quick delivery. All they care about is the lowest price. No one could ever beat Black Friday pricing, right?
I would have agreed with you until 2005, 73 years after Black Friday, when Cyber Monday was invented. In 2014, Cyber Monday overtook Black Friday as the No. 1 shopping day, where the most money is spent.
So somehow, urgency was created to wait a few extra days and purchase on Monday in lieu of the previous Friday. While price is important, there are other factors that need to be considered when trying to create urgency. We’ll list some of them here:
Fear of loss – Think about what might be the best tool you have to create a sense of urgency, the fear of loss. People line up at the large retail stores hours ahead to save money on a gadget that is sure to run out. People sleep in tents to get tickets to a concert. How can you get this same sense of urgency for your product?
Anticipation of gain – This is a close relative to the “fear of loss.” Do they sleep in the tent for fear of loss, or in the anticipation of gaining the tickets? For those who look at the glass half full, this applies to them. Both are effective when used correctly.
Buyers are emotionally driven and intellectually justified. That means that you need to have both emotion and intellect involved in the selling process. Leaning on one or the other too heavily will disrupt the flow. Remember, people buy emotionally, but they make decisions intellectually.
Get them involved and engaged. The more that you involve or engage your prospect, the more that they are likely to buy, especially if there seems to be more than one person vying for the same product. Whatever you are selling, get them to use it, touch it, try it, or have them imagine themselves using it.
Help them understand the cost of waiting. Have this information clear in your head. Let them know that time is money and that the longer they wait, the more time and effort could be wasted.
Don’t push them to buy anything, but rather push them out of their procrastination. How often are people not buying just because they procrastinate? We need tools to help us move them off the dead center of their decision-making process and help them discover why today is a great day to purchase what you are selling.
Take them to the future. Sitting there with the prospect, help them understand what life would be like in the future if they did not purchase your product. Also, help them understand what it would be like if they had your product. But be realistic here. If you are overly dramatic, you will lose some of the buys who are more factual than emotional.
I hope that this will help you better understand how to increase urgency in a buyer’s mind. Just for fun, and to create a sense of urgency with you, if you are one of the first five people who reply to me via e-mail, I will personally hand-craft a list of ways to create urgency specific to your industry.
Send your request using our Contact Us page and label it Urgent: I need the list, and I will handle it from there, but don’t delay, as the sixth person to send me the email will not get in on the deal!