Closing Technique of the Week: The Urgency Close

Have you ever wondered the number one reason why we make impulse buys? It’s simple. The answer is urgency! Or because you really needed that 15th Starbucks cup or that snuggie… well, whatever the true reason is urgency plays a major role. Urgency is defined as the importance requiring a swift action. Basically, there are reasons that cause us to make these swift decisions. Our job as sales assassins is to use or add urgency to help us close more sales. If urgency is used right it can be deadly and make you a ton of money.

You are going to want to master urgency and even become versed in it. Having more insight on it will give you a better understand of when and how to properly use it. Not only that but you can use multiple avenues of urgency throughout the sales process. You are not limited to using only one. Incorporating urgency into the buying cycle will set off alarms in your client's brain. It is an effective technique to get people to decide now.

5 Killer Ways to Use Urgency

1. Scarcity of inventory. If something is the last one or only one of its kind it makes people want it more. Some people even get possessive of it and decide right there on the spot. Having 10 left of a product creates no urgency. Having 1 left? Now that’s a different story! You can say something like “Great news! We have one _______ left! Want to go ahead and purchase it?” Sometimes this will be enough to close the deal. If it is not you have to go deep and ask if your client would be heartbroken if they came back and it was gone. Dive deep to see if they would and get them to do it now or put a deposit down to hold it. Any buy in is better than none. Now, I guarantee that you will get a rebuttal along the lines of “well if it wasn’t meant to be then it wasn’t meant to be.” I found it to be very effective to say “well if we are going off that then us having one left just for you is the perfect sign! Want to go ahead and do it anyway?” Give it a shot your clients won’t know what hit them!
2. Adding a timeline. Timeline is probably the most used way to create urgency. It may be the ending of a sale, promo, freebie, etc. Whatever the case may be this will cause people to pull the trigger. Break it down for you clients too. You can say something like “(name), deciding now vs. next week is the difference of $500 on the bottom line. Would you rather pay that $500 or just go ahead and do it? I mean you like the ______ don’t you?” Go deep for that close!
3. No better price. I learned this from a guy I worked with named Joe and he was a killer with it. He would use it all the time on holidays, sales, weekends, and ending the month but it only works when you have negotiation room, incentives, etc. All he would say is something like “Guys, this is it. I cannot get you a better price than right now. My manager is working special deals. We are at (insert deal, package, or price you are at), what would get you guys to pull the trigger right now?” He found some huge success with this and it is a hard close for sure but it creates mad excitement and urgency. But, people are buying anyway so why not buy from you?
4. The takeaway. This is where you can take away something that your client will miss out on. An example of this could include anything from a ‘rightnow price’, a perk of a package, a special freebie, etc. People want the whole experience and the whole package. If they are missing it they will have less confidence in their buying decision.
5. Regret or loss. Humans fear loss and will avoid it at all costs. I talk about it in my post here. Sometimes you have to paint a negative picture to get people to understand why they should do it now. For instance, in the furniture business, we experience all the time people holding off on parts of a complete set. Well, when they come back to complete the set a lot of the time it would no longer be available or discontinued. This would devastate people and devalue their current set or even make it obsolete for their current needs. Get people to buy the whole set now and problem solve if that is an issue. You should always provide solutions more on why here.

What to Watch Out For

People can sense bullshit a mile away. I have seen the urgency close blow up in people’s faces when not used correctly like fireworks on the 4th of July. That’s the true American dream right there… But in all seriousness if you go to each client and hit them with a now or never price you will most likely fail. First, remember that getting someone to buy isn’t about the price it’s about the perceived value in whatever you are selling. Second, no one wants to be forced into things and a good amount of unprepared salespeople try to force it.

Using the takeaway approach is sometimes a scorched Earth strategy. What that means is, if your client decides not to do the ‘now only’ price they will not come back if they miss their window. Sometimes you push away business that just needs a little more time in their decision making process. As much as we try to take time out of the equation you cannot force everyone to buy. No reason on closing the door for future business for those ones who walk.

Please comment your favorite learn from the Urgency Close? For more help on closing techniques check out some of my favorite techniques here, here, or here. You should have an arsenal of closes ready to be used at any moment! It will get you to closing more sales. Please share this post and subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss out on any content that could get you to making six figures or more! See what I did there? ;)

www.codycameron.com

Go now and be assassins with the close!

-Cody Cameron