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Register now for Bridging Heart and Marketing —
the first-ever soft sell Internet marketing conference.
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The need to create urgency in the prospect’s mind is a core belief in the sales industry.

Simply put — no urgency, no sale!

If the prospect leaves your store (offline or online) they are never coming back. So you’d better do something to fire up their nervous system or they will not take action and you lose. That’s dogma in traditional sales.

But it is true that urgency does galvanize the need to make a decision, and that need definitely does facilitate sales. The question is — where is the source of that urgency? In the seller’s need or the buyer’s.

If the sales person believes that he or she must get a result right now or else, there’s an inherent, sometimes conscious, oftentimes unconscious desperation that creates reckless, non-thinking, certainly non-listening behavior. The seller’s urgency is imposed on the buyer which subtly decreases the value of the product and ratchets up the fear of loss.

That kind of urgency causes the buyer to recoil in self-protection, standing up to resist the pressure, and with good reason.

But, what if the urgency was centered in the buyer — in a pressing problem that needs to be solved, or an intense desire that wants to be fulfilled? Urgency from inside the buyer calling out for action. What then?

It’s true that there’s a need to complete the sale now — but not from the seller’s desperation, from the buyer’s need for resolution.

The buyer is looking for a sincere connection, a feeling that he or she is being heard and understood. And it’s the seller’s primary job to listen, to identify the urgency, and to guide the buyer to a resolution that is believable and effective.

That means the seller talks less, listens a whole lot more, and works to create that connection. It’s the connection, not the features or benefits, not the discounts or the scarcity scares, not the hype or the spin that is the actual the bottom-line. From there the money follows.

But, very often, when sellers try to create urgency in the prospect’s mind, which is, itself, an abuse, what do they do?

The create limitation using the:

Quantity Scare — “We have only so many left.” Often it’s not true.

Time Scare — “If you don’t buy by midnight tonight the deal is off.” Have you ever wondered if you showed up the day after the deadline with check in hand would the seller refuse your money?

Offer Scare — “You can only get this bonus package until Midnight tonight.”

Price Scare — “40% off . . . today only.”

The whole transaction is mired in limitation while all the talk around it is about abundance and the reward of owning the product..

And what does limitation breed if not more limitation. So there’s another layer of desperation created by the “tested and proven” tactics of creating urgency from the outside.

Urgency is real. It’s in the buyer’s need.

Trying to create urgency in the prospect’s mind is an illusion, because it’s false and inevitably backfires (even if you make the sale). It cuts into and wounds the psyche and spirit of both parties and leaves a sour taste for the whole process.

So, if you’re a soft sell marketer who prefers a more inclusive, emotionally connected business relationship with your prospects and customers — you’re invited to register for a free series of 10 tele-calls previewing our “Bridging Heart and Marketing” Internet conference that takes place February 22, 23, 24 at the Westin Los Angeles Airport. We’ll be sharing the soft sell wisdom of world-class Internet marketers. Just click on:
http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com — and join us.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 1:38 am and is filed under Bridging Heart and Marketing. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.