About 10 years ago, I was Vice President of Sales for a manufacturer. It was a Monday morning of the last week of the quarter, and we were about 20 percent short of our number – not a good spot for me.
Fortunately, we had a fat pipeline of business scheduled to close over the next few months. As we were brainstorming in our conference room, the term “create a sense of urgency” kept being said; in fact, we came up with an idea to create a sense of urgency with our VAR partners, convincing them to issue orders right now instead of next quarter.
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Our brilliant plan? We were going to remind them about our long lead time, and offer to guarantee their order would be delivered on time next quarter if they placed their order before this quarter ended. This wasn’t a lie. Our lead times were very long compared to other manufacturers; however, the purpose of our calls was not to help them next quarter – our intention was to help ourselves this quarter. But it just didn’t feel right.
So, I asked my team a question: “What if they don’t care? What if we asked them to order our equipment early to guarantee on-time delivery and they say: ‘That’s ok, we don’t need your stuff until the end of the installation.’ What are you going to say then?” My question was followed by complete silence, and then some laughter.
That’s when it happened – I came up with one of the most novel ideas I’ve ever had. I suggested this crazy concept: “Let’s tell them the truth.”
The Value of the Truth
Once I had a directive, we called every one of our partners that had orders scheduled to close the next quarter, and simply said: “I need a favor. We need a few extra orders to hit our number this quarter. Can you issue the xyz order a few weeks early?” That was it. That’s all we did – and it worked. We had to extend terms, but we reached our sales goal that quarter, and we did not sell our souls.
We didn’t even have to offer discounts in most cases. We told the truth, and wow – it worked!
When you hear your boss or co-worker suggest that you “create a sense of urgency,” think about the above story; and instead try being transparent and telling the truth.
When you try to create a false sense of urgency, you seem dishonest, and it will just make you seem desperate. If you are selling widgets for $75, knock yourself out and create all the urgency you’ want; however, if you are competing for five- or six-figure opportunities, you better present yourself as a confident professional that doesn’t rely on 1980s closing techniques.
Whatever your scenario is, tell the truth. If you need a status update for your boss, let your prospect know that “I have a meeting with my boss tomorrow and would like to give him an update on our proposal.”
If your numbers from your manufacturers are expiring, let your prospect know, and be prepared to deliver the new pricing. If you are curious about the order, just tell your point of contact that you are curious.
And finally, if you need one more order to win a trip to Tahiti, let them know. These are not ideal scenarios (except the Tahiti thing), but handling them in a transparent manner is 100-times better than trying to create a fake sense of urgency.
Chris Peterson is the founder and president of Vector Firm (www.vectorfirm.com), a sales consulting and training company built specifically for the security industry. To request more info about the company, visit www.securityinfowatch.com/12361573.
