You will be able to find out whether a buyer has a reason to act now or is only curious.
Before your next sales meeting, write this question at the top of your notes: "What made you take this meeting now, rather than six months ago?" Ask it early in the conversation and write down the answer in the buyer's own words. It tells you more about whether the deal will move than almost anything else you will hear.
Most people who sell have had a meeting go well and then stall. The buyer was open, the problem was real, you worked out its cost together and they agreed with everything you said. Afterwards they didn't reply to your meeting summary, or they sent a friendly note saying they would get back to you after the quarter, or three months later they were still "thinking about it". In many of these cases the buyer had a real problem but no urgency, which is a reason the buyer has to act by a certain time. Without it, fixing the problem later feels as good to them as fixing it now.
There are three sources. A deadline is a date that forces a decision, such as a contract running out, a licence expiring, a financial year closing or a policy needing renewal. An event is something that changes the situation: a new outlet opening, a baby on the way, an experienced staff member leaving, a merger or a move. A growing cost is a problem that gets worse the longer it runs, for example errors piling up, a backlog growing, or a savings gap that gets harder to close each year.
Anything you offer as the seller sits outside these three. A discount that ends Friday gives you a reason to want a decision, but it gives the buyer no reason to change anything, and buyers can tell the difference. Urgency that comes from the buyer's own situation lasts, while urgency you manufacture lasts only until the discount ends.
The question at the top of your notes is the most useful one you can ask about urgency, because it is about timing. People almost always have an answer, even if they hadn't noticed it before you asked, since something in their situation changed and brought them to the meeting.
When Joel, who owns a cafe, is asked why now, he says his accountant gave him a deadline: she needs clean records by the end of March, or she will charge extra for the year. You would file that as a deadline. Rachel, the operations manager you met in module 3, says her business is adding a night shift in a couple of months and she can't imagine doing the overtime for it by hand. Her answer counts as an event and also as a growing cost.
A vague answer such as "I've just been meaning to look into it" is still worth having. Follow it up gently with "What made it rise to the top of the list this month?" and listen for the trigger underneath, which is often a conversation with a friend, a bad week or a near miss. Once you have an answer, sort it as a deadline, an event, a growing cost, or a mix of them.
Your second question looks forward: "If nothing changes over the next year, what happens?" After you ask it, let the buyer answer fully and don't help them along. The most honest part of the answer often comes in the silence after the question, and Lesson 6.2, "Use silence instead of filling it", explains why this happens.
Wei Ling, the adviser from module 2, put this question to Marcus and Jia Hui. Marcus said, "Probably nothing much." Jia Hui then said they would be another year older with nothing saved, and that they wanted to try for a baby next year, after which Marcus went quiet. It was the first time the couple had said this out loud together.
The question works because the buyer pictures the cost of standing still using their own facts. A serious answer tells you the urgency is real. If the answer is "probably nothing much" and it stays that way after a pause, you have learned something useful as well.
When there's no urgency, nurture the buyer and hold back from pushing. Pushing someone with no reason to act now rarely works: at best they agree to a proposal they never act on, and at worst they feel pressured and stop replying. In both cases you spend hours on a deal that won't close this quarter.
Nurturing means staying useful without asking for a decision. Agree a sensible time to check in, ideally tied to something in the buyer's world. For a buyer whose lease is up next year, you could offer to get in touch around September, before they start looking at options. If you have something helpful to send in between, send it. Sales foundations lesson 6.3, "Knowing when to stop and how to leave the door open", covers the follow-up side of this. After that, move your time to buyers who do have a reason to act. Lesson 7.2, "Disqualify early and say so kindly", takes this idea further.
You may sometimes see a deadline the buyer hasn't mentioned, such as a child starting university in three years or a main business contract coming up for renewal. Bring it up as a question so the buyer can decide whether it matters to them. With a parent whose daughter is in secondary three, you might ask, "Has the university fund come up in your conversations yet?" If they take it up, it becomes their urgency. If they don't, leave it there and make a note to come back to it later.
Before you try the question in a real meeting, think back to your last two or three meetings that stalled after a good first conversation, and ask yourself whether you ever found out why the buyer wanted to act now.
Write the two urgency questions you will ask in every discovery meeting, and decide what you will do when the answers show no urgency.
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