Why Speed Isn’t Always in Your Control
One of sales’ biggest challenges? Creating urgency when the buyer doesn’t feel it.
In this week’s episode, Mark Hunter and Meridith Elliott Powell unpacked the real rules of speeding up deals. In the current marketplace, pushing harder rarely works. Instead, the win comes from understanding, influence, and simplifying the path for the buyer.
“You can influence a deal to move faster, but you cannot make a deal move faster.” —Meridith Elliott Powell
Influence, Not Force
Many sellers believe they control the pace, or at least should. That’s yesterday’s sales, as Meredith Elliott Powell made clear. The modern buyer is global, distracted, and confronted with choices. Our job is to uncover urgency, not manufacture it from thin air.
“You got to understand what is the buying process that the customer has.” —Mark Hunter
Knowing who makes the decision and how that decision happens is critical. Too many deals stall simply because the real decision maker was left out of the conversation.
Uncovering Real Urgency
The truth: only a buyer’s true priorities unlock action. Mark reminded us, “Nobody solves a problem unless it’s their number one or number two problem.” You must ask questions early, like, “How have you made decisions like this in the past?” Then listen for every name, every committee, every process, so you’re never surprised by a sudden stall.
Sometimes “urgency” just isn’t there. Meridith shared a story of pitching a speaker engagement that was important, but not urgent, for her prospect. No strategy could turn it into a today decision when their actual need was future-focused.
“Doubling down on return on investment breaks through buyer inertia… Show a risk-free, bottom-line benefit to making a move now.” —Meridith Elliott Powell
ROI: The Ultimate Accelerator
When the only urgency comes from you—not the buyer—you’ll lose. Instead, become relentless about ROI. Lay out the upside. Paint the risk of inaction. Demonstrate that waiting could cost them more than moving.
“Urgency occurs when the customer realizes that they have to make this move now because otherwise they are at a greater risk.” —Mark Hunter
Simplify, Remove Friction, and Win
Speed happens when complexity fades away. The best sellers make it “ridiculously easy to do business with,” as Meridith puts it. Eliminate extra steps. Do the heavy lifting for your buyer. The less work required, the faster decisions get made—especially if your buyers are juggling a dozen other priorities.
When a deal stalls, avoid desperate follow-ups. Nurture with value: new insights, relevant articles, even reminders of their own words and goals. Use the buyer’s language and keep focus on what matters to them, not on why you want the deal closed.
Recommended Reading
This week’s pick: The JOLT Effect by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna
Packed with research, it outlines how to create urgency by jolting buyers out of inertia without resorting to hard-selling tactics.
Lightning Round: 10 Ways to Know a Deal is Dead
- You never get to engage the real decision-maker.
- They never respond on their own initiative—only when you reach out.
- Priorities have shifted, maybe because of a merger or acquisition.
- They keep asking for changes but never make a decision.
- The original urgent need or timeline has passed.
- They do not respond, no matter the channel.
- Communication is infrequent and delayed.
- You hear they’re shopping proposals but never get feedback.
- They don’t let you help solve obstacles or set new meetings.
- They’ve never shared how your solution fits into their bigger strategic picture.
Creating urgency is about more than pressure. It’s about alignment, understanding, and serving as the peer buyers need you to be. That sets the stage for true momentum and deals that actually close.
The following was transcripted by AI and may contain semantical errors.
Mark Hunter [00:00:00]:
When we prospect with integrity, we will get customers who have integrity. Integrity is the foundation from which everything is built on.
Meridith Elliott Powell [00:00:12]:
You better understand value. But at the end of the day, sales is a relationship business. It is a people business. It is emotional business.
Mark Hunter [00:00:36]:
This is sales logic.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:00:42]:
This is sales logic. I’m hanging out here with my partner, Mark Hunter. It is 8am Saturday morning, one of our favorite times of the week, because it is the time of the week that we get to talk sales. Now, Mark, we got some good news this week.
Mark Hunter [00:00:55]:
We do. You know, earlier this year, we picked up several awards, top sales podcasts and so forth. But we got some great news from Spotify yesterday. We’re like busting the tops of the chart numbers off, thanks to you, the all of the listeners. I mean, it’s amazing the numbers we’re getting. So thank you.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:01:12]:
Yeah, yeah, Spotify, we just ranked right up there at the top. And I could not agree more, Mark. It is thanks to our listeners. So with that, let’s give the listeners what they want and let’s dive into today’s topic.
Mark Hunter [00:01:24]:
You’re right, it’s not about us. It’s about you, the listener. The topic today is new rule for buyer urgency, getting deals to move faster. We got a great book, we got a question, and the lightning round Top 10 Ways to Know a deal is dead dark. Dark. So, hey, Top. What, What? How do you get a deal to move faster? Because again, it is. I mean, it is all about moving fast.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:01:52]:
Yeah. You know, I think one of the most important things is to understand in today’s marketplace, you can influence a deal to move faster, but you cannot make a deal move faster. I think that’s probably fundamentally one of the most important thing that sales professionals understand today. For anybody who’s been in the industry a long time, you have to understand that you don’t control the marketplace anymore. You know, when I started out in sales, I had about three or four competitors in my town. And now they’re global, they’re all over the place. They’re in alternative industries. So it’s important, I think, when we talk about creating urgency, that we’re understanding we need to influence that urgency, but.
Mark Hunter [00:02:33]:
We have to keep urgency in the back of our mind. And one of the ways we do this is you got to understand what is the buying process that the customer has. I see this all the time. I get to work with a lot of SaaS companies and so forth, and they’ll have this deal coming across the table. And then, then they said, oh, well, we didn’t realize that it’s got to go to this committee or that committee. That’s failure on the part of the salesperson to understand what are all of the elements of the sales buying process at the beginning, early on. Uncover all that early on. Because otherwise how will you ever begin to timeline out what it might be to actually get this deal?
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:03:14]:
Yeah, you’ve got to know, I mean, to your point, you’ve got to know that you, you’ve got to know everybody who’s involved in that buying process. I can’t tell you how often early on I would go through an entire sales call and I was not with decision maker. And you know, and what, what a, you know, to some degree it was a waste of my time and energy because I wasn’t pitching the right person. Where I think another place to, to kind of elevate this sense of urgency is if you are not dealing with a decision maker, see what you can do that you sell to the decision maker and not the person that you are engaging with. Like, meaning offer to help them, to support them. If nothing else, shoot a video that can be showed to the decision maker. Because nobody sells your product or service better than you do. And if you turn it over to the person who’s got to pitch the committee or pitch the executive leadership, they’re not going to be as passionate about what you do.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:04:12]:
They’re not going to be as relevant, they’re not going to be as, as, as smack on as to how your product and service can solve the problem.
Mark Hunter [00:04:21]:
You know, that goes back to the whole thing that right at the beginning of the process, you’ve got to ask the customer the question, how have you made decisions like this in the past? I love asking that in the prospecting phase, even when you really haven’t even qualified them yet. Here’s why. They’re relaxed, they’re, they’re a little more forthcoming and they’re going to share with you information and that’s absolutely key. And you ask them a question, how have you made decisions like this in the past? And I’m listening for every name that they say, every committee, everything. And then I’m going to ask them a follow up question on that. Have you made decisions like this in the past? In other words, have you made decisions? Because so many times what happens is you could be in there talking to the customer and they’re really interested, but they’ve never gone down this path before. They’re brand new. They don’t have the, they don’t have the weight in order to make that happen.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:05:16]:
So yeah, I love what Bryn is saying here. She said, I believe you can’t create bio urgency, but you can uncover it. What a great distinction. When you follow chirp the challenge, what they’ve tried before, the impact today and the risk of staying saying the real priority surfaces on its own. Bryn, you and I are in total alignment. Because where I was going to go next is you have to uncover the difference between impact important and urgent. I’ll give you a great example. I had this sales call about six months ago where I blew the understanding of creating fire urgency is we went through the entire sales call.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:05:49]:
We went through everything. I understood everybody was going to be involved in the decision making process. But after, after we had some initial calls, the person that I was dealing with, who was the decision maker came back and said, you know, we’re still indecisive about the agenda. We’re not really sure what the top priority is going to be and in the next year. So booking me for a speaking engagement was not something they needed to do in the next two months. As long as they did it by the end of the year they were fine. So I was trying to create urgency with somebody who had an important task, but it wasn’t an urgent task.
Mark Hunter [00:06:26]:
That is so key because you got to understand what are their top priorities. And this is the key thing because. No, but you know, we’ve been talking about this on the show for years. Nobody solves a problem unless it’s their number one or number two problem. And if it isn’t, they’re just going to let it pass and that’s what you were experiencing. So again, we’ve got to understand strategically, tactically where the company is going From Natalie, I love this comment. It’s important to have a full pipeline so the delay doesn’t cause stress to your business because this is so key. If you’ve only got one deal in your pipeline, you’re trying to smoke it and it’s not going to work out well.
Mark Hunter [00:07:03]:
You’ve got to have multiple, multiple deals. That way you can take a little more objective approach to what’s really happening with the customer.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:07:11]:
Yeah, I love what Natalie is saying here. If you don’t have a pull up pipeline because if you don’t have a full pipeline, the only sense of urgency happening out there is your sense of urgency. And when you’re the one who’s urgent, the customer will not respond. Now I was thinking about a couple of ways that we can influence urgency and one of my favorites is to really double down, down and get really, really clear on return on investment, you know, almost making it a break even for any risk of hiring me. And the upside is that you will make money. Like, you know, for example, if you’re going to hire Mark or me for an SKO and you look at our fee to get on stage, what if you closed one deal? What if we could just get it across the finish line and you closed one more deal, chances are 10 of your audience members, half your audience is going to close more deals, but it’s a wash. So really doubling down on what is the return on investment you’re going to get for getting to this deal?
Mark Hunter [00:08:12]:
And, you know, there’s two things that happen there. Not only are you doing this to help educate the customer, because again, the customer’s got to understand because nobody buys anything. They invest. They invest. I don’t care if it’s B2B. I don’t care if it’s B2C. You know, whatever it’s they invest. But also by going through that ROI calculation, you, the salesperson, become more confident in terms of what it is that you are going to be able to deliver.
Mark Hunter [00:08:35]:
And that is absolutely key because again, what happens is the customer is now saying, okay, wait a minute. There is no downside to this urgency. Urgency occurs when the customer realizes that they have to make this move now because otherwise they are at a greater risk. When, when you have your proposition that if they don’t go with it, it becomes a greater risk to them, then you’ve got the sale. Now you’ve got urgency.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:09:05]:
Yeah, Irma, I’m excited. Coming your way too. I believe in March of, of next year. Natalie is saying the larger the project, the more key decision makers you need to be speaking with and create touch points that offer value with, with each of them. You know, another way that I, that I create a sense of urgency is to take all the friction out of process is to make it so ridiculously easy to do business with. I will do all the heavy lift. I had something, I talked, I spoke to a vendor last week of something I really want to buy, but they put the monkey completely on my back and I don’t know what it is. We’re recording this in December of, of 2025, and just the moment that December hits, I don’t know what it is.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:09:50]:
I don’t know why I work in December, but between that and holiday parties and everything that’s gone on, I’m in December, as most people are. If you require me to do Anything, I am not going to buy it. But had that vendor done the heavy lift for me, I have the sense of urgency. I just don’t have the time. And if they would take the heavy lift. So think about, you know, if you’re, if they’re not sealing the deal, how can you take the friction out of.
Mark Hunter [00:10:18]:
The buying process that comes back to this whole thing of simplifying what it is that you’re selling. It has to be so simple because if the customer can’t understand the outcomes that you’re going to create for them in less than one sentence, you, you have too complicated of an offer. It’s got to be absolutely simple. And when it is simple, it is. And here’s another question that you have, and this comes up at the end of the year a lot, but it comes up throughout the year. Got to understand what is the customer’s budget cycle? What is their budget cycle? Because again, if they, if, if what you sell has to be in their budget, and if it’s not in their budget, they can’t spend the money and they just concluded their budget, you know, developing the budget and you’re not in it, you’re going to be waiting for another 11 months or so. But however it may be their budget cycle, it’s every quarter they reassess and so forth. But again, understanding these questions, because when we talk about buyer urgency, many times buyers are making a decision because they do have money now.
Mark Hunter [00:11:16]:
They got money now, they got money now so they can buy. But, but most of the times it’s no, it’s not in the budget. But don’t hesitate to ask those questions early on.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:11:27]:
Yeah, I love what, what Gina’s saying here goes so well with what you’re talking about. You can focus your business on buyers who have urgent needs. I mean, brilliant, right? Like you’re trying to do that in the first discovery call because you’re trying to figure out, is this worth my time and is it worth my energy? Mark, what’s the question?
Mark Hunter [00:11:43]:
Yeah, because that sets up perfectly for. Comes from Philippe in Quebec. He says, I have three deals that made it to proposal stage, but all went silent. They said timing was good, budget was approved, now nothing. What’s the best way to recreate urgency without sounding desperate?
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:12:02]:
Yeah, that’s a, you know, that’s a really, really, that’s a really tough one. I, I think one thing to talk about is make sure you’re really at proposal stage. I can’t tell you how often than not. I just want to get off the Phone and so I’ll tell you to send me a proposal. Like you’re exhausting me by the conversation. So yeah, put together something and send it to me. So I think the first qualifier is were you really at proposal stage? And I think, you know, you’re really at proposal stage when you are very, very clear on what the problem is. They are very clear on how your product or service can solve that problem.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:12:44]:
And you have spelled out, as Bill Snow says down here, you have spelled out the return on investment.
Mark Hunter [00:12:51]:
It really does come back to. Because you can have a great proposal. Gee, it can look good and smell good and all. Like you said, just send me the proposal. Just in other words, just, I’m going to ignore it, I’m going to trash can it, but at least you know it’s that and budget was approved. But if it’s not urgent and this whole thing, you got to find out how is the urgency relative to time. Because again, if I can link my solution to other things that you have going on, you and I see this all the time. We get called in for SKO events and so forth and they want us to speak because they’ve got a major product launch, they’ve got something significant, they’ve got an acquisition there, they are doing things.
Mark Hunter [00:13:30]:
So they need us now because this other piece is going to happen immediately, right after, in other words, in the next month, next couple months. And this is all thing, link urgency to time and link it to something else downstream. And when you do that, you’re going to be able to find out whether or not your, your proposal really smells. Right. And the customer is going to buy it.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:13:53]:
Yeah. Now Philippe is asking what do you do when the proposal’s out there and it’s gone cold? There’s a lot of things you can do and you, but, but the worst thing you can do is send the email that says, you know, hi Mr. Customer, I’m just following up on the proposal to see if you have any questions or anything like that. I mean it’s clearly, clearly when customers do not respond, what are they telling you? They are telling you this is not urgent. All right? So that’s the first thing you need to understand. So your follow up system needs to be about getting them back up to an urgent level. So my favorite line to sell to, send to people when they go cold on me is I might reach out and I’ve got Terry Brock here on the screen right now. So I’ll use Terry as an example.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:14:40]:
I might say, Terri, I understand you have a lot on your plate. Please don’t worry about getting back in touch with me. I am going to stay in touch with you. So when the time is right, you can simply reach out, we can connect and we can talk about closing this deal or moving the deal further along or I can ask you questions and what I do with that line. The power of it is clearly Terry has a lot more on his plate than talking to me. So I have given him the permission not to respond to my emails, not to respond to my phone calls, which quite frankly at this point have gotten annoying. But I’ve also made sure that I’ve given myself permission to follow up and to stay visible. So when it does become urgent for Terry, he can do business with me.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:15:24]:
And now my follow up is going to be making it urgent for Terry.
Mark Hunter [00:15:29]:
Now I’m going to push back a little bit because if they go silent sometimes it’s because there’s, there’s multiple people that just have not had a chance to get together. Now you’re right, if it, if, if the house was on fire, they’d find a way to meet and they’d make a decision. Right. But a lot of times there’s just other stuff that gets in the way. So what I might gonna do, what I propose to do is that you follow back up and you send them some additional insights that create additional value for them. There may be additional information that you can share with them relative to their industry, their space, their big. You link something that you are going to be working with them on as to how it’s going to create some additional value but you bring them something additional. Now.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:16:10]:
Absolutely.
Mark Hunter [00:16:11]:
What I’m doing here is I’m, I’m just putting this out there because again. Oh wait, you’re right. Mark reached out. I need to go talk to so and so I need to go talk to. Oh, Meredith, reach out. I need it. And it just, and what it does is it has you coming across as a peer and this went good. But go back to what you said at the beginning.
Mark Hunter [00:16:32]:
The last thing you want to do is hey, I’m just checking in. That’s what you do at a hotel.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:16:36]:
No, well, I, and, and I also, you have to be very, very careful when like if they’re trying to get a lot of people together and you’re calling every other day, you’re annoying as you can be. Right. Like you’ve got to give them the space to be doing whatever it is that they’re doing and using your follow up to create more value and More sense of urgency. I think that follow up is an art far more than it is a science, and you really have to follow that. I think, Philippe, the most important thing that you need to understand is if you truly qualify the proposal on the front end. You truly did. The fact that these have gone cold probably has nothing to do with you. That person has a lot of other things on their plate.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:17:21]:
I just had one circle back to me. I’d use the exact formula that I just gave you. And, and I just sent her an article that I wrote about five strategies I have to boost your business before you’re in. And she’s reached back out. She said, I’m so sorry, I have been insane. If we could talk on January 2nd, that’d be perfect. I just can’t breathe until then. I want to get Terry’s comment in here.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:17:43]:
And then I know we’ve got to get to the book into the lightning round, but he says, find out their top priorities. More and more today, we can engage in sentiment analysis by leveraging AI tools. This helps find what, what our customers really are thinking. I love that. I mean, just using that to leveraging AI to really help you more intimately understand the business.
Mark Hunter [00:18:06]:
Hey, we got to put Bren’s comment up, up here too, because she comes, she comes in and says, hey, remind them of their own words. You’re right. This is why, why we use a transcript and so forth. There’s so many key elements here. When I can speak in the customer’s language, it is amazing at how much more I come across to them as a peer. And this is what’s absolutely key, because again, what you just did, you went with that potential customer, is you sent them an article you sent. Again, you’re creating additional value. This is what it is.
Mark Hunter [00:18:39]:
Let’s go back to something like that. There could be multiple people, there could be half a dozen people involved. This is why it’s so important. At the beginning of the sales process, you ask, hey, how have you made decisions like this in the past? I want to understand from a neutral standpoint, what, what are the steps that you go through? So I am aware this is absolutely key because this is going to keep you from getting blindsided. You do. Bill, I love your comment. You’ve got to spell out the ROI to the customer. Don’t hesitate, don’t hesitate to spell out the return on investment.
Mark Hunter [00:19:14]:
And if you can deliver a 20 to 1 ROI or a 10 to 1 or a 5 to 1 or a 3, you know, again, every industry, every opportunity is Different. Wow. And remember the ROI you create is many times because what you’re selling in is going to help create success for them in something else downstream. That’s absolutely key.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:19:34]:
Great. So the book this week is the Jolt Effect by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna. This is kind of like, and I’m going to call it an oldie but goodie, but it is, it’s a great book for, for a number of reasons. I mean there’s a lot of really good information in it but it helps you create and understand what it takes to, to influence urgency with customers.
Mark Hunter [00:19:59]:
And they’ve had done so much research behind it. Ted is a research wonk and Matthew Dixon, he’s a research Wong. Maybe not as quite as deep as Ted, but just an absolute brilliant individual. And they spell out the case and they really talk about it and it lines up so well with the topic we’ve been talking about here today. The jolt effect came out a couple of years, probably about three years ago now, but anyway. Hey, are you ready for the lightning round?
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:20:24]:
I am.
Mark Hunter [00:20:25]:
Oh well, some other comments. We got so many comments coming in, it’s absolutely fantastic. Thank you again. Lightning round Top 10 Ways to Know a deal is dead.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:20:35]:
This one was kind of challenging for me because a lot of times I don’t, sometimes I don’t always totally let a deal die. But let’s talk about it. I’d say number one, they never involve the real decision maker. Like you never get to engage like you’ve done the proposal, you’ve done everything but you’re never talking to decision makers.
Mark Hunter [00:20:54]:
Two, they are never responding on their time. In other words, the only communication, the only thing you ever get from it is when you’re reaching out to them.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:21:04]:
Yeah, they, they, they’re, you know, maybe they’ve been bought, maybe they’ve been sold, maybe they’ve merged or acquired so their priorities have shifted.
Mark Hunter [00:21:14]:
Number four, they continue to come back, hey, can you change this? Can you change this? Can you change that? And a lot of times all they’re doing is they, they, they, they’re just being too polite. They don’t want to tell you it’s dead. So they keep knee jerking you around.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:21:27]:
Yeah, you know, their, their urgent need like the timeline that you were focused on. It’s, it’s common, it’s come and gone like it’s, they’ve moved past that. A deal’s dead at that point.
Mark Hunter [00:21:37]:
Number six, they simply do not respond. I don’t care how you reach out to them, whether it be phone, whether it be Text, whether it be email, whatever, they just do not respond. And no matter what number of messages you leave, you hear crickets.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:21:52]:
Yeah, they, they really reduce any communication at all. Like it’s, they’re, they’re responding in really, it comes back. Like after you send an email, you get it in two to three weeks time, they respond back, they tell you, they continue to tell you that they’re working on something.
Mark Hunter [00:22:12]:
Number eight, you hear that they’re doing a Pillsbury Bake off where they’re bringing multiple people in to pitch their proposals and you were one of them. But then following up, you never hear a thing. That deal is dead. They went some other path.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:22:26]:
Yeah, one of my favorites is they don’t help you solve the problems. Like, if they tell you, well, I can’t, you know, everybody’s on vacation in December, that won’t be good. And you say, not a problem at all. Let’s just set something up right at the, you know, right at the first of the year. Or you say, I could get together, together with a smaller group in December and meet with the other group. If they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. If they won’t let you solve the obstacles, that deal is dead.
Mark Hunter [00:22:52]:
And number 10, they have never given you any indication as to why this is a priority in their company. They’re just taking the information. They’re just taking it, receiving it. But they’ve never shared with you any insights how it fits into their bigger picture. So, hey, great show today. Hey, if you’re having an SKO reach out, Meredith, myself, we’d love to come in. Or have both of us come in because again, that’s what we love doing. Getting up on stage and being able to share with sales teams.
Mark Hunter [00:23:19]:
With that, we want to say thank you for listening to Sales Logic this week. If you like what you hear, subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast app. Something we’ve said has earned you a single dollar. Consider telling a friend about our show because it’s how we grow when we help you grow. I’m Mark Hunter.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:23:35]:
And I’m Meredith Elliott Powell.
Mark Hunter [00:23:36]:
Remember, when you sell with confidence and.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:23:38]:
Integrity, all of this uncertainty suddenly becomes.
Mark Hunter [00:23:40]:
Your competitive advantage and the sale becomes logical.
Meredith Elliott Powell [00:23:44]:
All right, we’ll see you right back here next week for another episode of sales logic, 8:00am Eastern. Until then, go close the deal.