One thing you can do to close more sales is to try to find a compelling event. A compelling event is a date of significance for the prospect regarding his or her need to purchase your product. For example, if the prospect is looking at replacing a current vendor and the current contract expires on December 31st, that date is a compelling event as the prospect likely needs to have the new vendor in place by December 31st.

When you know a prospect has a compelling event, this can help with closing because you can use the date to keep the prospect moving forward by creating a sense of urgency. For example, if a prospect is not replying to your emails, you could say something like this in your next email and voicemail message:

I noticed that I never heard back from you on my last two messages. No problem at all. I know you all are busy with your [project]. But you mentioned needing a replacement for your current vendor by December 31st.

If you want to continue exploring us as one of your replacement options, we will need to complete our [specific sales process step] by October 31st in order to keep everything on track to make sure you are switched over by your target date. With that, please let me know when you can jump on a quick call to discuss what direction makes the most sense from here.

Some good areas to look for compelling events are contracts expiring, current systems being discontinued, sites being opened or moved, changes in the company or organization, budgets expiring, etc. The best way to learn of compelling events is to ask questions that help you to learn what is going on with the prospect and many of the current environment and qualifying questions will help with that.

However, you may find yourself in a situation where there is absolutely no date of significance for the prospect in terms of when he or she needs to purchase your product. In this case, you can manufacture a compelling event by offering a discount or promotion that expires on a particular day. The expiration date for the discount will become a compelling event that you can use to create a sense of urgency to motivate the prospect to continue to move forward through the sales process.