Continuing with our series on Urgency, today I’d like to talk about Urgency and your emotions. Jim Sasena, my director of operations at Objective Management Group, called my attention to the following matrix:

Urgency	Calm	Stressed
Strong	Good	Bad
Weak	Bad	Bad

So let me address this table.  Clearly, if the urgency isn’t there, the result will not be good either way.  However, even with strong urgency, if you are also emotional, like:

• I need to pay my bills
• I don’t want to lose my job
• I need to prove to my spouse I can succeed working on straight commission

or

• one of my parents is dying
• my spouse wants to leave me
• one of my children has been sick for weeks and we don’t know what is wrong
• I’ve been having anxiety attacks

…then your outcome will be bad.  Your urgency to start, move forward and close is important but you must also be under control.  When you present a very calm demeanor but you are fueled by urgency you’ll be effective.  When you present a stressed demeanor, you’ll be perceived as a high pressure salesperson who is only interested in yourself and you’ll be very ineffective.

Of course, strong urgency and a calm demeanor aren’t the only things you’ll need to achieve success.  You’ll need to follow the selling process, use the skills you’ve learned and not let weaknesses prevent you from doing the things you need to do on each phone or sales call.