Guest blog written by: Chelsea Quint, The Business Whisperer

By now we’ve all felt it.

Consumer skepticism is high, trust and safety are low, and buying cycles are taking longer than ever. Like… offers that used to fill every time you announced spots are getting half the traction they used to. Launches feel like they need to be 2-3x longer. People are decoding sales pages like a Taylor Swift IG post and coming with more questions than ever before. 

Which means being able to create natural, empathy-driven urgency? That’s what’s going to make or break your sales right now.

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve heard the term ‘Trust Recession’ thrown around all over these internet streets.

No matter which industry you’re in, what you sell, or how much you charge, there’s been a shift in the way people are buying, and that means we’ve got to get into a different relationship with the way we’re selling.

The problem? Most small business owners have no idea how to create urgency that doesn’t make them cringe.

The standard urgency tactics are things like early bird pricing, flash sales, limited spots or bonuses only available during a certain time.

Things that create a reason why someone should buy your offer now, instead of next month, or next year, or never.

Problem is, with these tactics, we’re manufacturing the reason. And the people can feel it.

On a pure strategy level, there’s nothing wrong with that. Sales happen, prices change, bonuses come and go. It’s just part of business.

But with people feeling so burned out on these manufactured strategies, they don’t work as well as they once did.

The other issue? Relying on these tactics means you’re locking yourself into only being able to make money when you’ve got one of these bells and whistles.

But you can make money anytime, anywhere, once you know how to create the kind of natural, hella strategic, empathy-driven urgency that starts with one question…

Why now?

Why should your people hire you to write their sales page, design their website, set up their private podcast, create their email newsletter strategy, or insert-your-thing-here, and why should they buy now instead of later?

The answer, of course, isn’t going to be the same throughout the whole year.

Sure, there are some things that work as 100% evergreen why now angles.

Hire me to write your sales page now because you’ll finally get the sales you’ve been missing out on.

Hire me to design your website so you can start building the brand awareness and authority needed to reach your personal and professional goals.

But the juiciest, most compelling ‘why now’ angles? They go deeper by tapping into a little tool I call Emotional Scheduling.

Emotional Scheduling is the concept of matching your marketing to the emotional and psychological rhythms your audience experiences throughout a season, a month, a quarter, or even a day.

It’s rooted in understanding your best fit buyer’s psychology and the temporal landmarks that influence the way they’re thinking, feeling, and acting.

When you use Emotional Scheduling to build your sales and marketing strategy, you shift from asking, ‘What should I sell in Q4?’ to ‘What are my best fit people feeling, craving, and thinking in Q4?’

Let’s look at an example to see what this looks like in the wild.

Say you’re a web designer who typically sells website rebrand projects. Standard urgency might be “Book by Friday and save $500” or “2 spots available next month, book now.”

But when you look at your clients’ Emotional Schedule in November?

You’d notice they’re coming into the holidays, wondering where October went. They want to take time off to travel and rest but worry they won’t be able to hit their sales goals if they do. They feel behind, almost like it’s a mantra running through their head. They realize the website they promised themselves they’d handle “later” is now actively costing them opportunities. They’re watching the people who trigger them on IG announce new offerings with gorgeous sales pages  while their own site still has that done-is-better-than-perfect home page from 2023.

That’s your why now.

Your messaging shifts from “limited time offer” to “You’ve been putting this off, and it’s cost you six months of visibility, credibility, and clients who chose someone else because they looked more established.”

You’re not manufacturing urgency. You’re naming what’s already happening in their world, making them feel seen, and naming the clear reason that acting now benefits them more than waiting. 

This is how you create the “OMG this is exactly what I needed right now” effect that has your people feeling a genuine need to buy what you’re selling asap. 

It’s how you sell on evergreen, no matter what or when you’re selling. 

It’s how you create the natural urgency that frees you from relying on the old-school tactics we typically see inside of launches and standard sales campaigns.

Now, a real quick aside to note that I’m not shaming anyone for using some of those tactics. I absolutely use sales, early bird pricing, and bonuses inside of the way I sell, and there is nothing inherently wrong with these things.

But when those are the only way you’re able to drive sales and fill our offers, you’re locking yourself into a business model that isn’t super sustainable, and one that’s going to struggle as long as we’re living inside of the trust recession.

So how exactly do we create this whole natural urgency thing? Let’s break it down into two parts…

Define Your People’s Emotional Schedule.

This is where you identify the psycho-emotional landscape of your best-fit people as it relates to your offer over the next 30-90 days. You can use info from client calls and messages, conversations happening online or in communities you’re a part of, or just your own genius imagination. I recommend either grabbing a pen and paper or voice-noting into your favorite AI, then answering the question “what are me people feeling, thinking, doing and not doing as it relates to my offer + offer promise during the next 30-90 days?” Yes, I know it’s a slightly clunky question, but I promise you’ll get good stuff.

Use Their Emotional Schedule to Answer ‘Why Now?’

Once you’ve got insight into what’s happening for your people, you can zoom in on the seasonal urgency that makes this the right moment for your people to buy what you’re selling. Again, I recommend pen and paper or voice-noting, depending on how you process best, then answer these questions…

• What’s happening in your buyer’s life, business, or environment that makes now the perfect time to buy, no matter when you’re selling?
• What do they risk or lose or miss when they wait?
• What life, business, or seasonal moments coming up tend to push your people to want change?
• What happens if they don’t move now?
• What are they waiting for that may never come?
• What patterns show up in their Emotional Schedule that make this the right time?

Use the insights you get from these angles when you want to inspire action without pushing fake scarcity or believing the lie that you need to launch to drive sales.

Because here’s what makes this approach so powerful for evergreen selling: your audience’s emotional landscape is always shifting. There’s always a why now, you just have to know where to look.

While everyone else is locked into launch calendars, you can sell any Tuesday in March because you understand what March means to your people. Fill your offers in July while your competitors stress about slow summer sales, because you know exactly what your buyers are dealing with.

And deep down, that’s all you ever needed to sell consistently. Know your people, what they’re dealing with, and how to show them you can help them now. No launches required.