My Team Thought This Sounded Too Salesy
Zack AllenOctober 28, 20261:43
A real 1-on-1 about urgency, honesty, and nudging a client to move on a great candidate.
In a 1-on-1, someone on my team raised a worry. When a client is sitting on a strong candidate, I'll often nudge them along. But when my team member tried to say the same thing, it felt to them like "just sign the deal with us."
It's a fair concern, and worth talking through.
Say what you actually know
Notice how I phrase it. I don't say "they're interviewing elsewhere." I say "I don't know if they're interviewing." Because I don't. Saying it confidently when you don't know would be a lie, and it would look bad. Saying "we don't know, they could be" is simply true.
The same principle we use to get a client to review a candidate applies here: honest scarcity, not invented scarcity.
It's not salesy if you believe it
Whether it sounds salesy mostly comes down to two things: how you word it, and whether you mean it.
If you genuinely believe this person is the right hire, you'd want to do whatever you can to make it happen. That comes through.
You can even remind the client how much they enjoyed the conversation: "I know how much you enjoyed talking to them. I really want you to get moving on this. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do on your team."
That isn't pressure. That's someone who did the work to find a great candidate and wants it to land.
Transcript
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You talking about the off-er? Yeah, no, I would I would yeah, in the future I would definitely that that's definitely something that you should be helping on me push forward.
Okay, okay, I just be like, "Hey, have you checked the same thing?" Okay, until they actually do. Okay.
Yeah, I mean same principles that you would follow for trying to get someone to review a candidate using the same principles of scarcity too of like I You notice how I always say like I don't know if they're interviewing cuz I don't, but like it also could you know, I'm not lying if they're not interviewing. I'm just like, "I don't know." I don't know and I'm like, "Yeah, we don't know." Rather than being like confidently saying that yeah, they're interviewing and that looks bad you know, it's like I don't know, man.
They could be.
Cuz I mean cuz when you say it like cuz I feel like you know, when it comes from me and I be like they we don't know if you know, they might be you know, I don't want you to lose this person. They might be end up getting hired by someone else. Cuz to me that sounds like just sign the deal with us, you know, that's it sounds like that. They just close this deal.
And like but from you I guess like it it comes off different, but like if you don't think
I don't Yeah, no, I don't think so. I think that it comes off as long as you word it properly and just like not sound, you know, cringe. I think it's it's like again, if you believe that this person is who they should hire, you would say like you would do anything to try and get that to happen.
That's right. That is right. That is right.
And so you can even like remind them of their like how much they enjoyed them. Like you know, like I know how much you enjoyed talking to them like I I really want you guys to get moving on this. Like I'm looking forward to like seeing what they do on your team. Like
That sounds like something you would say. That sounds like something you would message in the group chat. Okay, thank you. I will.
