“Please send the proposal today. It’s urgent.”
Every sales leader knows this drill. Your AE drops everything and works late to submit a large proposal on a Tuesday night.
Then, nothing happens.
Weeks go by. The customer’s Finance team needs to check it. Legal needs to review it. A committee needs to discuss it. A month later, the signed contract finally arrives with a cheerful note:
“Great news! We got it signed. Can you still deliver by Friday?”
The client took a month to approve the deal. Your execution team now gets whatever time is left.
Desperate to book the revenue and keep the momentum alive, the sales team simply says, "Yes."
They accept the crazy deadline and toss the signed contract to the delivery or engineering team.
Your company takes on all the stress caused by the buyer's delays. This leads to rushed work, ruined weekends, and a terrible launch experience for everyone involved.
Why Being "Flexible" Backfires
Agreeing to an unfair timeline doesn't just burn out your team, it ruins the business relationship from Day 1.
First, you are teaching the client that your deadlines are fake and they can push you around.
Second, if you can magically squeeze a four-week setup into three days, the buyer will assume you were lying about needing four weeks in the first place. You haven't proven you are a great partner. You have just proven you will clean up their mess.
What Is Actually Going On
You are mistaking your buyer's excitement for the company's ability to move fast.
In big companies across Southeast Asia or Australia, your main contact might genuinely want your solution tomorrow. But their procurement and legal teams are in no rush.
A simple request to send a proposal ends up stuck on an "Approval Bridge" waiting for Finance, Legal, and a bunch of committees.
When your buyer asks for the proposal "today," it is usually just because they need a document to get in line for a monthly review meeting.
They need the proposal to start a long internal fight, not because they are ready to sign.
The "Rolling Timeline" Rule
Never promise a fixed delivery date (like "November 30th") without tying it to an exact signature date.
You have to protect your team from the client's slow internal process. You do this by using a "Rolling Timeline." You don't say no to the urgent request, you just make your delivery date depend on how fast they sign.
The Bottom Line
Unless you tie your delivery date to their signature date, "urgent" will only ever mean extra work for you. Protecting your team's time isn't just about saving their weekends, it shows the client that you are a serious business partner, not just a vendor they can push around.
Next Step
Build a better system
If your sales team is getting stuck on the "Approval Bridge" in SEA or ANZ, we should talk. Let's do a strategy brief call to look at your current go-to-market approach, identify where the friction really is, and fix it.
Saleh Nabil
Founder @XpandEast