It’s likely been drilled into your head that, to resonate with today’s consumers, you need to focus on the soft sell—that you need to ditch pushy, persuasive, and aggressive selling tactics. That, instead, you need to be the customer’s guide through the purchasing journey, to be an advisor, and to be a helper.

Though this is all great selling advice and true in today’s market, there is still a time and a place for aggressive selling tactics, so you shouldn’t get rid of them completely. Sometimes, your prospects will need a bit of a push in order to agree to a sale.

Here are some aggressive selling tactics that still work.

1. Giving a Limited Time Offer

You probably still get emails from brands with limited time offers. Their huge sale will only last for the next 24 hours, that you’ll only get free implementation if you buy by the end of the week, or that there are only a few products left for purchase before they’re all gone, so you better buy right now.

Brands still use these aggressive selling tactics because they actually work. If your prospects believe that the only thing standing in the way of them getting the deal of the lifetime that will soon be non-existent is hesitation, they’ll likely make their purchasing decision faster.

The limited time offer is ideal at the end of the sales process, when you know that your prospect does want to buy but he’s just hesitant and buying time. It’s also a great tactic with impulse buyers who are less likely to purchase with the more time they have to think about it. It can give him the push he needs to make a purchasing decision. It turns up the pressure just enough to encourage action.

2. Being Persistent          

Being persistent is often seen as pushy. And though it can be pushy, it could be just what you need to turn that no into a yes. Don’t give up too quickly in the face of initial rejection. Sometimes all you need to do to turn things around and close the deal is to follow up and press the issue. It’s a risky tactic though, because with the wrong client, it can be more of a turn off—especially if you’re too persistent, which then turns into an annoyance. But if your prospect seems ready to buy but is hesitant or too busy to think about it right now, you might be able to overcome resistance with persistence.

3. Taking the Next Step, Unauthorized

The prospect hasn’t returned your cold calls or responded to your typical sales email template. Do you just give up? Why not try taking the next step in the process, even if it’s unauthorized? Send the prospect an email with a calendar entry, essentially scheduling yourself in for a meeting or conference call to talk about your offerings and asking if that time works with their schedule.

This could seem presumptuous to some, but to the prospects who are interested in hearing you out but have been too busy to reply to set something up, it could get you that sales call that you’re after. The most they have to do is to email back to agree to the time. Even if you get a reply back from a prospect asking to be removed from your mailing list, at least you got a reply—you can take that hard no and move on to more qualified prospects instead of wasting more time.

These aggressive selling tactics actually work, but beware, they do come with risks. Use them with the right clients, at the right time or you’ll risk damaging relationships and losing out on sales opportunities. Use them as a last line of defense only.