Here’s a once in a lifetime, never to be repeated offer! Click now!!!!!
How often do we hear this? And how often is it the first line (so the search engines pick it up)?
And how sick are we as consumers with over hype, confusing choice and blatant promotional lying?
Yet so many people do it, and so many ‘online sales systems’ promote the psychology of scarcity and time limitation as a way to get customers to buy quickly.
Of course, the problem is that it works! Customers do panic: their emotions override their intelligence and they go on and click that button!
But, my questions are:
- How many times do they buy?
- How happy are they a month later with their purchase?
- How likely are they to be a lifetime advocate of that brand?
- How likely are they to recommend that brand to their friends?
As the old saying goes: ‘Act in haste, repent at leisure’.
Just last week I signed up to find out more about an online marketing system, and within 48 hours I had 5 emails from this person and two ‘98% off last chance offers’! Now I wish I’d never signed up, because I’m being bombarded with stuff I don’t want when I was already swamped with emails … and I can only imagine how bad it’d be if I did actually buy the full course!!!
Maybe people who are desperate or unemployed will sign up to this offer, but I can’t think of anyone else: I mean, how desperate are they?
As you know, at Slow Selling, we always aim to cut though the crap that’s continually sent your way, and try and make your life easier by helping you slow down, see things as they really are, and stick to common sense principles one step at a time.
So what alternatives are there to what I call the ‘last chance special offer’ way of doing business? It often seems that everyone’s so bogged down in information and choice that you have to shout louder or give more and more incredible deals just to get noticed …
Well, yes: if you’re the same as everyone else, you have to do the same as everyone else … just louder and more incredible! Wouldn’t it instead be easier and less stressful (not to mention much more profitable) to get out of the rat race and start to stand out from the crowd for more healthy reasons?
Start with attention: what do your customers REALLY want? They may say they want the cheapest price, but, under the skin that’s rarely the case (and the ones that do you don’t want as customers anyway). Start to ‘peel the onion’ and find out what they really want.
As you get closer to your customer, you can then use a weekly ‘go the extra inch’ process to tweak your systems one by one, to make your buying process easier and better for your customer. And you can build trust and loyalty to your business or brand by listening, responding, and improving every system step by step from what you learn.
AND: you can also learn what ‘special offers’ will have genuine long term value to your customer, that they’d really thank you for, and they’d willingly promote to their friends … so you can make life more interesting for them, but in ways that they love and appreciate (rather than ways that reek of desperation and profiteering).
So: slow down! When tempted to career down the ‘’last chance special offer’ route, stop and instead start listening to your customers more closely and tweaking your offer (and offers) to what they REALLY want!
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Slow Selling is a UK based not for profit organisation for leaders and mangers in independent businesses.
Our systems deliver peace of mind and confidence to caring leaders and managers who have limited time and resources, want to do the right thing and grow their business … all without sacrificing principles or profits.
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