The Psychology of Selling

A while back I shared that the cost to join Virtual Fitness Mastermind is going up and you can try it out for $1 and lock in at the current rate if you decide to stick around.

So why does that sort of thing work and how can you use it to your advantage?

Well…it works for a couple of reasons:

1. People are conditioned to respond to deadlines.

From waiting to do assignments until the last minute in middle school to cramming for tests in college…we’ve always been conditioned to respond to deadlines.

So if I say ‘the price of VFM is going up eventually. No deadline. Fewer sales.

If I just say ‘go join VFM’…some sales, but again, no surge.

Add the deadline and sales jump.

But there is a 2nd piece to that…

2. Pain of Loss.

We are far more fearful of missing out on something that we are excited about gaining something.

So if the price goes up Friday people don’t want to miss out on saving. They don’t want to lose out on the opportunity…so more of them take action than would have otherwise.

Combine the deadline with the potential pain of losing and you have a strong incentive for people to buy.

So how should you use that?

My suggestion is that you have a couple points of entry into your business…an evergreen one that people enroll in at any time…and a deadline driven one.

So if you run Transformation Challenges 4 times per year…you now have 4 deadlines that will cause people to act.

They enroll by a certain date or they miss out.

You probably get that concept already…good.

But if you’re like most fitness entrepreneurs, you don’t push the deadline as much as you should.

You get caught up in getting people ready for the Challenge and your day to day that you miss out on promoting the deadline…and because of that you miss out on a lot of people enrolling.

When I run a 3-4 day promotion…50-60% of the sales come on the last day unless I added a 2nd deadline with a fast action offer on day one (see how I’m using 2 deadlines to drive sales sometimes).

But I almost always send 2 emails on ‘deadline day’ and most fitness entrepreneurs don’t.

Why do I do it?

Because people are busy. They have stuff going on.

I need to keep it in front of them.

And so do you.

Are you worried about offending someone that isn’t buying?

If so…understand that offending someone who is actually costing you money (if they’re on your list they’re an expense…it cost money to acquire and manage email subscribers) is a small price to pay to connect with the people who actually are ready to work with you.

So use deadlines.

Promote them aggressively.

People often need that sort of nudge to get off the fence.

Yeah, we all want to work with super-motivated people…I hear it all the time.

But guess what…if they were super-motivated all along they probably didn’t need us all that much.

So if you can give them a little push and then show them some results…that motivation will grow.

And a deadline can be the first domino in the process.

By Pat Rigsby