691 – You need to buy NOW: Tom talks Urgency and Scarcity

Episode 691 – Urgency and Scarcity
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 691 of Screw the Commute podcast. We're back with another copywriting technique called Urgency and Scarcity. Now, let me ask you a question. When you're selling something, when do you want the money? I hope you said now. Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. How to illogically, yet ethically, get people to buy now instead of waiting. All right. I hope you didn't miss episode 690. That was on bonuses and they absolutely increased sales. But there's lots of details to use them properly and maximize the sales using bonuses. And that's what that episode was all about. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, and then the episode number. That was 690. Now TikTok is still going crazy. I've been on it, I think seven and a half, eight weeks or so. I'll be doing an update, a two month update here shortly. But just one of the videos is passing 315,000 views as of this morning. There's 315,200. It'll probably be 315,400 by the time I get done recording it. So please check out I've got probably 160 or so short training videos over there on TikTok. So go to tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire and you can see my channel. And also I want to thank the people from Patreon or the people contributing to Patreon to help our scholarship program with persons with disabilities. So it's screwthecommute.com/patreon.

[00:02:08] All right, let's get to the main event. Now, if you think you're too smart to be affected by urgency and scarcity techniques, you are kidding yourself. All right. Here's an example. I know lots of your parents out there. Let's say you need to get your kids signed up for the great preschool class at the local church. And you've been putting it off because of work and the kids being sick and had to take the dog to the emergency vet and all the other kind of things that families have to deal with. Then you get an email from the church saying last day for preschool registration. All right. Next class starts in six months. I can assure you, I swear to you, you will bust your butt to get down to the church to register. You might have to be late or miss work. The kids are eating cold pop tarts for breakfast, and the dog peed all over the floor. And you tell yourself I'll clean up when I get home from work. All right. You're going to get your butt down to the church if you have to walk over broken glass after you had a flat tire. All right. So that's urgency. And you can create a similar reaction in people interested in your products. You can't do this if they don't want your products in the first place. And and also your services too. And you can do it illogically and ethically.

[00:03:39] Now, many of you have heard me talk about how some copyrighting techniques are totally illogical. Right. But they work like a charm. The cost comparison technique that I talk about is one of them. Well, urgency and scarcity techniques can be just plucked out of thin air, and they work beautifully without you compromising your principles or being thought of as a scammer. All right, so let's get into it. Let's talk about absolute real scarcity first, which creates urgency. Now, I'll give you an example from my business. There was a time long, long ago and far away. It sounds like a fairy tale. It seems like it was a long time ago when we were switching from VHS tapes to DVDs. I did a half price promotion to get rid of the remaining VHS tapes, and I used the totally legitimate phrase. When they're gone, they're gone. The tapes sold out immediately because people interested in the topic of the tapes saw a deal. People loved deals and the deal that would never be there again legitimately. The promotion was entirely plausible and credible because I told people I was get rid of the tapes because we were switching to DVDs. That's also a reason why technique, which I covered and other things. Right. Another crazy thing happened when I was switching from cassette tapes to CD's. Now, in this case I did not say when they're gone, they're gone and I'm glad I didn't. I said liquidation sale of the cassette tapes.

[00:05:27] Now the term liquidation carries with it the thought that prices would be super discounted. And they were. I advertised cassette tape liquidation sale because I'm moving to CD's discounts up to 90%. Now, the discounts actually started at 50%. If you just bought one tape, if you wanted the 90% discount, you had to buy the entire collection. And even at 50% discount, I still made 12 to $15 per tape. So here's what happened. Oh, man, I remember this vividly. Orders flooded in so fast and so large, I had to get an emergency order of 4000 more tapes just to liquidate them. We had tapes lined up clear through my entire retreat center, through the the from the office, through the hall, through the kitchen, through the other foyer or back porch, through the other living room, into the theater. Right. And that was just to pick the titles easily so we could get them all organized to fulfill the orders. Now, in this case, the term liquidation and the discounts up to 90% created the urgency to buy now. Liquidation also carried the connotation that I did not actually claim that when they're gone, they're gone. But they still felt that because of the word liquidation. And that added to the urgency to buy now. Okay, Now let's talk about urgency that's just plunked out of the thin air. All right. So here's an example. The first ten people who purchase will also get the following bonuses. And then you give a bunch of great bonuses, which I covered in the last episode 690 Screwthecommute.com/690. Lot to know about bonuses that can really make you a lot of extra money.

[00:07:37] And the bonuses themselves can make you money so make sure you listen to that episode. All right. The number ten, like the first ten people, was just plunked out of thin air. I mean, to get people to move immediately for fear of loss of those great bonuses. Now, depending on how well known you are, the number that you use in a situation like this has to be reasonable. I mean, if nobody knows you and you're lucky to get five people on a webinar, it's hard to justify saying the first 100 people to order. Right. I mean, I guess you can fake it until you make it, but I wouldn't do such a thing. Now, if you're on a Tony Robbins live stream, he might be able to say the first thousand people who order get certain bonuses. I mean, you know, it just depends on how well known you are, what's reasonable and plausible. See, the last thing you want to do is to be found out as faking stuff that just shoots your credibility and kills sales. All right. Another semi logical plucked out of the thin air technique is here it is order by midnight tonight and get, let's say, 35% off or whatever your deal is. Well, you didn't even mention the time zone, so that makes it illogical.

[00:09:01] Also, when we talk about creating urgency, if you're promoting something on Monday and tell them order by Thursday. Well, that's not urgent. It's too easy for them to keep putting it off. Just like I was saying about the the person with the preschool and then forget the order altogether. So I say in my book, urgency is no more than 12 hours. Now, if you really want to turn up the heat on urgency, I said I could use like a double whammy. All right. You could say something like the first ten people to order by midnight tonight. Get the deal. Whatever the deal you're giving them for ordering right away. Now, psychologically. Oh, man, they've got to get in the first ten, and they have to do it in a hurry before midnight. All right. So that really puts the screws on him to move. All right. So here you might say, Tom. So what happens if the 11th person emails you to see if they got the deal? Well, nobody is going to badmouth you if you go ahead and give them the deal. All right. This is a kind of a decision you have to make. Some people strictly adhere to the deal, which sends a message to people, Hey, you better move fast the next time I put out a deal. Now I happen to lean more towards going ahead and giving them the deal because, hey, you can probably tell I'm such a nice guy and you'll find that out when you work with me and my mentor program.

[00:10:40] And it doesn't mean I won't hold your feet to the fire and be tough with you to get your results that you want. But generally you'll have a good time working with me. So. So anyway, use urgency and scarcity techniques. If you want people to buy now, and if you want to have a great internet marketing business, then check out greatinternetmarketingtraining.com and get your buddy in my mentor program. It's the longest running, most successful, most unique ever in the field of Internet and digital marketing. I have no problem saying that because I've proven it over the past 26 years or so now, and I've been selling on the commercial internet full time, living big, living for 29 years since it started. So I kind of know what I'm talking about. Love to cut your learning curve, save you tons of money and and get you in this program. All right. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Check out a couple of things. GreatInternetmarketingtraining.com. If you want the mentor program, start working on urgency scarcity techniques for your products and services. Check out tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire for about 160 very short training videos. All right that's my story and I'm sticking to it again. And I will catch you all in the next episode. See you later.