We are all mouthpieces for our businesses. Each of us is our own subtle marketing spokesperson too. This doesn’t mean we’re talking about our expertise 24/7. It just means that whenever the topic of our expertise does come up… even if it’s during a conversation with a neighbor at a grocery store … the way we speak about our topic makes a relationship-building impression.
So here’s a question that might not seem connected, but hear me out. Do you believe in Limited Time Offers? I’m asking this question because I just heard an interesting statistic. It’s that 15% of people who buy will do it within the first 90 days. 85% of people who buy, won’t buy until after 90 days. Hmmmm.
I tried to fact check this statistic, but I must have been googling the wrong words or not scrolling down far enough because I only found one article with any information about it. Still, there’s something about it that rings true.
Do Limited Time Offers work? The sales industry sure thinks they do. It’s been teaching us, or more accurately drilling into us, that we should have a great “act now”’ offer, to offer. But for my speaker clients, this is often one of the hardest things for them to come up with. Should it be a free offer… like a lead magnet or a discovery call? Or should it be an offer that costs money—but, if they sign up for it within a certain amount of time, they get it at a discount?
And what happens if they make an offer and no one takes them up on it? Does that mean no one in the audience was interested? Does it mean the speaker didn’t do a good job speaking? No. It doesn’t mean any of those things… at least not IMHO… which I did find research to support.
Do we want people to buy our problem-solving expertise based on a “buy now” impulse? On one hand, YES! A sale is a sale is a sale. On the other, the statistics for buyer’s remorse after an impulse purchase—like a limited time offer—are pretty high. Between 48% to 64% of people regret taking advantage of it. So no, we don’t want people impulse buying our expertise. If someone regrets their purchase after the fact, they aren’t going to be inspired to get into whatever it is they bought. Between the numbers for impulse buying, and buyer’s remorse though, we have a good explanation for why people buy courses, programs, etc., and never even open them!
Here’s what we do want: We want people to take advantage of what we offer because they believe we can help them solve some aspect of the problem they’re struggling with. We want them to be ready to work with us… which is something limited time offers ignore. And, we want them to know that we’re ready to work with them, whether we’re making an offer from a stage, or they find one of our offers while they’re checking us out online.
Here’s what our potential clients/customers want: They want reasons to trust that we really can help them. They want evidence that we really do get them and what’s going on for them. And, they want to know that we’re available when they’re ready. Did you notice that there’s no way to put a time limit on any of those?
How do we accomplish this? That’s a simple question to answer…. By putting more time into building relationships so our potential clients and customers will come to us when they’re ready… and less time trying to figure out if there’s something we can offer that’s going to make them ready.