The Power of Scarcity: Get your Prospects to Act Faster

December 20, 2011

This time of year, its hard to get your prospects to act fast.  It seems like everyone is dragging their feet … if people already haven’t taken off for vacation, their mind is already likely 50% there.

Exploring your solution? Their thoughts are likely: “Eh… sounds cool… but now is not a good time. Try me next year.”

Yeah, right. Let’s be serious. If you get someone live on the phone between December 15 and 31… You need to take advantage of the opportunity.  And with every conversation you have, remember, you may never get the chance to get this person live again. Don’t let them get away with an easy out.

If you are managing a Lead Qualification team — a team whose core responsibility is to find new opportunities for the sales reps through outbound prospecting —  it is important that you are coaching your team on ways to make the most out of every conversation and be devising strategies to make prospects to move a little faster (without of course being too pushy or annoying).

Easier said then done right? Well, if you get a little creative with it, you’d be surprised as to how the concept of “scarcity” can light a little fire under your prospect’s tush.

So what do I mean by this exactly? How about offering a “limited number of seats” during a certain period of time — a month, a quarter, etc.  The shorter the time period, the better.  Seats for what? Well, this could be for a free trial.  This could be… to be a new customer in general.

At the end of the day: no one wants to miss out on a good deal.

Example 1: “We have 5 seats in January for a free one-month trial – only 3 are left. What I recommend is jumping on call with my solution specialist in the next week or so to see if you may be a good candidate. What does your calender look like on… ?”

Example 2: “We have one seat available for your region to utilize our services — we are in conversations with different [name industry] companies right now for Q1.  What do you say we schedule a call with our account specialist later this week to see if it makes sense to work together. What does your calender look like on…?”

(Example 2 may or may not work depending on your product/services, but I’ve actually seen this approach successful with a company whose solution was marketing-oriented.)

How can you integrate “scarcity” into your prospecting to make your prospects act a bit faster during this time of year?