Selling or sales, in my opinion, is when you’re trying to talk somebody into something that may or may not help them — because you’re trying to make a buck. For me, though, I like to think of what I do as serving. Simply put, I’m not going talk you into taking action on something unless I think it truly is in your best interest.
But one of the challenges when it comes to selling — from this standpoint — is getting people to understand you’re simply trying to lead them in the right direction and help improve upon their lives.
Before I get to one of the most powerful words one can use in selling, allow me to recommend this Build Your Tribe episode for 8 additional killer selling phrases that work:
And don’t forget to subscribe to BYT for weekly hacks on building your brand!
The Power of the word NOW
Think about the sheer number of distractions that are on our phone in any given moment. You can be adding things to your shopping cart, thinking about making the decision to invest in something, and then you get a:
- Text message from your kid
- Notification that your favorite person is going live on Instagram
- Calendar alert for an upcoming meeting
Whatever the distraction, in that moment, we have to immediately make a decision…
“Can this item I’m about to purchase wait or do I need to shift my attention to this new thing?”
Frankly, it’s more difficult to hold and maintain a person’s attention to get them to follow through, complete the order and process it — than anything else in the world right now. Because again, there’s so many things fighting for our attention!
So, you’re doing your prospective buyer a great service by telling them they need to do this now. Phrases which will help you to convey that are:
- The time is now
- If you’re serious about this, take action right now
- This is a limited time offer, so act now
- Only the first 100 people will receive this offer, so click start now
- If you’re ready to work with me, text the number below now
And you’re doing your customer a favor when you use any of these phrases because you’re just saving them time in the long run.
When you don’t set the urgency with NOW, your customer is likely to go through the whole process of evaluating your offer / how much it costs / and reviewing it all over again. And, repeat.
An anecdotal supportive example:
For some reason, during this whole pandemic, our steak knives are disappearing. No one’s going anywhere, but every night we have fewer and fewer steak knives. We had eight, and now we’re down to two. Sherlock Holmes, can you hear me?
Side-note: I sold knives door-to-door in college. I did very well because I freaking believed in these knives (Cutco). I’m 51 years old today and I still love these knives.
So, I bought a new set when we moved into our beach house. They’re beautiful with pearl handles and amazing. (I should have signed up to be an affiliate before I wrote this blog.)
Anyway, they’re basically all gone. I don’t know if someone’s breaking in and stealing them or if my kids are secret ninjas fighting crime at night… but it was time to buy a new set.
Hence, last week I went on their website and planned to buy replacement knives. Well, I must’ve gotten distracted because I never followed through.
This morning I tried again and guess what? They were sold out!
To be honest, I was a little mad. I thought,
“You know what, if they had said last week that they only had ‘two left’ or ‘order now’ or ‘low on stock,’ I would have done it.”
I thought I had time.
I’m sure it all relates to this pandemic, but if they had just set the urgency using a selling phrase with the word now, I would’ve pulled the trigger and gotten my knives when I originally looked.
