Guest Post by Yvonne Jones

I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal Sunday edition entitled “Sales Pitches You Can’t Resist – and Why?”  The first paragraph alluded to the fact that many shoppers head to the mall with good intentions, but retailers know how to get inside their brain and derail their good intentions.

The article mentioned some triggers and their appeal.  I selected just two:

1) “Our Big Sale Ends Tomorrow/Today/In a Few Hours!”  This is aimed at your survival instincts, and its appeal is that you want to grab what’s available or be left behind.

2) “Save $250! (New Price $500)” This is aimed at your price-sensitive side.  According to Lars Perner of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, you fall for it because the idea of big savings puts the deal at the center.  Your brain often perceives the actual price as more reasonable because of that big price difference.

The article made me think of those of us who market our business online, whether we are in the Internet Marketing niche or some other niche.  Do we consistently demonstrate integrity or do we feed on other’s scarcity mentality?

There are lots of marketers with tremendous integrity.  We know that if they announce a limited time offer with a deadline, they will adhere to that.  If they say a particular offer is limited to a certain number of copies, we can trust that will be the case.  I confirmed the truth of such an offer recently as there was a valuable PLR product I wanted to purchase and kept putting it off. When I finally got to the sales page they were sold out.

Many of us are on various e-mail lists and often receive warning notices of pending price increases or removal of a product or service after a certain date.  Some of these may be products or services that you genuinely want to take advantage of.

The challenge may be that some small business owners are operating their business on a budget, whereas others have a specific budget for how much they will spend on products or services in a given period.  How do you feel when you exceed your budget to make the purchase and find that weeks later the price remained unchanged?  Or the product or service that was going to be taken off the market is still there?  Do you feel cheated?  How do you feel about that marketer going forward?  It certainly erodes any trust you had in that person.

Relationships in business, and especially in our online business depends on the know, like, and trust factor.  Promoting a scarcity mentality for personal gain is hardly worth sacrificing your reputation as someone of integrity.

Has this ever happened to you and how did it make you feel?  What action, if any, did you take?

Yvonne says: I’m a Solo Entrepreneur who teaches Relationship Building and Marketing skills to entrepreneurs and small business owners by helping them to see the value in building and maintaining long-term relationships with their clients and customers.  I’ve recently begun actively working with work-at-home moms, other home-based entrepreneurs including Direct Sales consultants with the goal of helping them to cultivate an entrepreneur’s mindset and build their brand online.

You can follow Yvonne on Twitter at @YvonneAJones and visit her at Maintain A Success Circle.