Your Offer Won’t Get Customers Until You Can Answer This Question

A customer is staring at your offer right now. 

They’re interested. They’re even thinking about buying from you.

But they’re not buying because they’re thinking, “I’ll do it later.”

“Later” turns into tomorrow. Tomorrow turns into next week. And most of the time? That turns into never.

This is why lots of sales never happen, and until you solve this problem, even your best offers will fail.

So here’s the million-dollar question you must answer for every offer you make:

“Why should they buy NOW instead of later?”

The good news? You can answer that easily with these two simple tools:

1. Urgency - Give Them a Deadline

Think of the last time you saw an offer with a countdown timer or an “ends Friday at midnight” notice. Did it make you want to act faster?

That’s called urgency. You’re giving people a clear reason to act now because the offer won’t be there tomorrow.

It works because humans hate missing out (in marketing, this is called FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out). We procrastinate until something forces us to act, which in this case is a deadline.

Here’s how you can use it without being seen as salesy:

• Set a real deadline. If your free roof inspection offer ends on Sunday night, make sure it actually ends on Sunday night. No lying.

• Explain why. For example: “We’re running this deal only until the end of the month because our summer schedule is filling up fast.”

The keyword is real. Don’t keep extending your deadline over and over again. Customers will notice and stop trusting you.

Use urgency only when it’s true. For example, a seasonal promotion, a special event, or when you’re launching a new service.

2. Scarcity - Show How Limited It Is

If urgency is a time limit, scarcity is a people limit. It’s like supply and demand.

People act fast when they see something is running out. 

Here’s an example. A local building company I helped got 2 enquiries in 30 days, each enquiry being for jobs worth MINIMUM £20,000, and a big part of it was us adding this line to the website:

“Only 3 project slots left”.

Here’s a few tips for implementing this yourself:

• Be honest about your limits. If you can only take on 5 clients this month, say so.

• Be specific. Instead of “limited availability,” say “Only 2 consultation spots left this week.”

• Update your numbers. When a spot fills, update your page or ad to show the new number.

Again, don’t fake it. If you always say “only 3 spots left” every month, people will catch on. Save scarcity for real, limited offers.

When to Use Urgency and Scarcity

You don’t need to run a “last chance” promotion every week. In fact, you shouldn’t.

Customers get used to it, and they’ll start waiting for sales to happen to buy from you, leaving you with less revenue than you could have had.

Instead, use urgency and scarcity:

• For new launches (“We’re taking only 10 customers for our new service.”)

• For seasonal promos (“Spring special ends March 31st.”)

• For exclusive deals (“We’re offering this only to our email list until Friday.”)

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The Bottom Line

Your offer can be perfect, your price can be fair, your service can be world-class.

But if you can’t answer the question, “Why should they buy NOW instead of later?” …you’ll lose sales.

Urgency and scarcity, when used honestly, give customers a final nudge on the shoulder they need to act today, not someday.

Run your next promotion with a real deadline or a real limit and watch how many more customers you get.

If you found this article helpful, check out some others on this page! This is the 49th, so there’s no shortage of good reading material.

Thanks for reading,

Filip Szemiczek