Over the past 36 hours, I’ve written a 20-page VSL.
It wasn’t completely from scratch — there were a bunch of notes and research and a fairly detailed brief I had written earlier.
But still. Yesterday morning, all that stuff looked like a rotting head of cabbage on the shelf of a Hungarian grocery store.
And as of 3 minutes ago, I have a polished VSL, along with several alternate headline complexes, suitable for handing off to the client.
The point I want to make here is simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. It goes all the way back to that demi-god of persuasion, Robert Cialdini.
I’m talking about the power of urgency, and specifically, the power of a deadline.
Human beings will do all sorts of things because of a deadline, including writing a 20-page VSL in 36 hours.
But in most cases — certainly in my case yesterday and today — a deadline really doesn’t mean anything.
I’m not sure my client even realized today is the deadline for this project… And if he did, I doubt it would have been any kind of problem to ask for a bit of extra time, say until Monday.
But my brain never treated either of those as options.
“Deadlines are deadlines,” the gray blob said, “and they need to be obeyed.”
Your prospects are the same way.
So invent a deadline. If your deadline is genuine, great. But even if not, people will be moved to obey. And often, they will be moved more than by any inducements or promises or blandishments you could ever make.
Speaking of which, here’s an offer that will expire at the top of the hour:
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