Left to their own devices, people do exactly nothing.
"I'll think about it" is where most sales go to die. Tomorrow becomes next week becomes never.
The urgency principle
Give people a legitimate reason why acting now is better than acting later. And no, a "LIMITED TIME OFFER!!!" that runs every week doesn't count. That's just lying, and people catch on fast.
Real urgency looks like this:
- Quantity: "Only 47 places left" (only if it's actually true)
- Time: "The price goes up this Friday at midnight" (a specific deadline with a real consequence)
- Bonus: "Order in the next 48 hours and get the Advanced Module free"
Here's the critical part: your urgency has to be real. Run the same "ending soon!" sale every month and you're training customers to ignore you. They'll just wait for the next one, because they know it's coming.
If you can't create real urgency, don't manufacture fake urgency. But look harder. There's usually something genuinely time-sensitive or limited about an offer: your capacity, a start date, a cost that's about to rise.