The second principle of Dr. Cialdini’s 6 universal principles of influence (read about the first principle here) is Scarcity.  The principle simply states that people want what they perceive as being unavailable.

Dr. Cialdini had another amazing example of this principle being put to use to grow a business:

When Bose corporation released one of their new sound systems (I’m sorry I can’t remember which one), it was considered to be a technological breakthrough by people in the know.  Bose rightly expected that when they marketed the system to the world they would have a huge hit on their hands.

Bose used their normally effective system of placing ads in magazine and newspapers touting the “New” system from Bose and explaining all of its benefits.  After very lackluster sales volume, they contracted Dr. Cialdini to determine what was wrong.

Dr. Cialdini reveiewed the ads Bose was using and decided to change one line in the ad.  He changed the line announcing the arrival of the “New” system to simply say:

 “Hear what you’ve been missing.” And what do you think the results were?  Bose saw a shocking 45% increase in sale by making this simple change.

Why?

Instead of trying to sell buyers a new technology, Dr. Cialdini used the ad to trigger the emotional responses associated with scarcity by alerting the music enthusiasts to the possibility that they haven’t been experiencing the best music quality.

People want what they can’t/don’t have…and sales shot through the roof.

He discussed another example that a sales team used in their phone calls with customers – I feel like this one might be particularly helpful to a lot of readers, but I failed to write down the statistics associated with the results.  However, I believe the lesson is still valuable:

A sales team at a beef distribution company was told by one of their major suppliers to expect a major beef shortage in the near future.  The sales team promptly decided to call their best customers to let them know so they could stock up in advance of the shortage.

The situation was used as a test with the following scenarios:

1. One team of salespeople called their customers and told them of the shortage.  The team experienced an X% lift in sales.
2. The second team of salespeople called their customers and told them that they had inside information about the beef shortage and they were sharing it with only their top customers first.  This team experienced an X% + lift in sales.

What is the lesson?  Scarcity can be applied to information as well, which everyone has available as a tool in their business.  Who doesn’t want to feel like an insider?  By making their customers feel like they had exclusive information, the second sales team was able to create a sense of scarcity around the information that resulted in more sales.

Every business has some sort of sales team or process - how can you put the principle of scarcity to use to improve your results?