The Lead Cookie Sales Playbook: Fast Mover Discount

One single sentence has the power to double your close rate... 

"We like people who make decisions quickly, that is why we will offer X discount if you commit and pay your setup fee by Y {{time frame}}."

When I learned this simple little sales tactic, it massively changed the results I got from my sales at Lead Cookie. 

In this article, I am going to share the Fast Mover Discount, when we use it, and when we don't

The Psychology of the Fast Mover Discount

Baked into this one simple sentence are two powerful persuasion techniques.

Scarcity

When you give someone a finite time period to make a decision, this calls them to action. Even if the discount is small, people will go leaps and bounds, to save a bit of cash.

So when you offer them the ability to save money by deciding quickly, many people will decide right there on the spot.

Other times, when multiple decision makers are involved, you will have someone who is now motivated to push your message through the organization and get proper approval.

This simple act of scarcity is extremely powerful and goes a long way.

Reason

"We like working with people who make decisions quickly..." 

This part of the statement may seem small or not important, but it is actually crucial to the effectiveness of the statement... because it gives the recipient a reason and explanation for the discount. 

When you put a reason behind your discount, then it becomes more authentic and believable to the prospect.

Imagine that you just said: "We will give you X discount if you make a decision by Y date." 

Without a reason, that statement seems a bit odd... 

As a prospect you would easily start to think "Ok, well they seem to just be handing out discounts that I can take whenever."

When you give the reason "We like to work with people who make decision quickly" then you change the frame and give justification to your discount.

How to use the Fast Mover Discount

Last week I published my Sales Call Script publicly on my blog. You can refer back to the script to see exactly when and how I work the fast mover discount into my sales calls. 

But as a general rule of thumb, I explain this whenever I disclose pricing to the prospect.

In terms of the "Timeline" of how long I give someone to make a decision, well I actually play that case by case.

If I am dealing with a small business and talking directly to the decision maker, I will typically give them 48 hours.

If I am dealing with a larger business, or the person I am speaking with needs buy in and approval from others, then I may give them 72 hours or up to 7 days to make a decision.

The bigger the company, the longer time I typically give them to decide.
The smaller the company, the shorter the timeline.

But either way, I give them a cutoff date and then summarize that in an email to them right after the call.

But honestly in some cases the customer just commits and agrees right there on the call. 

When to NOT use the Fast Mover discount

The fast mover discount is a powerful tool to use, but I don't use it on every prospect...

The reason is simple, sometimes a prospect shouldn't actually commit to your product or service today.

You may talk to someone who is a bit premature for your service. They may need 3-6 months before they are actually in a good place to buy from you.

While you could use the Fast Mover Discount to pressure them into it, that would not be in there best interests... 

And I'm a big believer of a Win/Win relationship in sales.

So basically, if right now is not a good time for the prospect to start with your service, then don't offer it. It's not the right thing to do. 

Unexpected benefits of the Fast Mover Discount

Prior to introducing the fast mover discount, I would set aside 2-3 hours every two weeks to go through my leads and follow up with leads to try to move them toward committing.

Before the fast mover discount, this was always an extremely profitable time for me. 

It wasn't fun, but I knew that if I put in the 2-3 hours to follow up with all of my leads, I would end up closing at least 1-2 deals from it.

But after I introduced the fast mover discount, things changed.

I did follow ups to all of the people who had not committed, and I hardly made any sales... 

The reason was that all of the people who were actually going to buy ended up being pushed to action by the fast mover discount.

Instead of having to follow up with them and push them to action, they just committed on their own accord at a quicker pace.

Eventually I started to reduce the time I spent on follow ups as I realized that this was no longer a high value use of my time. 

The Bottom Line

It doesn't matter if you are running a consulting firm doing large deals, or a product business selling a low priced service, you can use the fast mover discount.

You may need to adjust the timelines or discounts for your offer, but you can incorporate this into proposals and email communication with clients.

This will do wonders to help increase your close rate if you use it wisely.

Just don't force it on someone if it doesn't feel like the natural thing to do.

Giving credit where it is due

I must say that I learned this tactic from two friends in sales who both studied Sam Ovens sales material. I'm not certain if he is the original source of the concept, but I wanted to give credit where it is due.