A while back I wrote about the “no one is interested in my thing” phenomenon.

You know, when we jump to the big crazy conclusion that the reason people aren’t calling or hiring us or buying our stuff is that we suck. A lot. Clearly.

And yeah, that’s us getting sidetracked by our stuff again. Which totally happens.

But what about when you’ve (mostly) gotten over yourself the “I suck” bit? When you really, truly know (or mostly know) your thing is good … but still, no one is actually taking you up on it?

Oof. It’s frustrating and horrible. And worse than that, it’s confusing — because you don’t know why they aren’t showing up.

Here’s why.

You haven’t yet given them enough of a reason to say yes.

It’s not that your Right People are screaming NO. It’s not that they’re running away.

It’s just that they haven’t been — at least not enough of them — saying yes.

Instead, there might be a bunch of people saying things like this:

• “Huh. This is seriously interesting. I’d really like to do it, but I don’t know if now is the right time.”
• “Mmmm, I like this idea, but I’ll have to see if I have the money and come back later. I just wish I could really be sure that coaching will help me solve this thing.”
• “Wow. That does look neat. Well, maybe the next time he offers it.”

They’re into you. It’s just that they’re still … waiting. For a reason to say yes.

You haven’t given them enough of a reason to say yes.

It’s so much easier to keep on not-deciding.

I mentioned Victoria’s excellent post about decision making a few weeks ago.

It’s about how to pare down the time spent on those interminable “should I stay or should I go” types of decisions by finding out what would shift the decision from an agonizing one into a no-brainer.

Well, guess what? You have to do the same thing with whatever it is you’re offering.

If you’re not making it ridiculously easy for the other person to say “I’m in!”, you’re leaving them adrift in the decision-making process.

Without actively working in that special something to make it a no-brainer, your Right People could easily remain stuck in indecision-mode.

And in my experience, a mind stuck in indecision will almost always default to the safe answer of “no”. Or it will just stagnate in not-saying-yes mode until it’s too late and the decision has been made through not being made.

This is kind of like the thing that people (biggifiers and software user-interface designers and smart markety people) say — “a confused mind says no“.

Yes, it’s annoying, but ohmygod is it ever true.

Making space for the yes.

So. What can turn your thing (your class, your program, your coaching, your product) into a no-brainer? Something people want to say yes to?

I have five ideas, but first I want to mention two things to watch out for:

First, you want to be wary of the temptation to use super-low price as the way to make it a no-brainer. Doesn’t help you or them. Pricing is sacred.

The other thing: this is where a lot of the biggifiers talk about creating urgency. And what you have to watch out for with that is whipped-up urgency often comes with a side dish of emotional manipulation.

Which, to my way of thinking, is really not cool.

But there are still ways to spark excitement without using your powers for evil or making people feel bad about themselves. Your urgency can be hot without being sleazy.

So, keeping those things in mind, here’s a quick run-through of five things that make it easier for your Right People to give you a yes.

Five ingredients of a yes:

1. Limits

Limits are sexy. But they can’t be too arbitrary, or they stop making sense. Which is … less sexy.

Limits require a rational reason.

Right? People will cock an eyebrow if you only make ten copies of an ebook available. It’s an ebook. It’s not like there are extra production costs for creating more than one.

But if you’re offering an hour of your time at a reduced rate when someone buys the ebook (as I used to do with the Procrastination Dissolve-o-matic), it totally makes sense that this is something that only ten people can do.

You can limit time. Or you can limit availability.

2. Proof

Testimonials, baby. You want pithy quotes from someone who looks and sounds like one of your Right People, talking about how your thing blew them away by being even more awesome than it sounded.

3. An exit strategy

Also known as a guarantee.

Having an assurance that if “it’s not my thing I don’t have to stay with it” lets me know that I can crawl out if necessary. Giving me an out make it feel safer to come in.

4. Address objections

Your Right People are smart. They may have all sorts of completely legitimate reasons for worrying that your thing isn’t going to help them.

This is where you get to meet them where they are and create safety. Oh, and spend some time answering their unasked questions.

5. And of course, not being a fakerooney

You kind of have to sound like a real human being — the real human being that you actually are.

Otherwise there’s going to be cognitive dissonance every time you say markety-blah-blah stuff that doesn’t really come from you. People pick up on that lack of authenticity, subconsciously hear it as “phony”, and then it stops being a no-brainer.

I know, I know, this is way harder than it sounds, because it can be a very subtle distinction to make, but keep it in mind.

Because not saying things like “But wait — there’s more!” is pretty much the most important thing when it comes to speaking to your Right People. Unless your Right People happen to consist of the audiences of early-80s infomercials.

IMPORTANT! Exceptions and caveats.

This is the weird thing about giving advice. It’s all totally, 100% absolutely solid — but I don’t always follow it myself.

So this is kind of one of those “do what I say, not what I do” deals.

Why? Because you aren’t always going to want to make it easy to say yes.

Here are a couple of examples from my own business:

Arbitrary limits.

Naomi and I taught a (completely brilliant) class last year about how to make the monies even — especially? — when people aren’t buying because things are recession-ey and horrible.

Compared to everything else we’ve ever done, it was insanely affordable,

And when we decided to finally bring the original sale price up to full price (soon?), we ended up deciding to limit time and availability: you’ll still be able to get it at the old sale price ($19) for two weeks. OR until one hundred people have gotten it, whichever comes first.

But wait, you say, what about that thing you wrote about random limits? Well, if a ton of people are already interested in your thing, setting a artificially low limit is rational. It’s weird, but it works.

We know it will sell out before the two weeks are up, so it’s a way of sorting out who is really excited about our stuff … and who’s on the fence. The fence-folks will miss out, and in this particular case, that’s okay with us.

In the meantime, we can set a time limit — even though there’s no way it will actually last that long.

Intentionally making it hard to decide.

When I lead a retreat, I don’t want to help people say yes. I actually want them to be 100% sure about what they want, without my help.

So with my upcoming Sacramento program? No testimonials. No guarantee.

In fact, I basically said that I’m going to keep half your money even if you don’t come. I gave more reasons for people not to come than to show up. And it still sold out.

I can be hard to get like this because I’ve invested gazillions of hours into developing my stuff, and because I am very, very clear about what kind of people I want there. The ones who are already completely sure that spending a day with me and Selma doing biggification magic is exactly what they need.

But if this was my first time doing something like this? Ohmygod would things be different.

I’d have raving testimonials up there. I’d be linking to all the posts about the hot, buttered epiphanies people got from my North Carolina workshop. I’d answer every possible subconscious objection, and I’d pack the sign-up page with things that — if I were the one reading it — would make me say yes yes yes I’m in!

Yes, I write copy for me. Because I’m a total cynic. So if I can write things that don’t make me roll my eyes, it’s probably good enough for my Right People. But that’s another post.

That’s it.

Hope it’s helpful.

And hugs all around for the hard. I know this whole topic is frustrating and super trigger-ey.

Also, gah. I’m sorry. There is so much experimenting to be done when you’re biggifying. We’re always trying stuff. And trying stuff and having it not work is exhausting and depressing.

So if there’s stuff in here that stresses you out, you have my permission to ignore it. Take the bits that work for you and leave the rest for some other time.

Comment zen for today …
We’re all working on our stuff. We’re doing the best we can. We try not to step on each other’s stuff. We’re practicing.