How Pre-sell Plays A Crucial Role In Risk-Reduction

---

Why do clients hesitate like crazy when they are about to buy?

Risk doesn't just come in one flavour, yet The Brain Audit takes away a ton of that risk.

In this article on pre-sell,  we take a forensic look at what happens when you release a new version of your product or service. Is it still the same product or service? How does pre-sell play a role? And how do you overcome such an unwarranted risk?

---

We will look at pre-sell in three parts:

Part 1: What's the link between risk and pre-sell
Part 2: How pre-sell works like magic
Part 3: The big reasons why clients don't buy (and how pre-sell plays a role).

Right click here and ‘save as' to download this episode to your computer.

---

If you've ever seen a Bollywood film (Hindi movies from India), you'll notice there's a lot of music and dancing.

---

And a film release in India is like movie releases anywhere in the world of cinema. Trailers, interviews with the actors, publicity and the hoopla. It’s all part of the strategy to ensure that the movie is a stunning success. While back in 1964, the music would be released six to eight weeks before the film release. However, by the 1990s, the music was being released three months or more—before the official launch of the movie.

But what’s the link between risk and pre-release of the music?

Since most Hindi movies are musicals, the songs are the primary reason most people go to the cinema. If the songs are catchy—and become hits, the movie’s success is guaranteed.

When you look at it, an overwhelming number of Hindi movies have a similar plot. There’s a good guy, a bad guy, a romance between the hero and heroine—and lots of dancing and singing. There’s so little variation in scripts that the only risk for the moviegoer is—will I be entertained? When they listen to the songs in advance, the risk is removed. Pre-sell reigns supreme and the movie is a super hit!

So what is pre-sell?

Pre-sell doesn’t involve sales at all. In fact, it’s a systematic dispensation of information. A simple example of pre-sell would be a wedding being held next summer. At first, there’s no information at all. Then, one day the bride and groom-to-be announce they’re going to get married.

And now we have a countdown of sorts. There are announcements along the way and events. What you’re getting is a drip feed of information that goes all the way to the wedding day itself. The reason you and everyone else shows up on the day—and at the event, is because of pre-sell.

When you pre-sell, there’s limited risk because the very act of pre-sell is drip, drip, drip

One of the biggest reasons why clients don’t buy is because they feel pressure. They feel they’re about to make a decision they could regret. And it’s more than likely their brains have been drummed with messages of “sleep on it, sleep on it, sleep on it”.

In most cases, sleeping on anger may help a great deal. If you’re irritated and angry, it’s a jolly good idea to sleep on it. However, when buying a product, or service, the information rarely changes from one day to the next. What holds clients back, most of the time, is the fear of making a decision they’ll regret.

The run up to anything reduces this pressure

Take for instance a workshop we did in 2017 in New Zealand. It was going to be held in  the beautiful Queenstown—in the South Island. Now you may have heard of the beauty of New Zealand, but you go south, and it rocks. Queenstown is incredibly beautiful, has stunning views, and there’s one more thing you have to do when you’re in Queenstown.

You need to take the road to Glenorchy. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been on the planet, and no matter how many amazing things you’ve seen—the road to Glenorchy is breathtaking.

What you just heard was a pitch for 2017 workshop which we did in 2016.

But it didn’t sound like a pitch, did it? And the reason it didn’t sound quite that way is because approximately 275 odd days stood between then and the workshop. As the workshop gets mentioned more often, you would start to feel the urge to visit the last stop before Antarctica—yes, New Zealand. You think, well, it’s now or never. Sure it’s going to be a long trip. Sure it’s going to cost a small fortune, but it’s a workshop—and you think—well, I can write it off as a business expense.

What are the chances of me visiting New Zealand and finding a business reason to do so?

In your head, you’re selling the event to yourself. Now make no mistake. This place called Queenstown is no mirage. It doesn’t matter how many pictures and videos you see—it will still blow your socks off. And because of the distance between the event and your decision, you feel no risk, only great expectations.

Pre-sell is the best way to sell a product or service

At Psychotactics, we roll out a pre-sell for almost every product or service. There’s the pre-sell right before a course or product launch—like the one we’re doing right now for the Article Writing Course. But there’s also the long pre-sell.

If you were on the Psychotactics list, you would have received a simple chart that gave you details about all our courses and products for the year. That too—it’s a pre-sell. And the moment a course finishes, alumni are encouraged to post their experiences of the course in our membership site at 5000bc.

The pre-sell for the next year’s course starts almost the second the previous one has finished.

What’s interesting to note is that no details are mentioned. No prices, no dates—it’s all pretty vague. So yes, you know about Queenstown, and you know about New Zealand. And you know there’s a workshop, but you don’t know the month or the name of the workshop or even how much it will cost.

And yet, notice how you want to find out more—even if you have no plans of getting to New Zealand

That’s what pre-sell does: It reduces risk like crazy simply because it’s way out there in future-land. It has this feeling of being risk-free and what it’s doing is creating a slow but steady percolation of information. No pressure, no hard-sell, but just this tiny little snippet of information coming your way.

It’s the way Hindi movies make their way to the launch date.

It’s how weddings attract a full house when a simple Sunday lunch can be a problem.

It’s how most of the products and services are sold by us at Psychotactics. It’s also the reason clients sign up so quickly. Once you’ve been given information in bits and pieces, you don’t need any more. The risk has left the building, and you’re ready to buy!