Confidence Classic: The Psychology of Scarcity with Dr. Mindy Weinstein

22:18Heather Monahan:Don't tell me that this actually works as hard to get in dating. This is like everything that I preach to my son. No, be you, like tell the truth. This is awful to hear.

22:27Dr. Mindy Weinstein:No. So, okay. I actually do have a chapter that's kind of about that, but that is something, and I'm glad you just brought that up because I actually included an interview and he's, he writes for a doctor. And so he is the attraction doctor. Like that's what he's termed as. but that was something that we talked about because I also had the same feeling as you of like okay don't just like play hard again just for the sake of it like then you're gonna get people that you wouldn't really either wanted to work with or date you know because that's not right and so one of the things that him and I were talking about and he brought up he said you know I tell my you know people that I'm consulting about dating and that okay you can be hard to get in a way that you value yourself you know yourself you value yourself you don't have to be readily available to everybody.

23:13Dr. Mindy Weinstein:You don't need to be that. And so that is still the idea of playing hard to get, but not in a weird manipulative way. But like you value yourself, you know what you're worth, you know who you are, you're genuine. And you know what, you can be just a selective too. And so that's really when he said that, I'm like, that's really interesting. And I've seen that play out with some even consultants that will do that. And they're not trying to be manipulative, but they end up playing hard to get without realizing it of if you're a consultant, you only have so much time because time is finite. Like you only have so much.

23:43Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And so it's automatically scarce and you can only work with so many people at a time. And so I know of consultants who during a meeting with a prospect, you know, as they're talking, just being honest and saying, you know, I really am interested in this project. You know, I only work with a certain amount of people at a time. Again, you're being honest. And in those situations, I've heard stories of it flipping to the prospect being like, oh, well, here's why you really like working with us. you know, and again, it's not, it's playing hard to get, but not in a way that's like, you're just valuing yourself and just saying like, I know my value.

24:14Dr. Mindy Weinstein:I know this is how much time I have. And that's huge. Even okay, now I'm on a roll. Sorry. I'll give you one more example. I'm really excited about this topic, as you can see, like I can totally just keep going about scarcity. But the other thing too, like job offers, like that's one of the things that's really interesting. And I think people don't realize that they're either playing hard to get, which is again, is part of scarcity with job offers. So if you get a job offer, and you want to think about it, you don't have to jump on it right away saying like, give me some time, I'd like to think it over.

24:47Dr. Mindy Weinstein:That's actually is a bit of scarcity, because you're not making yourself so easy to get you're really taking that time. And so I know a lot of just stories of people who've done that, because they just naturally wanted to think about it. And it turned into the a little bit more push of like, okay, well, you know, we really want to make sure we really want to hire you. And so those are things, again, it's just, it's value, you know, knowing your value, knowing your business value, knowing your personal value. It's so important. Okay.

25:15Heather Monahan:Two examples. And you tell me if this is scarcity. I think it is. One, I've seen a lot of people on social media and I actually, I did this myself for my book launch group that I had to help me promote my book when it was coming out, apply here. So instead of just saying, sign up here, you can apply here. You're being considered and we'll see if we're going to go ahead and approve you. Okay. So that's one way that I think of that's like sort of reframing it that, oh, what an honor if she'll accept me versus that, you know, I'm just going to sign up and I'll get the link, whatever. So that was one.

25:47Heather Monahan:Two was I just interviewed the lead instructor for Peloton, Robin. And she told me when she interviewed for Peloton, she went in, did the interview, and she was leaving. And in 72 hours after that, she was leaving the country because her sister had something going on in India, whatever. She's going to be gone for two weeks. And she knew she needed clarity on what she was doing when she got back. She didn't want to go on the trip, not knowing. So when she left, she said to them, if you need anything else, I have 72 hours, but I need you to make a decision by then on if we're going to be working together.

26:19Heather Monahan:Otherwise, I'm going to pass. I'm leaving. Are both of those scarcity?

26:23Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Oh, 100%. 100%. Both of them are. And you talking about that book example actually made me think about this agency. And I can't speak to how well this agency is done. It's just a really interesting approach. But they are based in the Netherlands. And if you go to their website, it actually says that you have to fill out like it's just a form. Like you have to fill out the form to even like have them reach out to you. But then And it also made it clear on there that most of the people they work with were invited to fill out that form. And again, I can't speak to it. I don't know how they're doing.

26:58Dr. Mindy Weinstein:But I did, you know, kind of laugh. Like it feels really, yeah, exclusive. And you want to be part of that. And so we want to feel special. And that's like what you're talking about, the apply, you know, having the apply to be part of this. So they're the little things. And that's what I really find fascinating about scarcities, because it is so multi-layered. And there's so many different things that we just don't realize that that's the principle at work. That's either like helping us get more customers or clients. We don't even realize that we're applying it, maybe even by accident, or that if we just change wording a little bit in an honest way, it brings people in.

27:31Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Or even some of the decisions that we make that it's only having 72 hours to get that job, you know, offer over to the person you want to hire. But it's a big driver.

27:41Heather Monahan:What is some of the most eye-opening research that you access? because I know that you've read so much and so deeply into this. What really opened your eyes and you said, wow.

27:50Dr. Mindy Weinstein:What actually, and I did talk about this a little bit, what really got me to thinking like, oh my gosh, this is huge, was just the amount of just MRI scans that were done. And that was just a huge thing because, I mean, all research I think is, or a lot of research is really great. But sometimes you wonder when you're reading like, oh, this participant filled out this questionnaire. You know, I mean, again, I'm not talking bad about any type of research, but when you actually see that, like, this is how the brain is getting activated, it's just like, whoa, like, this is just insane and interesting.

28:28Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And so that to me was what was like, okay, wow, I think like digging into this more, there's a lot here. I mean, it can't be contested when you can see the MRI. Right. Yeah. I mean, you can see it. And so that's it.

28:41Heather Monahan:It's total validation, which you don't usually have.

28:45Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Right. Exactly. Because I feel like so much in marketing, we're like, you got to try it. Maybe it'll work. But then, yeah, when you see that, you're like, OK, apparently this does work.

28:54Heather Monahan:How does social media play into this and how can people leverage social media with scarcity?

29:00Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Of course, if you're doing any kind of sale, I mean, that's a huge thing. So having it on social media, we see a lot of those ads. But I will tell you one thing to think about if you are like, let's say you're in a product business. So you're a business to consumer, you got products, you're doing a flash sale. You know, also understand that, yes, you can pay for ads, you can get some sales, but people are going to also do their due diligence. And so making sure that you know what, you are providing that good customer service, you are providing those quality products, because people are going to search you out online, like they're going to go from Instagram, open up Google and they're going to look up reviews in your company or they're going to go to TikTok and look up reviews because that's where a lot of people go now too to make sure that you are really a trustworthy company and so I think sometimes like just understanding that that's going to happen at the same time you can still even use influencers that actually does fall into this because one of the things that I talk about in my book is the credibility of the source the person who's giving that message.

30:04Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And so if you do have someone that is an influence in your space, doesn't mean that they have to have millions of followers, they could be a micro influencer, people are listening to them, and that's your audience. But having them, you know, tout your product, talk about your product, and then you could still have some kind of promotion or something like that. But because the trust, the source is trustworthy, people do make purchases. So that's a big thing with social. But of course, you know, we all have user generated content on social. So having people post that like, Hey, I got the McRib sandwich today.

30:35Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Okay, that's if you're McDonald's, right. But I mean, those are the things that get people like, well, I want to be part of that group too. And so it can definitely snowball.

30:43Heather Monahan:So that idea that you're in a part of a club or an exclusive group is really leveraging scarcity.

30:50Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Absolutely. Yes. And so really, like with scarcity, you know, I talked about the different types, but they all those different types, they speak to different people, some of them. So like with supply related, that's people who do want to have self expression, you know, and so like, they want people to admire them, you know, they want to have something that makes them stand out. But then there's people who want to feel really included as a group, you know, and then there's people who just want something exclusive. And that is also an exclusive group. So it's that sense of belonging we have. So we know all these different things like that humans, we have sense of belonging, like we, you know, sometimes we'll want to stand out, but when coupled with scarcity and understanding that, that's when you're like, okay, you know, showing that people can be part of this, you know, that's really going to use scarcity plus speak to other human components.

31:41Heather Monahan:That's interesting. I wouldn't have understood that without you explaining it. So thank you. All right. Tell us, who did you actually write the book, The Power of Scarcity for?

31:49Dr. Mindy Weinstein:So I actually wrote it for businesses. I mean, that's what I had in mind because that's what I kept thinking about when I was doing my research. I'm like, if only like more businesses knew this. And again, using it in an ethical way because I don't want anyone to take it and be like, okay, well, I'm just going to create fake scarcity because that'll backfire just for the reason I just told you people are going to look up your company and people talk. So we don't, you know, it's not worth it. But just realizing that, my gosh, like all these different companies, these businesses, these marketers that could really increase their business, you know, their revenue, but build those communities.

32:22Dr. Mindy Weinstein:So the whole idea with like building communities and fun and excitement, like I learned from McDonald's or the communities, I learned that from a couple of different companies. That wasn't something in my academic research. So I felt like I had a good handle on scarcity. And then when I started doing these interviews with just different executives, business owners, consultants, all these different people, I thought there's this whole other side that's actually not necessarily in an academic research, but we can see it from actual case studies. And so once I had all that, that's what I was like, this really just needs to be out there because it's a great way to approach, you know, building relationships with your customers, with increasing your sales, building those communities.

33:00Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And a lot of it doesn't really cost you anything. It's just how are you wording things? And what else can you do for your customers? I also even think about all of this as like a way that you're helping and informing customers. So like, let's say that you do, you are business to consumer and you have a product that's your best seller that actually helps people, you know, when you have that label, because it helps them make that quicker decision, mental shortcut. And so it was really with all of that, that made me think like, this is such great information for businesses. So it's businesses and marketers, but really, if you're just a consumer who wants to understand why you make certain purchases or why you're doing what you're doing, it's still, you'll get a lot from it.

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37:55Heather Monahan:So can you overuse or over leverage scarcity in your marketing?

38:01Dr. Mindy Weinstein:You can. So that's a really good question, actually. And so sales is the best example of that. You don't want to continue to do a sale over and over again. And some companies do that. And I think about like, there's even a restaurant out here that puts out a promotion of like, you know, dinner for two, and it's a certain price. And it's you get this, this and that. Well, most people are now conditioned that they're going to only wait until that promotion happens because they know it's going to keep happening. And so it can be overdone. And so it's important if you are doing something like that approach that you are mixing it up, you're not doing it, you know, all the time, because that's really going to get people a little bit more excited when they do see something that's, you know, scarce and you're taking some approach versus you're doing it all the time.

38:48Heather Monahan:What's the cadence that you would recommend to a business to do something like a sale?

38:53Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Yeah, if they were going to do a sale, I mean, it's going to, of course, depend on the business. But, you know, a sale every quarter, general rule of thumb, that should be okay. But you might even change the products that you're going to have, or if it's services, the services you're going to provide. But then I also know some companies, like I'm thinking of a med spa that I've worked with, that they do different sales every month, but they switch them up. So it's not the same thing every month. It's a mix of things. And so for them, doing one every single month makes sense. But if it's like this big sale, you know, having more of that separation of time is ideal.

39:28Heather Monahan:What type of scarcity in marketing are you going to leverage for the book?

39:33Dr. Mindy Weinstein:I love that. So I actually did start a little bit of a wait list for the book. So that was one of the things that I was looking at. I do have a lot of people that like to joke with me about, am I going to get my exclusive copy of this book? But the other thing that actually I did do and so is a book incentive. And so if people certain period of time, if you bought and preordered the book, you get access to this exclusive webinar. And so and it's very valuable. So, yes, I used my own tips in it, but there's a lot of great information that is only in that webinar. And so you'd have to preorder and watch it.

40:12I'll tell you that, you know, similarly, I use those same strategies.

40:17Heather Monahan:I didn't know it was scarcity marketing, right? I saw someone who was ahead of me as an author who had sold millions of books and they were doing it. So I thought, best of class, like I'm gonna emulate this and see how it works. And so it worked really well. I just didn't understand that's what I was leveraging when I did it.

40:34Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Right, so it's that whole mentality. And now it's what you'll find too, you know, the more that you're learning about scarcity as we're talking about it, you're gonna see it everywhere. You just didn't realize that's what was happening. but it's everywhere.

40:48Heather Monahan:When I see it, I'm going to pause as a consumer. I mean, as a consumer, as a company, I'll look at it and say, how could this apply to my business? Of course, and relate it to my business. But as a consumer, if I want it, I'm going to pause and say, hang on, your brain's reacting. This is not necessarily a need. Think about it and see if we can walk away from this for a minute to get our bearings before I make an impulse purchase, right?

41:13Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Exactly. I even still have to do that for myself because again, I fall into that, you know, I'll get the alert on my phone that I have first access to a sale, let's say. And, you know, next thing I know, I went from watching TV with my boys to like filling up my shopping cart, you know, I've done that and I had to stop and go, do I really need this, you know, laptop case, because I already have five, where you just thought, I mean, that's silly example. But yeah, like just pause, pause and ask yourself, is this something you truly wanted? You know, and the other thing too, too, especially like when we think about holiday shopping and sales, it's really easy to get caught up in that.

41:52Dr. Mindy Weinstein:But you want to even do your homework ahead of time, find out about know what you want to buy and find out what is the normal price? What have been the sale prices periodically that have happened for this product to understand if it's truly a good deal when you see that holiday sale, because it may or may not be that great of a deal. And so that's just kind of something to think about too.

42:13Heather Monahan:So the more you do research ahead of time, it takes that emotion and that reaction out of it. So you're instead prepared and kind of prepping yourself so that you can fight against that MRI reaction.

42:25Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Yes. And that because when I was talking about the MRI reaction to remember, it was the value that your brain is placing on that item. But if you already know how much that product should be, that helps with that. Plus, as I talked about the decision making, you know, that gets skipped. Well, you're actually doing it ahead of time, you know, you're doing your homework. And so it can help with all of that.

42:46Heather Monahan:I would imagine that social media makes scarcity and marketing even more successful, because the more you see your friends online talking about it or tagging you in something, and like you said, creating content and sharing something just left here, the place is going crazy. It gives you that sense of FOMO.

43:01Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Oh, yeah. I mean, FOMO, I mean, I know I alluded to that a little bit, but FOMO is a huge thing when it comes to scarcity. It's huge. And so, and that is, I mean, that's some of the examples I talk about is social media. We don't want to miss out if we find out that like concert tickets are going on sale and all our friends are talking about it. Well, when it goes on sale, we want to make sure we're buying it too, because we don't want to miss that. But you just, again, have to remind yourself that it's that, And I know I did say this, but like pause, know that any regret you're going to have, if you don't take action, will go away.

43:35Dr. Mindy Weinstein:You're not going to be thinking about that long term. And that's also supported with research.

43:40Heather Monahan:Well, when you just said concert tickets, it reminded me I have an American Express card. I get emails from American Express and I've activated. I've done it. But when they sent me this, I didn't know what was happening. They sent me an email. You have been invited to an exclusive group because you're an American Express card holder. We are giving you early access to make it up. I don't know, Beyonce, whoever was coming to the, you know, Miami arena and you have 24 hours to purchase your tickets, the offer stands for immediately. I'm like, click, click, click. I never did any research to find out were they even available to anybody else?

44:12Heather Monahan:What were the pricing? You know, was it competitive pricing wise to I just reacted immediately?

44:18Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Okay. And I'm glad you even said the word reacted. So that's actually one of the big theories associated with scarcity. It's called a reactance theory. We have a physiological reaction. So it's what you just said of like, well, in that example, there was a lot of scarcity. It was you got exclusive access because you were an American Express card holder. You only had this certain amount of time, you know, all of these things at work. And so you do take action right away without stopping and thinking about it because we have that physiological reaction to it. That's been another thing we've seen.

44:48Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And you had probably like felt it like you maybe your hands are a little sweaty and you're like trying to press. And you're like, oh, my gosh, you feel your heart pounding a little bit more. They had a clock running at the bottom.

44:57Heather Monahan:Like there was a clock like putting more pressure on you. Yes.

45:00Dr. Mindy Weinstein:So there was also time related on top of everything else in there. Yeah, there was a lot. I had that happen and actually included the story in my book. I went to Disney World with my kids and it was like right during COVID. And so they were restricting certain amount of people going on rides. And it was the rise of the resistance. Like we actually had to get on a list to be able to go on the ride. I didn't even know anything about the ride. I was just like, whatever, but I'm the travel planner in my household. And so I got up, set my alarm, like the morning we were going to go to the park to get on the list to get our spot.

45:31Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And like right on the dot, it was already all filled up. And it was like, try again at two o 'clock. And I spent the entire afternoon, like up until that time, like obsessing about this ride. And I even found like a place with good Wi-Fi and sat down and right at two o 'clock, I like press the button and we got put on a wait list to be on the list. but it was funny because all around me because I wasn't paying attention to anyone else. Like we're at the park and I'm still just thinking about this ride up until two o 'clock. But all these people around me were doing the same thing. So here's some people cheering because I got in, some people booing.

46:03Dr. Mindy Weinstein:And, you know, we did this whole thing and I had actually already been working on, you know, all of this research at the time. So I knew what was happening. But when we actually did finally get on the ride, but when we were in line to get our spot on the ride, I actually turned on my son, my teenager. And I was like, why did we do all of this? And he goes, because everyone wanted to write it. And I'm like, you know what? That's deep because that's part of it. There's a lot of demand. Everybody wanted to write it. So we wanted to write. So what you just said, I didn't never want to stop to think about anything, you know, and the ride was good.

46:33Dr. Mindy Weinstein:The ride was good.

46:33Heather Monahan:It was, it just quick decision. Well, just so you know, Disney's not new to that because nine years ago, I was there with my son and they did the same thing to us. Star Wars was the one when I guess that was the hottest ride at the time. And it was the same thing. You had to wake up at a certain time. you had to put your name in. And if you missed it, you're like essentially waitlisted to the next window. And the kids were going crazy. And I feel your pain. You're like, I'll get us on. I'll make it happen. Yeah, they definitely leveraged scarcity there.

47:03Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Oh, totally. It just makes you want to go on that even more. And yeah. And hearing that cheering in the crowd, like around me, like people who got on the list, and then the booing people who didn't like, oh, look at all of us.

47:14Heather Monahan:This is insane. Okay, so what are people going to get from the book when they buy the book?

47:18Dr. Mindy Weinstein:So the way that I set up the book is I talked about like all this academic research, but I was really trying to put together a book that, you know, it's built on psychological frameworks, right? And so this is information as we already talked about, you know, that it's grounded in theory, we've seen it through studies, yet that can be sometimes hard to digest. So have the principles in there, but very, very practical application. And a lot of case studies and interviews and different examples of what businesses are doing. So it doesn't even leave it to your imagination. You know, I'll present the theory why it works.

47:55Dr. Mindy Weinstein:Here's an example. Here's how you can do it. So really what you're going to get from it is it's going to open your eyes to all these different ways you might want to think about scarcity in your business. And what can you leverage to build those customer relationships and also, of course, to help sales too, but to have that better connection. And again, none of it is hard to do. It's just knowing how it works, why it works, when to use it, and then you can implement it.

48:22Heather Monahan:Well, it's so helpful and I will be implementing it for my business. I'm appreciative you broke this down and even educated us on this conversation that definitely isn't happening. How can people find the power of scarcity?

48:33Dr. Mindy Weinstein:So you can go to powerofscarcity.com and that'll take you to my website. And so I have all the different booksellers listed there. And of course, you can go to your favorite bookseller near you. It's going to be available November 8.

48:46Heather Monahan:Well, we will be running to get the book because I don't want to be the one that didn't get it booing on the sidelines. I appreciate you being here, Mindy, and thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you so much. Okay, guys, until next week, keep creating your confidence.

49:08Heather Monahan:in here start learning and growing inevitably something will happen no one succeeds alone you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it i'm on this journey with me