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61 | Thoughts about Scarcity Marketing
If you're new to clinical practice, you might be tempted to investigate common marketing techniques to help you find more clients.
Unfortunately, many of the strategies you'll hear about won't necessarily get you the kinds of results you're looking for.
In this episode, I share a story about a marketing expert who recommended working scarcity into your marketing to fill up your one-on-one practice. In this case, someone I know wound up saying they had only have a limited number of spots available, even that wasn't the case.
While this might seem like a reasonable way to encourage people to sign up, it's not a good foundation to build from.
Starting a relationship with deception is never a good idea. You don't want to build your relationship with a new client on a lie, even if the client will never know the truth.
Secondly, pushing people to sign up when they're not ready can cause a natural pushback, which can lead to them feeling manipulated or skeptical.
Even if they do decide to work with you, they're entering the relationship in a different position than if they had made the decision on their own.
Instead of pushing people, give them the space and let them know the options for working with you, including when and how they can sign up when they're ready.
It might take longer to build your practice this way, but winding up with a practice build on solid values and strong relationships is worth it.
If you feel that deadlines are helpful for your clientele, play around with how you can incorporate them authentically, without making it feel like it's their last opportunity to work with you or that they'll be missing out if they don't sign up now.
I hope these ideas are helpful as you plan out how to find new clients for your practice
Related episode: 47 | On Having Another Job
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Transcript
Camille (00:00)
Well, hi there. Welcome to in the clinic with Camille. My name is Camille freeman. I am a licensed nutritionist and registered herbalist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be interesting or helpful for other practitioners.
Camille (00:21)
I want to talk to you today about scarcity and how it winds its way into our marketing sometimes and why I think that's probably a bad idea. So I'm going to start with a little story and to caveat this story. This person is not an herbalist, nor are they a nutritionist. And this is something that happened many years ago. So I was in a large program about how to start a business, and I was in a small group with this person.
Camille (00:48)
We were meeting to just talk about what we had done to promote our businesses that week. And this person said, oh, well, I've been taking this class from a marketing expert, and one of the things they recommend in order to fill your one on one practice, which, again, not an herbalist nor a nutritionist, but one of the things they recommend is to work in some scarcity into your marketing. And so saying, like, well, I've only got x number of spots left. So they had sent out an email to their list saying they only had five spots left for the month and for people to kind of get one of those spots if they wanted one. And in reality, this person was a brand new person doing the work that they were doing.
Camille (01:28)
And they had no limitation. I mean, obviously there was a time limitation on how many people you can see, but they could have taken 1020 or more clients and happily done so. So the five was really just a made up number. And I want to talk to you about, number one, why I have some issues with this strategy and similar strategies, anything designed to kind of push people into signing up. And two, some thoughts about alternatives to consider.
Camille (01:55)
Okay, so what are the problems with this? Number one, and I hope it's one that came to mind immediately for you, is that it's not true that if you say, either in an email or verbally in some context, that you only have five spots when in reality. You do not have only five spots. You're starting off your relationship with this person on a deception you're building from a place of falsehood. And the client will never know.
Camille (02:23)
They have no way of knowing if you are almost full or just starting out and have literally no clients yet they do not know that, and they likely will never find out. And still, energetically, that is the way that you've started the relationship. And I don't think that's a good foundation to build from. It just sets the whole thing off on the wrong foot. Okay, so that's a problem.
Camille (02:45)
That's a problem. The other thing to think about is anytime you are pushing somebody to do something that they're not ready to do just yet, there is a natural pushback. Sometimes this is conscious and sometimes it's subconscious. But I see this if it's like, well, I was going to do something anyway. Now that you're kind of forcing it and forcing the issue, I feel less inclined to do it.
Camille (03:11)
This can be subconscious, people don't always recognize it, but again, it leads to people feeling a little bit forced and a little bit manipulated. Even if they do sign up, they're likely to be starting the relationship or the program or whatever it is with more skepticism than if they had wholeheartedly opted in on their own at a time that when they were feeling especially motivated to do it. Okay, so those are some issues, there are more, but I'm going to stop right there because I think that's plenty. So then you might be thinking to yourself, well, Camille, if we're not going to do this, which a lot of marketing experts are recommending, what are we going to do? What are the solutions?
Camille (03:52)
Number one solution is don't push people to sign up if they're not ready. And that's hard to do because it means that it might take longer to build your practice. And yeah, it might take longer to build your practice. And what you might need to do is if you are going to do this in a way that feels in alignment with your values and ethics, is that you may need to support yourself using a different avenue for a while as you build up your practice in a way that feels good to you. And it is okay to do that.
Camille (04:27)
I have another podcast episode on that, which I'll link to in the notes, but it's absolutely okay. Don't put all your eggs in this basket too quickly because it just puts pressure on you and then you wind up putting pressure on your possible clients and you're pushing people away more than you're drawing them in. Okay? So give yourself the space not to push. Another thing that you can consider is if you have a particular clientele where deadlines are helpful, there are certain folks, especially certain folks in neurodivergent community or other types of situation like very, very busy people who might miss things if there isn't some kind of deadline.
Camille (05:06)
And I know this from teaching in a university for 15 years, that there's lots of brilliant, amazing students who really want to do a good job, and yet without a deadline of when to turn things in, they aren't going to get it done. So I get that there are some people who really thrive and they need a deadline in order to make anything happen. So if those are your people or if for your own sanity, you need to have a deadline in order for you to kind of plan ahead and so forth. I think it is okay to say to have some kind of deadline or some sort of situation like this, but without making it feel like this is people's last opportunity and if they don't do it now, they're going to be missing out and all of these kinds of things. I think it's perfectly okay to say, I am taking new clients until the end of July.
Camille (05:57)
At that point, I'm going to be going on a break, so if you'd like to come in and work with me, july 15 is the last day to sign up. Or you can say, I only accept new clients on the first week of the month, and that gives people a little bit of a deadline. Like, okay, if you want to start this month, you need to do it the first week, otherwise you need to wait till the first week of next up. I think those types of deadlines are absolutely okay, and if they are helping people make a decision, you can play around with those types of things. I also think it's completely fine to say to people, I have openings for clients this month.
Camille (06:31)
That is not a lie at all, and you are still kind of inviting people into your ecosystem without the false sense of scarcity, without the like, oh, you're going to miss out if you don't sign up now, which tends to lead to people feeling manipulated. So I hope that gives you some ideas. I wanted to share just a little example of how I've been thinking about this with my Monday mentoring program, which I have experimented with. Kind of how I enroll people into that program. And what works well for me and I think serves the folks who are joining it really well, is that we only have three times a year where we welcome new folks into the program.
Camille (07:12)
And part of that is just because there's a lot of getting adjusted that goes on in the beginning. And I think it's a little bit easier to do that when you're in a cohort of new people versus when you feel like you're the only one who is new and everybody else knows what they're doing. And then just from an administrative perspective, I can't keep up with it if enrollment is open all the time and there's constantly one or two new people joining here, there, and everywhere. So I've decided we're only going to open three times a year, and I more or less have loose ideas of when those are going to be. And before I would just sort of say, like, okay, it's open and it's closing on May 16, or whatever the day was.
Camille (07:53)
And eventually, as I started to think more about this, I was like, oh, I want people to be really clear that it's not closing forever on May 16, and that I don't want people to join us if it isn't the right like if they're just like, oh, no, I want to get in before it closes. I don't think that's a good reason to join. And so now I've started making a really concerted effort to tell people in my emails, when people join the waitlist, I usually reach out to them and share a little bit more about it. And I specifically try to say, listen, if right now isn't the right time for you to join, we are also open in September and again in January, because I want people to know that they don't have to join right now and that it is going to be available when the time is right for them. Because if we get people who are joining too early where they're like, oh, I just want to join now, even though I'm not quite ready yet, what's going to happen is they're not going to show up to the classes, to the sessions, and then they're out of the habit.
Camille (08:51)
And when the time is right, they're just not used to coming. It's not something that they do. So it doesn't benefit the community. It doesn't really benefit them. Technically.
Camille (09:01)
You could argue that it benefits me financially, although that's not my driving factor for this. And I would rather not have their money and have them join when the time is right and when they can really fully participate and get as much out of the community and give as much to the community as they can. So I found that when I started doing that, the rates of people who enrolled didn't change at all, but it feels a lot more in alignment with me. So I guess the point there is, if you're feeling a little bit concerned that if you don't use some of these tactics that people might not actually sign up, why don't you experiment and try not doing it and see what happens? And then if you are like, oh, that's not really working very well, meet with somebody and come up with a plan for how you can do this in a way that does feel good to you.
Camille (09:48)
Okay? All right. I hope that is helpful. If you have any questions or suggestions, I would love to hear about them. And if you have a question you like for me to answer on a future podcast episode, please get in touch because I'm always happy to answer your questions.
Camille (10:02)
All right, take care. Have a great day.
Camille (10:10)
Thanks for listening to in the clinic with Camille. Hey, did you know that I write a weekly practitioner note for herbalist and nutritionists? If you would like to get that in your inbox can sign up www.Camillefreeman.com/newsletter. Love to have you join us there. Here.
Well, hi there. Welcome to in the clinic with Camille. My name is Camille freeman. I am a licensed nutritionist and registered herbalist. And in this podcast, I share little tips and tidbits that might be interesting or helpful for other practitioners.
Camille (00:21)
I want to talk to you today about scarcity and how it winds its way into our marketing sometimes and why I think that's probably a bad idea. So I'm going to start with a little story and to caveat this story. This person is not an herbalist, nor are they a nutritionist. And this is something that happened many years ago. So I was in a large program about how to start a business, and I was in a small group with this person.
Camille (00:48)
We were meeting to just talk about what we had done to promote our businesses that week. And this person said, oh, well, I've been taking this class from a marketing expert, and one of the things they recommend in order to fill your one on one practice, which, again, not an herbalist nor a nutritionist, but one of the things they recommend is to work in some scarcity into your marketing. And so saying, like, well, I've only got x number of spots left. So they had sent out an email to their list saying they only had five spots left for the month and for people to kind of get one of those spots if they wanted one. And in reality, this person was a brand new person doing the work that they were doing.
Camille (01:28)
And they had no limitation. I mean, obviously there was a time limitation on how many people you can see, but they could have taken 1020 or more clients and happily done so. So the five was really just a made up number. And I want to talk to you about, number one, why I have some issues with this strategy and similar strategies, anything designed to kind of push people into signing up. And two, some thoughts about alternatives to consider.
Camille (01:55)
Okay, so what are the problems with this? Number one, and I hope it's one that came to mind immediately for you, is that it's not true that if you say, either in an email or verbally in some context, that you only have five spots when in reality. You do not have only five spots. You're starting off your relationship with this person on a deception you're building from a place of falsehood. And the client will never know.
Camille (02:23)
They have no way of knowing if you are almost full or just starting out and have literally no clients yet they do not know that, and they likely will never find out. And still, energetically, that is the way that you've started the relationship. And I don't think that's a good foundation to build from. It just sets the whole thing off on the wrong foot. Okay, so that's a problem.
Camille (02:45)
That's a problem. The other thing to think about is anytime you are pushing somebody to do something that they're not ready to do just yet, there is a natural pushback. Sometimes this is conscious and sometimes it's subconscious. But I see this if it's like, well, I was going to do something anyway. Now that you're kind of forcing it and forcing the issue, I feel less inclined to do it.
Camille (03:11)
This can be subconscious, people don't always recognize it, but again, it leads to people feeling a little bit forced and a little bit manipulated. Even if they do sign up, they're likely to be starting the relationship or the program or whatever it is with more skepticism than if they had wholeheartedly opted in on their own at a time that when they were feeling especially motivated to do it. Okay, so those are some issues, there are more, but I'm going to stop right there because I think that's plenty. So then you might be thinking to yourself, well, Camille, if we're not going to do this, which a lot of marketing experts are recommending, what are we going to do? What are the solutions?
Camille (03:52)
Number one solution is don't push people to sign up if they're not ready. And that's hard to do because it means that it might take longer to build your practice. And yeah, it might take longer to build your practice. And what you might need to do is if you are going to do this in a way that feels in alignment with your values and ethics, is that you may need to support yourself using a different avenue for a while as you build up your practice in a way that feels good to you. And it is okay to do that.
Camille (04:27)
I have another podcast episode on that, which I'll link to in the notes, but it's absolutely okay. Don't put all your eggs in this basket too quickly because it just puts pressure on you and then you wind up putting pressure on your possible clients and you're pushing people away more than you're drawing them in. Okay? So give yourself the space not to push. Another thing that you can consider is if you have a particular clientele where deadlines are helpful, there are certain folks, especially certain folks in neurodivergent community or other types of situation like very, very busy people who might miss things if there isn't some kind of deadline.
Camille (05:06)
And I know this from teaching in a university for 15 years, that there's lots of brilliant, amazing students who really want to do a good job, and yet without a deadline of when to turn things in, they aren't going to get it done. So I get that there are some people who really thrive and they need a deadline in order to make anything happen. So if those are your people or if for your own sanity, you need to have a deadline in order for you to kind of plan ahead and so forth. I think it is okay to say to have some kind of deadline or some sort of situation like this, but without making it feel like this is people's last opportunity and if they don't do it now, they're going to be missing out and all of these kinds of things. I think it's perfectly okay to say, I am taking new clients until the end of July.
Camille (05:57)
At that point, I'm going to be going on a break, so if you'd like to come in and work with me, july 15 is the last day to sign up. Or you can say, I only accept new clients on the first week of the month, and that gives people a little bit of a deadline. Like, okay, if you want to start this month, you need to do it the first week, otherwise you need to wait till the first week of next up. I think those types of deadlines are absolutely okay, and if they are helping people make a decision, you can play around with those types of things. I also think it's completely fine to say to people, I have openings for clients this month.
Camille (06:31)
That is not a lie at all, and you are still kind of inviting people into your ecosystem without the false sense of scarcity, without the like, oh, you're going to miss out if you don't sign up now, which tends to lead to people feeling manipulated. So I hope that gives you some ideas. I wanted to share just a little example of how I've been thinking about this with my Monday mentoring program, which I have experimented with. Kind of how I enroll people into that program. And what works well for me and I think serves the folks who are joining it really well, is that we only have three times a year where we welcome new folks into the program.
Camille (07:12)
And part of that is just because there's a lot of getting adjusted that goes on in the beginning. And I think it's a little bit easier to do that when you're in a cohort of new people versus when you feel like you're the only one who is new and everybody else knows what they're doing. And then just from an administrative perspective, I can't keep up with it if enrollment is open all the time and there's constantly one or two new people joining here, there, and everywhere. So I've decided we're only going to open three times a year, and I more or less have loose ideas of when those are going to be. And before I would just sort of say, like, okay, it's open and it's closing on May 16, or whatever the day was.
Camille (07:53)
And eventually, as I started to think more about this, I was like, oh, I want people to be really clear that it's not closing forever on May 16, and that I don't want people to join us if it isn't the right like if they're just like, oh, no, I want to get in before it closes. I don't think that's a good reason to join. And so now I've started making a really concerted effort to tell people in my emails, when people join the waitlist, I usually reach out to them and share a little bit more about it. And I specifically try to say, listen, if right now isn't the right time for you to join, we are also open in September and again in January, because I want people to know that they don't have to join right now and that it is going to be available when the time is right for them. Because if we get people who are joining too early where they're like, oh, I just want to join now, even though I'm not quite ready yet, what's going to happen is they're not going to show up to the classes, to the sessions, and then they're out of the habit.
Camille (08:51)
And when the time is right, they're just not used to coming. It's not something that they do. So it doesn't benefit the community. It doesn't really benefit them. Technically.
Camille (09:01)
You could argue that it benefits me financially, although that's not my driving factor for this. And I would rather not have their money and have them join when the time is right and when they can really fully participate and get as much out of the community and give as much to the community as they can. So I found that when I started doing that, the rates of people who enrolled didn't change at all, but it feels a lot more in alignment with me. So I guess the point there is, if you're feeling a little bit concerned that if you don't use some of these tactics that people might not actually sign up, why don't you experiment and try not doing it and see what happens? And then if you are like, oh, that's not really working very well, meet with somebody and come up with a plan for how you can do this in a way that does feel good to you.
Camille (09:48)
Okay? All right. I hope that is helpful. If you have any questions or suggestions, I would love to hear about them. And if you have a question you like for me to answer on a future podcast episode, please get in touch because I'm always happy to answer your questions.
Camille (10:02)
All right, take care. Have a great day.
Camille (10:10)
Thanks for listening to in the clinic with Camille. Hey, did you know that I write a weekly practitioner note for herbalist and nutritionists? If you would like to get that in your inbox can sign up www.Camillefreeman.com/newsletter. Love to have you join us there. Here.
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