You’ve just found the EXACT car you want. You’ve just found the perfect job. You must have it. So what do you do, you pay too much for the car or you take to little for the job? When we have to have something, when we believe it’s perfect and there is nothing as good as what is in front of us we are creating scarcity, artificial scarcity. We act as if we can’t lose the car, or the job. We believe there is nothing else as good. When artificial scarcity is created we lose. We become defensive in negotiation. Fear creeps in. We act as if we lose the deal, if we lose the job, there is nothing to replace it. When we get like this we give the farm away. We negotiate from fear not from confidence. We lose and lose bad.
This happens all the time with companies and sales. Desperate for revenue, desperate to make quarterly numbers companies and sales people give away the farm for fear of losing the deal. They lower prices. They sweeten the deal by adding additional features or benefits for free. Fear, and desperation take over and all efforts begin to focus on NOT LOSING. This type of culture trains clients to wait until the end of the quarter to make a decision, knowing the sales person/company will be desperate and make more concessions. It trains customers to never accept the first deal. It makes the sales person look weak.
There are more cars out there. There are more jobs. There are more deals. Creating scarcity where it doesn’t exist only helps the other guy. If you have a deal that is going to close for 10% more revenue in a month, but will cause you to miss your quarterly target, then miss your quarterly target. If the have to have job is going to cause you to be paid 15% less than your peers for the same job, don’t take the job. If the car of your dreams is going to cost an additional 5 grand, go get another car.
There is no such thing as a have to have job, there is no such thing as a must have deal. We only think there is. We make it up in our mind. We convince ourselves that some how our lives will be less valuable, our position less safe. There are very few must have events in our lives. If you will lose your job by not closing the deal this quarter, then you were at risk long before the deal needed to be closed. If you are afraid you won’t get the perfect job, then you haven’t been managing your money right or you aren’t as good as you think. It’s not the deal, or the car, or the job, it’s you. You’re creating the scarcity. Don’t create scarcity.
Scarcity means; few, or limited in quantity and when it comes to most things it’s not true. There is plenty, you just have to believe it.
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