How to Use the Fear of Loss to Generate More Sales

I finally did it.

I stopped in St. Louis and went to the top of the Gateway Arch with my wife and three kids.

Talk about… an amazing view! At 630 feet tall, it’s just about the tallest structure for hundreds of miles.

To one side, you see downtown St. Louis, including the courthouse where the Dred Scott decision was issued, as well as the baseball field where the Cardinals play. To the other side, you see the Mississippi River and a great expanse of land stretching toward the east.

I highly recommend it.

But what does this have to do with boosting your sales?

Plenty, actually.

The trips to the top of the arch are well-orchestrated. They are staggered every 5 minutes. And every single person, family, and group is photographed before making the 4-minute ascent.

Being photographed is not that unusual.

They do it on organized bicycling rides, rafting trips, and roller coaster rides. When you finish, you see your picture rotating on a TV screen. You can buy it… if you want.

But at the Gateway Arch in St. Louis they don’t show you your picture on a TV screen.

They actually print your picture!

All the printed pictures are organized on a board according to the time you went up. You can pick up the picture and look at it. You start to feel as if the picture in your hands already belongs to you.

A person walks over.

“It’s $20 to for the picture. Plus, you get a fridge magnet frame for your picture and a night-time picture of the arch for free.”

“What happens if we don’t buy our picture?” you ask.

“Oh, we just throw it away.”

And in that simple exchange more photos are sold than probably any other tourist attraction in the United States.

After all, I don’t want them to throw away a picture of my family. How dare they! I like that picture!

So I hand them a $20 bill.

I now have a picture of my family hanging on my fridge. We’re about to go to the top of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. And there is a nice magnet frame holding the picture in place.

You see, the emotional cost of saying “no” (and letting them throw away the picture) was higher than the real financial cost.

And so I paid.

Just as hundreds of other families do.

– What can you do to create a sense ownership before you’ve completed the sale?

– What can you do to make it emotionally painful to say “no” to your offer?

Answer these questions and you may have just discovered a better way to sell than 95% of your competitors.

-Ryan Healy

P.S. Want to learn how to sell in print? Or improve your online conversion rates? Get instant access to all my best copywriting tips at CopywritingCode.com.