You’ve no doubt had this experience: Someone contacts you to discuss your services or to request a quote. You share all the relevant information, answer questions, and wrap up what seems to be a pretty good conversation.

And the person says, “OK, let me think about it. I’ll get back with you soon.”

Except soon never seems to come.

Bummer.

You can change buying behavior

You can actually change this dynamic and increase your closing rate if you make one tweak to your sales presentation and quoting process.

Offer an incentive for acting now. This does two things. One, it gives the prospect an advantage for going on and making the purchase. And two, it creates a sense of urgency.

The key is to make sure you are offering an incentive that has value and is attractive to the prospective client or customer. It can’t be a junk offer that nobody really cares about. And two, adding a time element — buy now to get this deal — helps the prospect move forward in your sales process.

How an incentive helps you and your customer

This is good for you and for your prospective client or customer. That is because many people may be interested in your services, but they may not feel like they have to purchase at that time. Some people are procrastinators by nature and need a little help to move. They may have liked your presentation and may even be kind of interested in your offer. But they won’t be ready to make the purchase. Instead, they will want to go on about their week and do whatever else, forgetting they even contacted you. When you offer an attractive incentive, coupled with a time element, you help give them the push they need to go on and make the buying decision. If they are considering hiring you for a writing assignment, then this push helps them go ahead and get moving on a project that is probably important to them.

So your incentive can help them get past their natural tendency toward inaction or inertia.

And of course it helps you close the deal and get a sale. Win-win for you and for your new client or customer.

The incentive adds punch to your call to action. Remember, you must have a call to action in your sales presentation or quote so your prospect knows exactly what to do to purchase from you. Never forget the call to action or assume your prospect knows what to do next. Now you can add the incentive to your call to action.

I like to offer an incentive because it is an excellent way to reward prospects for purchasing. It’s a great way for you to  increase sales and writing income so you make a living writing.

Not sure what incentive you can offer? Well, it can be a free download, a discount, an upgrade, or anything else that fits the prospect’s needs, complements the quote, and has value.

How you use it depends on your sales process. If you are using a sales page, then you want to highlight and sell the incentive just like you did with the offer. Show how the incentive can help the prospective client or customer save time, save money, do something better, be more efficient, or do whatever the incentive does. If you use it as part of a quote, then you’ll want to feature it prominently, because the incentive is one of (if not the) most important parts of the quote.  Use some language that essentially says “Buy now and get this great bonus.”

The incentive is a tool you can use in almost any type of business to increase sales. It helps people who want to purchase from you go ahead and make the decision, while getting some extra special benefit for doing so.

What other tools have you used to generate sales in your business?