Marketing With an AK-47

A few months ago, an AK-47 rifle sold for $600 or so.  Today, they bring triple the price… IF you can find one.  AK-47s are hot, hot, hot!

Why?

Last week I was in Cabela’s at the gun counter.  Gun guy was talking with Cabela’s Guy. 

“You can’t believe all these people buying ARs,” said gun guy.

“Sure I can,” replied Cabela’s guy.

“They don’t even know how to break ‘em down.  They can’t clean ‘em.  They just bought ‘em ‘cause they think they aren’t gonna be able to get ‘em.”

And that, in a nutshell, is it.  Tell people they can’t get something and they want it.  If they didn’t want it before, they want it now.  They REALLY want it now.

The sales term for this is, “the takeaway.”

We want what we can’t have.  Offer us something, take it away, and we want it all the more.

Entire businesses have been built on the takeaway.  Perhaps the single best known direct mail letter in the HVAC industry is John Young’s “winter replacement letter.”  The letter stressed that a limited number of products were available at a special price, spurring consumers to act before they were gone.  This was an example of the takeaway.

How can you use a takeaway in your business?