How to Coach Yourself and Others How to Influence, Persuade and Motivate | Page 255

upper corner of the screen. You only have ten minutes to purchase this
precious item, and the clock lets you know how little time you have left to
make this buy of a lifetime. Home-shopping channels make time the
scarce resource.
They often have a counter on the screen too. Sometimes the counter runs
down with every sale. So the host says, "We only have a limited number
of these imported widgets, and when they're all gone, we will never sell
them again." And the counter showing the number of items remaining
continues to tick down. The counter creates the impression of scarcity.
Creating a Demand: Can You Say "Limited Supply"?
Have you ever wondered why some "in" restaurants continue to have
waiting lines outside? Long lines seem to make the restaurants even more
fashionable, increasing the length of the line by an even greater degree.
Why don't restaurants eliminate the waiting line by increasing their
prices? They don't because removing the lines would eliminate the
scarcity factor, and demand would collapse.
Consider how the Rule of Scarcity created the Beanie Baby phenomenon.
When Ty Warner, the creator/mastermind behind Beanie Babies, took
certain Beanie Babies off the shelf and limited their availability, prices
skyrocketed for the discontinued and suddenly rare and valuable Beanies.
Spurred on by the threat of losing out, collectors began hoarding the
stuffed animals and speculating as to which ones would be retired
next.[11]
The Rule of Scarcity was also used to create demand for diamonds. In
spite of a dramatic leap in production from 15 million carats to a
whopping 100 million carats, DeBeers, the company maintaining a
monopoly over diamond supply, still managed to render the diamonds
scarce. Running only ten diamond sales per year and inviting only a select
number of dealers, DeBeers easily controlled the supply and pricing. Not
only this, but each invited dealer got only a limited amount of diamonds.
DeBeers selected for them, and if they complained, they were not invited
back![12]
An owner of a successful beef-importing company decided to conduct a
study among his staff. The staff members were assigned to call the
company's customers and ask them to purchase beef in one of three ways.
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