Deadlines drive decisions

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If I give a group of people an opportunity to participate in a discount program and there is never a deadline to get in on the discount, the likelihood of them participating in the program is very low. But, give them same group of people a deadline around 2 or 3 weeks from when the program starts and you'll see a much larger amount of participation. Typically the majority of the participation will be towards the end of that deadline.

So what is this actually doing? It's pushing the procrastinator to make a decision by a certain point. The procrastinator is typically the majority, because the amount of people that don't wait until the last day or two of the discount is typically very small.

Are you needing people to make a decision? In many cases giving a deadline and being persistent on communicating that deadline can be a good motivator.

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