In the past, I talked about the power of scarcity in one of my emails and I wrote a specific line that said....

"If you need to add an urgency factor to your offers, creating scarcity is a great way to do so. But make sure you actually follow through with it."

So why should you follow through with your scarcity tactics?

In a word: Respect.

Allow me to explain further with a story from my day job.

For the past year, I've been working with kids at a learning center. I'll admit, when I first started, I was a bit too nice to the kids. I wouldn't yell at them. I wouldn't punish them. Even when I said I'd punish them, I ended up not doing it.

What a mistake.

So whenever I'd tell a kid to do something or not do something, they wouldn't listen. They would take advantage of my kindness and walk all over me.

Well that all changed during their summer program, or as one of my co-workers called it, "hell." And she wasn't exactly wrong. It was eight hours of dealing with loud, hard-to-control kids who refused to do their work (and possibly have slight amnesia).

Dealing with these kids on a full time basis, eight hours a day, for three months, my patience went from 100 to -10 real quick. And my demeanor quickly changed like Jekyll and Hyde. Whenever they misbehaved or did something they're not supposed to do, I'd tell them I'll discipline them and actually follow through.

All of a sudden, the kids started to listen to me more, they would stop doing things they they're not supposed to be doing, their behavior changed. Overall, they started to respect me.

Let this be a lesson to you.

Follow through with your scarcity tactics. If you don't, you'll lose your audience's respect and trust. And then the next time you pull a scarcity tactic from your sleeve, your audience will actually believe you and be more quick to decide to buy your products or services.