Time-travel to resist wacky sales

If your inbox looks like this:

Let's fire up the DeLorean.

There are 4 stages to buying stuff that, once you're aware of them, can help you avoid buying stuff you really don't need.

The stages are:

1. Excitement
2. Acceptance
3. Eye-roll
4. Dismissal

For example, imagine you've just seen a laptop on sale and even though your current laptop is fine, you're tempted by the sale.

The stages are a quick role-play you can do on your own, to see if the laptop is something you really need, or just something you want because the price is hard to resist.

I hope you like time-travel, because for the next few minutes we're heading into the future. Time circuits on!:

💥88mph💥

Zoom forward in time and pretend you just bought the laptop you saw on sale. Visualise every step - you clicked the sale link, entered your credit card, selected your shipping option, all of it. Then imagine when it arrived - you opened the box, plugged it in to charge, peeled off the stickers, and opened the lid to use it. You set up all your regular stuff like account logins, email, socials, etc. A new and shiny laptop, with no fingerprints on the screen or crumbs between the keys. For now, it's the newest coolest thing you own, and it's awesome. You're at the Excitement stage.

Zoom forward a little further and imagine the laptop is set up and working, and this is now your laptop. It's no longer shiny and new, it's just the regular thing you flip open to watch Netflix or fire off emails. You've put the old laptop in the cupboard or sold it, and the new laptop is now just "the laptop". This is Acceptance.

At some point, this laptop is going to get fingerprints on the screen and crumbs between the keys, and every now and then it'll lag, or reset itself, or start to lose battery capacity. What was once the coolest new thing in your house is now just another thing you own. The harddrive starts filling up, and you need to install yet another update to keep using your browser. Frankly it's a little annoying, and that shiny new laptop that showed up in the Excitement stage seems like a distant memory. You've entered the Eye-roll stage.

Eventually, the laptop has become a bit of a burden. It's slow, the "t" button fell off, and the harddrive is making an unnerving clicking sound. This thing has been a pain to use for a while and frankly, owning it is just another hassle. You're pretty ready to be free of this thing. This is Dismissal.

💥88mph💥

Welcome back 🙂 Now take another look at that sale.

Is this shiny new laptop... or jacket, or TV, or watch, or basketball hoop, or fridge, or software subscription... the thing you really need right now?

When I consider buying something new, I go through these stages.

If I can see past the first Excitement stage, which is not hard, I can rub a lot of the shine off and see the product for the thing it really is.

Kind of like that old story of someone who tried on an outfit in the store which looked great, but looked rubbish at home. It's like jumping over the store bit and just seeing the true at-home bit.

If you're at the dismissal stage with your current laptop, then maybe this sale is a real saviour for you.

Otherwise, seriously consider if this is something you really need.

I actually find resisting sales a lot of fun. Of course I'm human like you, it's not like I never buy anything.

But this is extremely clever psychological marketing that is designed to twist my brain to buy things, particularly around wacky sale time.

Not falling for it is a real buzz 😉