Why Your Call to Action Is Scaring People Away

Mall developer Alfred Taubman figured out that you can build the best mall in the world, but if people won’t walk into the stores, it flops. He called the problem threshold resistance — if getting in the door takes too much work, people just don’t go. The same thing happens with your call to action. The diagnosis: Most CTAs ask for too much. We all want the sale today, because sales pay the bills. But if the ask is bigger than what the buyer is ready to commit to, they walk. Match the ask to the commitment level. A book might be an impulse buy. A property isn’t — even when the monthly payment is low, the commitment is high. “Buy now” on a high-commitment purchase puts the brakes on. Make the next step a micro step. What’s the smallest thing they won’t say no to? Request information. Download a property report. Tell me about your situation. The attorney example: “Book a 30-minute consultation” sounds inviting, but with legal or medical the result might be something you don’t want to hear. That makes it scary. “Tell me a little about your case” or “download this” is a smaller door. Honor the micro-commitment. Once they take the small step, don’t immediately jump to the ask. They’re not ready yet. How to test it with AI: Take two CTAs you’re considering — A and B. Give your AI model the full context: whether the buyer is cold or already in your world, what the offer is, the pricing, everything. Let it ask you questions. Then have it simulate a thousand prospective buyers and compare response rates between the two. The warning: The numbers will be wrong. The model is wildly optimistic — it’ll tell you cold traffic converts at 10-15%. It doesn’t. Scott has had to walk it back every single time, and it agrees every single time. Use it for comparison, not prediction. You’re not looking for a forecast. You’re checking whether you’ve lowered the resistance enough, or whether you’ve picked the highest-resistance option without realizing it. Got a business question? Ask Scott here: scotttodd.net/ask