Katie McManus (YouTube) criticizes the marketing tactic of creating false urgency—using the recurring example of a "going out of business" rug store—and argues that the Rapture functions similarly in some religious contexts to spur donations. She warns business owners against using manufactured scarcity, calling it unethical and damaging to trust and reputation.
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Every town and city I've ever lived in has had that one rug store that every year is going out of business and everything must go. And the first year you see it, you're like, yeah, oh my God, I better go and get some rugs. Like they're 80% off and they're about to be closed, so I better go and get them now. Year two, you're like, oh, that's weird. They were going out of business last year. Maybe because all the people came and bought the rugs, they, they were able to stay in business for another year. Maybe they really are going out of business now. Maybe I will go and get a new rug for the dining room. By year three, you're really starting to get suspicious. And then by the time you've been alive for a while, you just know that pretty much every town and city has their variation of this. And this is a very, very common yet unethical sales marketing tactic, right? You create false urgency. You tell people there's going to be no more of this, you have to buy it now. And the reason I bring this up is because the Rapture is exactly this. But for religions, think about it, if you're a church and your donations have kind of slowed down to a dribble, what's a way you can inspire your followers to just start forking over money? You can tell them, hey, listen, the Rapture is about to come and if you aren't in a good place with God, then you're probably gonna get left behind. So you know what, you should probably give us some money so that you can be in good standing. And then Jesus will come down with the angels and the trumpets and take you far, far away. God, don't we wish that were true? And the crazy thing is that it works when the Rapture doesn't happen because it's a made up thing that was created by some psychic lady in 1830. And then the whole idea was hijacked by this guy and he went around and basically like sold the idea to churches. When the Rapture doesn't happen, the church says, oh, oops, we got the dates wrong. It must be sometime in the future. We'll let you know again when we hear from our buddies upstairs that it's on the schedule again. And there's a lot of business coaches out there who recommend that new business owners use this kind of like false scarcity, this false urgency that's completely manufactured in their businesses so that they can make a quick buck. And let me tell you, it is gross when it happens at the carpet store, the rug shop. It is disgusting when it happens in religion and it is abhorrent when it happens in your business. Don't do any of them because what ultimately happens across all of them is that the people start losing trust. And at the rug shop, you know, people aren't going to be incentivized to go to their going out of business sales anymore for religion. You know, it can create some cracks in their belief hopefully like they start seeing the manipulation and they start backing away from the institutions that are pulling this shit on them. And and for businesses this is one of the things that will absolutely damage your reputation because no one will trust when you say there's no more or there's this final deadline so don't be the going out of business rug shop or the rapture or the I have like 17 ebooks and they're gone kind of person. It's just so Grant Cardone.
