You're really wanting to be thoughtful and accommodating.
You want to make your clients and customers comfortable, so
they can have things the way they like it.
So you start making up offers, each with different options
and flavors. Eventually you have a menu of ten options.
And no one's buying. Is it your marketing? Or your menu?
A child with no ice cream.
Hot summer day. Cool ice cream shop. An eager child. The
sign says '37 flavors.'
What happens next? That's right- you sit there while this
little cherub thinks, and wonders, and decides, and goes
back and forth wondering which flavor of ice cream to get.
Either that, or he just ignores all the many flavors and
gets the old-standby: chocolate, with sprinkles.
What are choices? Choices are where we express power. By
making a choice, you're expressing how you'd like things to
be. This requires a certain confidence and clarity.
Add to this problem the fact that most of us in Western
culture have had our imagination squashed out of us. In
school, in jobs, we're taught to regurgitate what we're
told, to maneuver through multiple-choice tests, and to
pick our path from limited options.
This may seem like a bad thing, and it can certainly be
painful if someone is limiting your options in an
artificial manner. But the truth is that your clients like
limits.
Huh? That's nutty- they don't want limits, they want to get
past the limits of the problem they are facing.
Well, sure, that's true. They do want to solve their
problem and keep moving. But, when faced with a problem, a
problem they can't solve, do you think they are feeling
much clarity or confidence in their heart?
Probably not. And yet, what are the two main qualities that
are needed to make a choice? Clarity and confidence.
Hmmm... do you see the same problem I see?
Limiting choices creates more safety. Don't give your
clients a menu of ten different options, even if they are
similar to one another. As Henry Ford said, "They can have
the Model T in any color they want, as long as it's black."
Ol' Henry set that up to keep his costs down in the
assembly line factories he had. However, this principle
applies even more strongly to businesses in the limitless
choice world of seventy million Google results.
By limiting choice for your clients, they only have to
muster up enough confidence and clarity to do one thing-
hire you, instead of having to wend their way through all
37 flavors of your offers.
It works. But isn't it kinda boring to just have one or two
offers? What happens to the creativity in your business?
And how do you handle different types of clients?
Hold on to your ice cream cone. I've got some ideas for you.
Keys to Dishing out the Options.
• Limit the recommended intro offers.
If you have one or two specific offers where you recommend
beginners start, that's the place to send'em. Foundational
offerings that cover the basics, and begin to walk them
into your world.
• Create a gazillion offers, but understand the sequence.
If you have a hundred offers, that's great. But then
organize them in some kind of a sequence, at least for the
first few. Understand how one of your offers links to the
next links to the next.
Now, your clients' progress won't always be linear, and so
you don't have to put all one hundred offers in sequence.
There will come a point where, through the help they've
received from you and elsewhere, that they regain some of
their lost confidence and clarity, which will give them
greater decision-making ability.
Plus, after they've done the first two or three offers,
they'll have more familiarity with what you do, and how you
do it, so it will be easier to choose from many offers.
• For custom consulting, still limit your offers.
When you are quoting out a custom consulting project to
someone, you still don't want to overwhelm them with
options. The same lack of clarity and confidence applies to
these decision-makers, no matter how sharply they're
dressed.
By setting one or two options in front of them, you're
showing your own expertise and confidence, and that is one
more bit of trust they will have in you.
Although it's tempting to want to create a groaning board
table full of all kinds of delicious offers, it will lose
you clients. Instead, limit their choices, and watch them
happily walk out with your chocolate ice cream cone.
----------------------------------------------------
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your
Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your
Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line.
He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the
globe succeed in business without lousing their hearts. Get
three free chapters of the book online:
http://www.heartofbusiness.com
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