Fewer Choices Makes You More Cash

A mother and father in a brick and mortar educational toy store grabs my attention.  I’m watching  little Johnny trying to pick one toy.

Wall after wall of toys. Big toys. Little toys. Computer toys.

You could see the parents mental movie rolling over their faces how they thought their toy store outing will go.  But  has poof – gone up in smoke.  They’re showing confusion over fewer choices.

“Come on Johnny. Make up your mind” says Mama bear.

“Hundreds of toys and you can’t find one?” Barks Papa bear.

Little Johnny was looking like a miniature robotic kid.  Malfunctioning with smoke billowing out his ears all because his little mind was over-loaded with toys. Toys. Toys.

Pick one- how?

There are too many choices for his mind.

Mama and Papa bear could easily made it easier for their Johnny.  And got out of the toy store a long time ago. All they had to do was give Johnny fewer choices to pick from.

” Ok Johnny…The dump truck or the mechanic set.”  “Or how about the mechanic set, dump truck or computer game.”  All the other toys in the store, well they don’t exist.

Three choices is where you stop. Well it’s not written in fewer choices stone, however the more choices you give, it’ll start putting the child back into the land of the confusion.

Little Johnny is acting the same way your customers will act if presented with tons of choices.   Why you’ll have to check and see if you are offering too many choices to your customers via your website or service offerings.

You may find the reason your prospects are buying nothing simply because they are lost.  Confused on what to get with the high number of choices you are offering them at one time.

Their adult brains are not much different to little Johnny’s brain,  becoming adults get over-loaded with too many choices.

Don’t believe so?  It’s Experiment Time.

Let’s do a quick experiment.  It’ll wrap your head around on how the mind sees a few and lots of choices.  And  it’ll be live before your eyes.

Let’s begin fewer choices understanding by getting a bunch of candy bars, some friends, few kids, a watch and do the following experiment.

Your object is to note the amount of time, in seconds the person takes selecting a candy bar under each test. The longer it takes is the losing number.

Quick n Easy Fewer Choices Instructions

Put one candy bar out – ask your friend to pick a bar. Time their response time from asking the questions to first touch, picking up the candy bar. Use a different friend for each test if your really want to go scientific.

Put two bars out – ask to pick. Time again.

Put three bars out – ask to pick. Time again.

Put nine bars out – ask to pick. Time again. Are you seeing your testers scratching the back of their necks in confusion?

Try it yourself gets you first hand experience.

You’ll see for yourself how you and others react, slow down and maybe running away from having too many choices.

After your experiment, when you are in a shopping mall or restaurant start watching how people are reacting with few and too many choices. Seeing them becoming confused. Maybe making a small order or leaving without making a choice.   A lost sale because to ease their minds confusion, the customer leaves without buying.

It’s going to hurt your sales if you don’t make changes believing you’ll make more money by giving your customers lots of choices than fewer.

Everyone smiling

So go now, get looking at what you are offering your customers. Start helping your customers by limiting the number of choices you are giving their mind to select.

Remember your candy bar experiment and how quickly you and your friends selected the candy bar when there were fewer choices.  And the  long time  deciding when there is a ton of choices in front of your eyes.

Get limiting your customers to fewer choice today by making it easier for your customers mind selecting your product faster. It’ll mean more money in your pocket.

Cheers

Jim MacDonald