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Walk The Line: Keep It Clear & Simple While Still Offering Multiple Options

 

Guest articles > Walk The Line: Keep It Clear & Simple While Still Offering Multiple Options

 

by: Tom Shallcross

Offering too many options can lead to too many lost sales. However, a lack of options can lead to a lack of sales. So what is the right formula that leads to an increase in sales?

Plain and simple, your prospects want simple solutions to their problems that they can easily understand. No one will buy what they deem as confusing, and offering too much information will create unneeded confusion, stress, and worst of all, paralysis by analysis.

On the flip side, your homeowners want to feel in control of the buying process and want to make a purchase opposed to being told what to buy. Therefore, it's imperative to walk the fine line of keeping it simple while still giving the customer appropriate choices.

1. Keep your options limited and clear

On a very basic level, when we receive information, it must first past through the primitive fight-or-flight section of the brain. This section of the brain serves an extremely valuable purpose (Oh look, a giant tiger! Let's kick on the adrenaline and run for our lives), but it also unfortunately acts as the toughest gatekeeper in the industry when it receives information it perceives as confusing.

When information enters our brain, the fight-or-flight section will have one of two primal reactions:

  1. This is confusing/scary: I'm not sending it to the rest of the brain
  2. This is interesting/desirable: I am sending it to the rest of the brain

If I used a ton of high level scientific studies and neuroscience jargon to explain the last few paragraphs, I probably would have lost your attention. However, by keeping it simple, the primitive section of your brain can comprehend the information and is (hopefully) intrigued to learn more on how you can capitalize on this.

2. Let your customer feel in control of the buying process by offering a good/better/best

This can simply be summed up in the famous Jeffrey Gitomer quote: "People don't like to be sold, but they love to buy." If you offer one and only one option, your prospect will feel like he's being sold to. Even if he likes your offer, his pride and ego can step in and stop the deal from going through. This happens because the prospect feels like he's lost control and has been sold on the offer. He perceives the transaction as a selling experience, not a buying one.

However, when presented with multiple clear and simple options, your prospect will feel like he is buying. He is the one picking an option, making him feel in control, and thus comfortable. You are just helping him choose instead of forcing one option down his throat.

Offering the customer a good/better/best also allows the prospect to say no without saying no to you. The customer can feel in control by choosing one of three options. Instead of picking between you and your competitors, you've allowed him to say no without necessarily rejecting you.

If you're itemizing ten different solutions for your prospect, take additional time during the needs analysis stage to find what he truly want. Knowing the prospect's actually desires will make it easy to cut your offers from a confusing ten options to a clear three. If you think you know what's best for your prospect and offer one plan, start offering good/better/best to help the customer feel in control of the buying process. After all, it is always easier for a consultant to make the sale than it is for a salesman.

 


Tom Shallcross is a Sales Manager for Opal Enterprises and owner of NowServing Sales LLC. He has been featured in Remodeling Magazine and can be reached at tom@opalenterprises.net


Contributor: Tom Shallcross

Published here on: 10-Mar-13

Classification: Sales

 

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Site Menu

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Main sections: | Disciplines | Techniques | Principles | Explanations | Theories |

Other sections: | Blog! | Quotes | Guest articles | Analysis | Books | Help |

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Settings: | Computer layout | Mobile layout | Small font | Medium font | Large font | Translate |

 

 

Please help and share:

 

Quick links

Disciplines

* Argument
* Brand management
* Change Management
* Coaching
* Communication
* Counseling
* Game Design
* Human Resources
* Job-finding
* Leadership
* Marketing
* Politics
* Propaganda
* Rhetoric
* Negotiation
* Psychoanalysis
* Sales
* Sociology
* Storytelling
* Teaching
* Warfare
* Workplace design

Techniques

* Assertiveness
* Body language
* Change techniques
* Closing techniques
* Conversation
* Confidence tricks
* Conversion
* Creative techniques
* General techniques
* Happiness
* Hypnotism
* Interrogation
* Language
* Listening
* Negotiation tactics
* Objection handling
* Propaganda
* Problem-solving
* Public speaking
* Questioning
* Using repetition
* Resisting persuasion
* Self-development
* Sequential requests
* Storytelling
* Stress Management
* Tipping
* Using humor
* Willpower

Principles

+ Principles

Explanations

* Behaviors
* Beliefs
* Brain stuff
* Conditioning
* Coping Mechanisms
* Critical Theory
* Culture
* Decisions
* Emotions
* Evolution
* Gender
* Games
* Groups
* Habit
* Identity
* Learning
* Meaning
* Memory
* Motivation
* Models
* Needs
* Personality
* Power
* Preferences
* Research
* Relationships
* SIFT Model
* Social Research
* Stress
* Trust
* Values

Theories

* Alphabetic list
* Theory types

And

About
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Blog!
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