Three year old Kara was throwing a tantrum. She didn't want to go to bed, of that she was certain.
“Do you want to brush with the red or blue toothpaste?” her dad asked gently.
“Blue,” she says, glad to be given the opportunity to make a decision.
Ten minutes later, Kara was well tucked up, wondering when she'd agreed to go to bed in the first place.
You laugh at the story, don't you?
The method used to get Kara into bed seems a bit like trickery. And who am I to say that it's not? Yet I want you to pay attention to one thing. Kara was glad to be given a choice between yes and yes.
Your clients are not much different
Clients come to you every single day asking you to give them a choice. A choice between yes and yes. Instead all you're giving them is a choice between yes and no.
Mah friend, your bank account will see far better days if only you'd step back, and use the immense power of the choice between yes and yes.
Of course, you don't have to believe that this choice factor works. You don't have to believe your sales will go up. All you have to see is proof. So in the article below I'll demonstrate the psychological factor of choice. How it can work for you and how it can turn against you and bite you in the you-know-where.
It all started on one stupid loss-making November's day a few years ago…
We were doing fine with the sales on our website when we made one change. I'm going to demonstrate the change in the article below so it would help for you to have the page open so you can see what I'm talking about.
If you look at this page you'll find that you get the choice to buy two packages. One is the copy of the Brain Audit and the other choice is a copy of the Brain Audit + Goodies.
Till the middle of November, we had both the offers up. Then one ego-driven morning we decided to pull the plug on one choice.
We gave customers the choice between a yes and um..NO!
Almost within 24 hours, our sales started going south for no reason at all. We ignored this sickening slack for about a week. Then we looked back at what was working. And we put back the choice between yes and yes.
The customer was back in choice-ville and the sales soared.
But here's the curious part
Among the two packages, one has a much higher price. Yet over 97.5% of customers, when given the choice between the two packages, chose the higher priced package.
The customer is no dumbo
No siree. The customer knows exactly what she wants. And when given the choice between yes and yes, she takes a decision to buy that which creates most value for her. Of course, if there's an enticement to buy, as was in this case, then there's a far greater likelihood of her buying the more expensive product.
The customer is no dumbo…but I sure am
Think about it. If your revenue shot up. If customers were buying higher-priced products what would you logically do? Wouldn't you take the same concept and use it everywhere you could?
You'd think a smart person would do that, wouldn't you? (Which is why I qualified myself at the start of this paragraph). But no! As we speak, there are still a few products on our site that donnot have a choice of YES and YES.
Don't stop at one point. Take the concept through its paces
If you're in consulting, look at the choice between yes and yes. Are you giving the customer a choice between package A and package B. Or do you offer just one package? If you're selling products, the concept of yes and yes choice stays put.
And once you've found that the concept works, puh-lease don't do the dumbo bit. Audit every possible thing you sell. And put in a yes and yes factor. Not only will this bring you higher quantity of sales, but also an a much better price on every product/consulting assignment you do.
I said yes and yes…NOT yes and yes and yes and yes
You, me, we all crave for choice. But give us too much and we go a little waka-waka in our brains. Because choice is based on rejection. To choose the strawberry flavour ice-cream, you must mentally refuse all the other flavours.
If you give a client too much to choose from, they will end up rolling their eyes, doing a RAM check and shut down their brains before you have time to do anything at all.
Keep your options simple. Keep the choice between yes and yes.
So that even a three-year old has no trouble choosing!
Great post Sean! Makes a LOT of sense… I used to use similar technique but never thought of transferring it to marketing DUH!
It’s what we use day in and day out on our sales pages. 🙂
Just discovered your site today from Chris Brogan’s Doing it Right section.
Fabulous stuff! And I love the humor! Definitely will be subscribing to your RSS and sharing the fun. Thanks!
Choice between Yes and Yes reminds me of training I went through on dealing with difficult or potentially violent people. (I worked for a government agency at the time.)
Give people two choices and let them decide which option they like best. As long as they feel like they are making a decision they feel in control and satisfied.
When you only give them one option they have more potential not to like it and become difficult.
I have noticed since in the training that it works in sales situations and also in relationships with non-difficult people. 🙂
People like to feel they had options even if they chose the more expensive option it was a choice they got to make.
I know it works on me. Choosing between to options to buy and ending up spending more than I planned because the deal was just to good to pass up.
Thanks for reminding me of that valuable psychological training I got years ago. Your post was a good refresher course.
This was helpful. I’m creating a info/physical product package and now I will offer the option to get the products Or the full deal.
Thanx
I get more information from your article. Thanks a lot!