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 the blue toothpaste?" her dad asked gently.
"Blue," she said, glad to be given the opportunity to make a decision.
Ten minutes later, Kara was well tucked in, 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.
My friend, your bank account would 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 this article 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 began on one stupid loss-making November's day...
If you look at this page on our site, 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 + the Brain Audit Rip.
Till the middle of November, we had both 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 apparent 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
Of 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 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 there was in this case, then there's a far greater likelihood of her buying the more expensive product.
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? But no! As we speak, the only product that has a choice of YES and YES is the page I've already mentioned above.
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. Doing so will bring you not only a higher quantity of sales but also a much better price on every product/consulting assignment.
I said yes and yes... NOT yes and yes and yes and yes
You, me, we all crave 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 ice cream, you must mentally refuse all the other flavors.
If you give clients too much to choose from, they will end up rolling their eyes, doing a REM check and shutting 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!
