Would you bet on a duck to win a swimming contest?
By Jim Logan • Jun 7th, 2007 • Category: Vision & Direction
I used to work for a company that had a product list the size of a small book. The products we sold were so modular you nearly required a map to navigate the configuration possibilities. In fact, the configuration guide provided sales teams to accurately quote an order were nearly as large. The options and configurations were seemingly endless.
At times it was confusing.
There is a point where your flexibility and volume of options can confuse a customer to the point of no decision. You can have so many options you appear to be a duck – you walk, swim, run, and fly…none of them world-class.
Better than leading with your flexibility and countless options are to lead with expertise and packaged solutions. Variables allowed, limit your options to match defined and valued benefits.
Limit your options and you may find your sales increase almost overnight.
Do you beleive a company can option itself to death? Is it possible flexibility in product and service configurations can limit your market appeal? Can you win as a duck? How and why?
Jim Logan is the founder of JS Logan, a B2B lead generation and sales acceleration company. Click Here and discover what makes JS Logan different from other B2B complex sales and marketing firms.
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Do you believe a company can option itself to death? YES Another classic example of this is a restaurant menu. Smaller menus are easier to deal with and large menu’s give customers choice, but its expensive to keep so many different types of food…
Hi David! Great example - restaurants and their menu! All you can eat buffets come to mind. Although you can get just about anything you want, you don’t there for a great steak :-)
Options and choices are good, but there are limits. Take a kid to the candy isle of your local grocery store and you’ll see a quick example. The choices are overwhelming and frustrating. A simple decision turns into a love-hate event that takes 10X longer than it should. The purchase decision is delayed and the kid leaves wondering if he/she made the right choice.
In business, a big selection can result in additional qualification and more comparative shopping than necessary. Each option makes the buyer make another decision - which further opens yourself to competition and delays time to revenue.
Food for thought…no puns intended :-)
To continue on with food…
Pinkberry, a yogurt shop, offers only 2 flavors of yogurt (though a handful or two of toppings) and nothing else. Not even bottled water. They serve 1300+ customers a day!
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-et-pinkberryaug04,0,7985455.story?coll=la-home-style
And on to other things…
Recently, I’ve realized my company’s duck like status. While we have a target product, our customers are of many different types (small business, government, organization, etc). As such we aren’t government experts, rather all things to anyone who could use our product.
While we haven’t “optioned ourselves to death,” I think we’ve been too flexible in the types of clients we’ve taken on.
We’ve been a duck.
Bob- You raise a great point - you can’t be all things to everyone - Jack of all trades, master of none. This is a common struggle for many of us.
We don’t option our offering to death, we option our addressable market to death - jumping from opportunity to opportunity because it’s in front of us at the time.
Great addition to ponder…thanks for sharing!
We are so overwhelmed with options today that even the concept has become cliche. “Information overload” “3,000 commercial messages every day” etc. There are too many choices and not enough structure. Help people make a better decision by offering process, structure and focus and you will be more successful.
This reminds me of the differences between Apple and Dell’s product configurations. Apple has many fewer options, but people are still able to find systems that will work for them. Only the most spec-obsessed really needs to fret over every option. In fact, if probably does cause people to bail on Dell’s configurator.