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An Inability To Choose

For some people, too much is, well…too much.

I’m one of those people.

Running Antelope constantly gives me grief over my inability to order in a timely fashion at a restaurant. Invariably, I’m the last to choose, usually because I just can’t decide. Once I hit a certain threshold of options, my brain kinda goes Tilt!

It’s funny, but on major decisions, I can cut through a flurry of options like I’m wielding a +25 Katana of Asskicking…

• 30 year mortgage vs. 15? *snikt*
• Surgery vs. therapy? *snikt*
• Lorne Greene vs. Eddie Olmos? *snikt*

But ask me to pick an entree, and I’m like a deer in headlights.

I find that most IT customers are kinda the same way.

To a certain point, an inability to choose really means…

I don’t have the information I need to make a good decision

MBA 101 will tell you that data is the key for any good business decision. But where a lot of people screw up is assuming that means any or all data.

You need the right data, including the right amount of data, to make effective decisions. You need that in your own business. And your customers need the same thing with their business.

Here’s a good example of option overload. Ever feel like you’ve entered the Fourth Circle of Hell when spec’ing anything from The Company Which Shall Not Be Named AKA Starts with D, Rhymes with Hell?

I have. And I even know what the different options that I am clicking actually mean. Part of it’s because I get this sneaking feeling that I’m being screwed over by them. Once I catch their patently obvious bait-n-switch tactics, or their unerring ability to sandbag certain costs, my brain goes Tilt! Or, more specifically, No Way! 

So before you release some super-dee-duper, gee-whiz brochure/press release/mailer/catalog/lunch-n-learn/whatever, jam packed with information about all the different things you can do, and all the different things you know, and also how awesome you are and are quite frankly the greatest thing to happen to this industry since the On/Off switch…

Think about taking it back a notch, Chachi. Give people a single idea to get their heads around, and they will. Meanwhile, you at least won’t sound like someone running a 3 Card Monty game, and you might just realize that the single greatest value you can deliver to your customers lies in your skill at giving them the ability to choose for themselves.

Make decisions easy for your customers, and the rest will follow.

|| posted by chris under business || comments (2) || ||