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The Power of Choice In a Sale

Liston Witherill
Liston Witherill
1 min read

The power of offering choices to your prospective clients is simple.

Let’s look at a scenario where you offer a single price and no alternatives. What does a prospective client ask herself?

Should I choose this company?

Picture a scenario where you instead offer three levels of engagement. Let’s say you offer something like this:

  • Advisory – 1x Price
  • Advisory + 1-month execution – 3x Price
  • Advisory + 3-month execution – 5x Price

In this case, your prospective client would probably ask herself:

Which option should I choose?

Of the two questions, which would you prefer your prospect ask herself? The second one of course!

Now there are a few rules you should follow when you give choices. Those rules are:

  1. Make the options obviously different and escalating in value.
  2. Position the choice you prefer as the middle choice.
  3. Don’t arbitrarily increase the prices: they must clearly demonstrate additional value along with the price. For instance, the highest tier would have features and options that the other tiers don’t.
  4. Make your prices a multiple of each other. If they’re only 10% different, the choice between them is much more difficult.
  5. Don’t give too many choices. Studies show 6 starts to become detrimental. I personally prefer 3, but somewhere between 2 and 5 is fine.

A final note: adding optional line items is not the same as giving pre-packaged options. Your option tiers should demonstrate thought and have a rationale as to why someone would choose one rather than another.

And finally: do this. You’ll thank me later.

Notes