Matt Dixon: preference

Transcript context

…Awesome. Okay, cool. Let's go to step two, offering your recommendation. Sure. Oh yeah. This was right with that example we talked about before. Options are really a double-edged sword. What we know from the research is that options are great early on. If you're meeting at the trade show and the customer's swinging by your booth or you're doing a first demo or first, let a thousand flowers bloom, but if you want the customer to actually make a decision, you've got to get the weed whacker out and call it down to a manageable set of choices. The science is very clear on this, that too many choices at some point will overwhelm the customer and it leads to a lot of bad outcomes. It leads to the customer not making a decision at all because they don't want to make the wrong decision. I don't want to work with you, but you put so many options in front of us. I don't want to be blamed if I choose the wrong one and it leads to things like post-decision dysfunction, which is, I thought I made the right decisions, but now I'm learning more and people are asking hard questions and maybe I need to go revisit this. Hey, Lenny, we're going to have to scrap that agreement and start over because I don't think we can figure this right way. We have to, there's a time and place to offer options, and there's a time and place to narrow choices up. The simple guidance here for salespeople is that you've got to shift your posture from asking the customer what they want and just diagnosing their needs, to actually recommending to them what they should do. Salespeople get a little bit anxious about this, I find, because they don't want to be seen as like, I told you to do A, but you're like, I don't want to do that. I want to do B and now I feel like we're at odds. They worry about that. Salespeople have grown up in this world that it's the customer's choice. The customers always right, let me just guide them, but they're the ones should make this decision, but sometimes the customer can't and they don't know enough about these decisions. We know the stuff because we eat, sleep, and breathe it every day as salespeople. We work in this industry, they don't. We are in a much better position to be able to guide them toward, you know what? You don't really need X, Y, and Z. You can leave that out of the proposal. Companies like you, they get started in this way. Let me put three options in front of you. I would go with the middle one because I really think that's going to be the best for you in the first year, and then we can expand from there. Here's an analogy, I'll often tell people to think about the last time they went to a fancy restaurant and they looked at a menu with some expensive entrees and everything looked delicious, but they didn't know what to order, so you asked the wait person what they recommend. How helpful is it if that wait person says to you, "Well, what are you in the mood to eat tonight?" It's no help at all, right? You're no closer to a decision. They basically just dump the problem back on your lap. it if that wait person says to you, "Well, what are you in the mood to eat tonight?" It's no help at all, right? You're no closer to a decision. They basically just dump the problem back on your lap. But what a great way people do is they say, "If you want my opinion, I love this dish and I'd probably say it's our most popular. We sell out of it every night. We've still got it. So you're in luck. It's a lot of food though, it's a big portion. If you're in the mood for something lighter, there's a vegetarian option. It doesn't get as much play on Yelp, but I love this one. It's absolutely delicious. It's one of our kind of dark horse favorites, if you will, but remember, everything we make here is delicious. If you don't like those choices, you're not going to go wrong with any of them, but those are just my favorites." Now, what happens in that moment is what psychologists call the delegation effect, which is rather than the burden of a bad decision being solely on the shoulders of the decider, that burden is now shared. Now, think about it, if you order the dish the wait person recommended and you don't like it, whose fault is it? Well, technically it's your fault because you ordered it, but it's also kind of their fault because they recommended it. You feel like there's some safety in getting that recommendation, that endorsement. It's a really simple example, but it works in complex sales as well. Customers are looking for somebody to share in the risk and the burden of making a bad decision and having that partner who's guiding them toward what they should care about and what they shouldn't care about, what they should consider and what they should take out of the proposal, is actually very reassuring and comforting them and it increases the odds of getting some kind of decision from them.…

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