Too Much To Choose From

Toothpaste. It's an everyday necessity (hopefully!!), something that everyone needs. And yet, I noticed myself in a grocery store recently confronted with what felt like a very daunting task--how to choose from the dozens of brands, flavors, sizes of toothpaste available. Why do we need so many flavors--cinnamon, spearmint, fennel, wintergreen, strawberry, bubblegum, berry?

My wife can pick out toothpaste in a few seconds. She knows what she wants--her criteria is that the toothpaste be natural. Some people buy products based on what their parents bought. Of course, when I was a kid, there weren't quite so many choices.

Choosing toothpaste is a pretty minor decision and yet it illustrates a tiny slice of the many choices we are confronted with on a daily basis. Some choices are easy. Some are more difficult. What car we drive, who will provide our cell phone service, what products will we wear, eat, use. . .

Barry Schwartz, professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, has written a book called, 'The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less-How The Culture of Abundance Robs us of Satisfaction'. It is a very interesting look at how the ever expanding amount of 'choice' we have in every dimension of our lives is eroding the simple pleasures that used to be omnipresent.

This is important especially as it relates to our professions, the products we purchase and the services we use. How many of us are there out in the world? Are we one in a million or one of a million? How does your existence simplify the life of your affluent prospects or clients?

We've been told that the goal of choice is to liberate us and give us more control over our lives, to give us autonomy and a sense of individuality. Mr. Schwartz suggests '. . . (A)s the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded.'

As people who sell a product or service, we need to keep in mind that there are a multitude of similar products or service providers out there and that what makes us special is that, as persuaders, we are able to reach into the core of our prospects and clients to discover their specific key, their unique combination of values and criteria. When we establish rapport, elicit criteria, and establish ourselves as 'the answer', there is no need for this unbearable overload to occur in the minds of our prospects.

Schwartz writes of the political philosopher Isaiah Berlin, who beautifully described the continuum of towards and away in his distinction between 'negative liberty' and 'positive liberty'. He says, "Negative liberty is 'freedom from'-freedom from constraint, freedom from being told what to do by others. Positive liberty is 'freedom to'-the availability of opportunities to be the author of your life and to make it meaningful and significant."

Wow! A better description of the 'towards/away' continuum doesn't exist. Do we see in our prospects the desire to be free from constraints? How can we show them that our product or service is the answer to this? Do we have a towards person who wants to take in all the amazing opportunities our products and services have to offer? In what ways to do you see the paradox of choice at play in your business life?

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to sell to affluent clients using persuasion strategies. He runs unique public and private seminars and offers home study courses, audio/visual learning tools, and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. Find more free articles at www.MAXpersuasion.com/blog. Be sure to sign up for his free report entitled "Yes! Persuasion."