When was the last time you really looked around the toothpaste aisle?
It’s overwhelming. You’re faced with a huge amount of choices — possibly even dozens depending on the store you’re in.
Imagine having to actually make a buying decision purely by shopping through the toothpaste aisle. My guess is that you’d either get overwhelmed and choose something that you later regret, or you’d choose to buy nothing at all.
This is choice paralysis in a nutshell, and it’s not just a B2C problem.
Over the last decade in B2B, I’ve been on both sides of the equation as a seller and a buyer, and I can promise you that it’s a huge problem there as well. I’d even go so far to say that offering too many choices to your customers is the quickest way to squash conversion rates and slow deal velocity down to a crawl.
Fortunately, there are solutions to avoiding this — and that’s what we’re here to talk about. I’ll tell you exactly what you should know about the psychology behind choice paralysis, how to mitigate that risk, and I’ll also give you a way to grow more efficiently while offering less.
Table of Contents
- What is Choice Paralysis?
- How to Avoid Choice Paralysis
- Helping Customers Overcome Choice Fatigue
- Companies That Get it Right
- Make Decisions With Simplicity and Customer Needs in Mind
What is Choice Paralysis?
The human brain is designed to make decisions. Consciously or not, we’re always making decisions about what to eat, what to do next, and how to get through this next bit of work. Those choices add up to something like 35,000 total decisions in a day.
Choice paralysis is what happens to our brains when, in the course of those 35,000 decisions, we’re trying to make one that has too many options to figure out the “best” one.
There might be variables that don’t really add up, or maybe you’re comparing apples to oranges. The result is a cognitive push and pull between knowing we need to make a decision and worrying about making the wrong one. Often, as a result, we just don’t make a decision at all.
One important clarification to make is that decision fatigue and choice fatigue are not the same thing. While these two concepts are related and both uncomfortable situations to be in, they refer to different situations.
Choice fatigue is the inability to make a single, clear choice given the options; decision fatigue is when you simply have too many decisions to make and it starts to wear you down.
The predicament caused by choice fatigue is very much a modern problem and is largely caused by our ability to mass produce just about everything.
One would think that more choices would be better, right? It means you can make a highly tailored, unique-to-you choice on anything — yes, even toothpaste.
However, the result — as psychologist Barry Schwartz put it in his 2004 book, “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less" — is far less positive. When we have too many choices, we end up less satisfied, even if the product is perfectly tailored to our needs. This is because we worry that we missed something in our decision-making process.
A 2023 study from Oracle backs up Dr. Schwartz’s thesis. Despite 97% of respondents wanting help from data, 72% admitted that between the sheer volume of data, and a lack of trust in it, they ended up making no decision at all.
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How to Avoid Choice Paralysis
Whether you’re buying enterprise software or deciding which car to buy, complex choices aren’t going anywhere. Fortunately, choice paralysis is an avoidable problem if you take a few steps to prepare yourself for the decision.
Reset your expectations.
We’re going to get a tiny bit zen here for just a moment. The single best way to stop being stressed about choices? Stop thinking that any single decision is going to be perfect.
That doesn’t mean choose at random because nothing matters. Instead, do your due diligence, do your research, and then make a choice and trust that you made the best decision you could with the information you had.
Set clear priorities and goals.
SMART goals aren’t just for losing that 15 pounds before your friend’s wedding or finishing your screenplay.
Before you start any important decision-making process, understand what your goals are from the outset.
In the case of something like buying B2B software, consider your budget, the business objective you’re trying to fulfill, integration needs, etc.
This way you can narrow down the options that fit what you’re looking for.
Break larger decisions into steps.
As anyone who has run long distances will tell you, the way you tackle a marathon is one mile at a time.
You can’t solve a big problem all at once.
Going back to our B2B buying journey, start with a full picture of all the options that fit your priorities and goals. Talk to your network to narrow it down further, and then do another round of research on those.
From there, you’ve cleared the way to make a decision with fewer options — and ones that you already know will fit your needs.
Set a time limit for decision-making.
Ever finished a paper in school the night before? That’s Parkinson’s law at work.
Parkinson’s law is the idea that the amount of work you have will always fit the time given to it.
So when it comes to big decisions, don’t give yourself forever to make them. Set yourself a reasonable timeline based on the task you’ve got ahead of you.
Helping Customers Overcome Choice Fatigue
With the previous concepts in mind, let’s turn them toward your customers to help boost conversions and close sales.
1. Highlight popular options and best-sellers.
Many concepts around buying experience are migrating from the B2C space into B2B, and with good reason.
Buyer psychology doesn’t change depending on the environment. For companies with a wide range of products, use your website or marketing efforts to highlight what others in their situation have done.
Which products are most popular? Which gets the best reviews? Studies have shown this can boost conversions by anywhere from 10-15%.
2. Provide a comparison tool.
As the features start to climb, so does the chance of choice paralysis. Each new feature adds another “Do I need this?” question into the decision-making process.
If the solution you’re selling has different features or products contained within, make it as easy as possible for your buyers. Add a tool that makes it easy to see what those different options translate to in tangible terms.
The online shop Newegg does a really great job at this with their build-a-PC tools. I particularly like the way they show popular hardware installation configurations, which leads into my next point.
3. Offer tiered, curated packages or bundles.
Research shows that personalization is more important than ever to consumers and has a direct impact on revenue.
“Have it your way” may work for Burger King, but when it comes to more complex buying decisions (read: software), standardizing your core offer or packages is the way to go.
Seat or license-based platforms have had this down to a science for years now. We’ve all seen the typical pricing page with a 3-tiered structure of individual, team, enterprise.
HubSpot does this for its products as well. Here is the tiered structure for Marketing Hub.
Even if you do offer more custom options, you can simplify the decision for a portion of your customers by having a so-called “off the shelf” option.
4. Train your sales reps. Then train them again.
Thanks to used car salesmen and the guy from Wolf of Wall Street, sales has a … not-so-great reputation for the average buyer.
The reason is because people feel like they’re being forced to buy rather than being helped to make a decision. That makes all the difference in the minds of buyers.
The best sales reps I ever worked with were always great at listening to customers and helping them make up their mind.
What this looks like in action is enablement. Lots and lots of enablement. Your sales reps should know all the SKUs they’re responsible for inside and out. They should also be constantly developing their skills.
5. Implement a guided selling tool.
68% of buyers don’t want to talk to a sales rep during the buying process.
Yet that doesn’t mean you should just leave your customers in their own personal toothpaste aisle trying to make a decision on your product.
Instead, make it easy for buyers who don’t want to talk to sales to follow a questionnaire that helps narrow down their options.
Likewise, implement an interactive demo to showcase what your product looks like in action.
6. Don’t sell the whole platform upfront.
As Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) businesses grow or expand, there’s an inevitable move toward offering an all-in-one solution. New features get suggested; competitors get acquired. Soon, it’s not just a chatbot anymore, it’s an entire sales engagement platform that does everything.
One issue I’ve seen pop up time and again in these situations is reps trying to sell the product that does everything rather than starting with the problem I came to them to solve.
The other pieces will come along the way. You’ve just got to trust in the land and expand motion.
Companies That Get it Right
How Procter & Gamble stopped confusing itself and its customers.
I’ve made a few cracks about toothpaste in particular, but credit where credit’s due — they’ve made some strides in that area (pun not intended).
Consumer goods corporation Procter & Gamble ran into a severe choice paralysis issue within their own organization in the mid 2000s.
At the time, they’d been growing exponentially over 20 years and had over 160 consumer brands in their portfolio. That made them hugely valuable … but also made it difficult both internally and for the customer.
This is because P&G had multiple different brands within the same category. From the consumer side, P&G couldn’t tell which brands customers adored and which they wouldn’t miss if they were gone. Internally, the overlap made it difficult to decide which to sunset versus invest heavily in.
In 2014, P&G’s CEO A.G. Lafley announced that they’d be cutting 80 brands from their portfolio with the goal of shifting resources toward hitting a $10 billion growth plan.
The results came quickly. Even with the cuts within specific categories, P&G’s market share increased almost to 60 percent again, and its share of value was calculated at its highest ever.
Here’s my takeaway from this story: Sometimes making choices easier involves “killing your darlings,” so to speak. Be sure to revisit your product suite and offerings regularly to ensure you’re not competing against yourself.
How Apple turned a billion-dollar deficit one year into a 300 million profit in the next.
Like them or not, if there’s any brand that has made a name out of simplicity, it’s Apple. Whether you’re buying a phone, a new Macbook, or headphones, it’s always a remarkably easy decision to make.
It wasn’t always this way, though (nor was Apple as successful as it is now).
When co-founder Steve Jobs returned to the organization in 1997, they were less than a few months away from folding entirely. In the 20 years since its founding, Apple had expanded from different models of their Apple computer to the accessory market as well. The company had their own line of disk drives, printers, modems, scanners — the list goes on.
That, as Jobs saw it, was exactly the problem. As Jobs saw it, the organization had strayed too far from its founding purpose: sell people computers.
After a course correction, the company went from losing $1.04 billion to turning a $309 million profit a year later, setting the course for decades of innovation.
Here's my takeaway from this story: This is both a product strategy lesson as well as a branding one. To borrow a phrase from actor Matthew McConaughey, Apple was “making Bs in a bunch of things” but wanted to get that grade up to an A in one specific way.
Obviously, this level of simplicity doesn’t apply to Apple today, but it’s a good reminder that there are times to diversify and conquer, and times to create new categories. Without Jobs’ decision, Apple would never have made it to the end of the quarter — nevermind release the first iPhone.
Adobe risked 12.8 million customers to reduce friction in the buying process.
Adobe has long reigned supreme in the realm of design products. In May 2013, they shocked everyone by announcing they’d no longer be supporting perpetual license versions of its various products. Instead, future updates and new features would only be available through its Creative Cloud subscription service.
In the immediate term, existing customers were not happy. In spite of this reaction and risking an install base of over 10 million customers acquired over time, Adobe held to their decision. Shortly after Creative Cloud launched, they had 700,000 customers sign up. Less than ten years later, Adobe reported that the number was somewhere in the range of 30+ million subscribers.
Here's my takeaway from this story: Shifting your product and sales strategy to reduce choice fatigue may not be popular at first. But, if you’ve got a strong vision and mission (see the previous Apple example) and remain consistent with delivering on your promise, reduced choice paralysis will reduce friction during your sales process.
Instead of having to decide whether or not to upgrade to the latest edition of Photoshop, Adobe built that upgrade into a monthly subscription cost.
Make Decisions With Simplicity and Customer Needs in Mind
No buyers want a complicated decision process when they’re buying something.
Simplifying options and streamlining the decision-making process can lead to increased conversions, customer satisfaction, and long-term success.
At the same time, not every company is Adobe, Apple, or P&G. There are plenty of organizations that have tried the same and failed. Removing too many options too quickly or failing to communicate the benefits of these changes to your customers can result in initial backlash and dissatisfaction.
The point isn’t to demoralize you. It’s just a reminder that your organization must have a clear vision and consistently deliver on its promises.
Reducing choice paralysis for your customers is a delicate balancing act. It’s important you strike a balance between simplicity and customer needs.
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Stop procrastinating! Boost your productivity with this free kit.
- Free Productivity Guide
- PIE Scoring Template
- Labor Hours Calculator
- And more!
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