The Paradox of Choice
Issue #2459
- WEALTHY: Time is on your side (Andrew Gordon)
- HEALTHY: Another reason to get up and get active (Craig Ballantyne)
- WISE: William Jennings Bryan on destiny
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- When too much is too much (David Cross)
- How I keep my work interesting… and fun (Michael Masterson)
- It’s Fun to Know… about a new use for cinnamon
- Add “stanch” to your vocabulary
== Highly Recommended ==
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More people than ever before are starting their own businesses – half a million each month, according to a recent study.
And what better way to become an entrepreneur than in one of the largest industries in the world… one that is wide open to new businesses and has the potential to make you between $1 million and $100 million a year.
I’m talking about Information Publishing. And ETR’s November Info-Marketing Bootcamp this November is the best place to learn from the ground up how to get into this industry, which is still rapidly growing despite current economic troubles.
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Making Time Your Ally
You can be the envy of every stockbroker… floor trader… and intra-day trader who is a prisoner of the flashing green and red indicators on his laptop. They all have to pay attention to the market. Every day. All the time.
Pension, endowment, and hedge fund managers are no different. If they’re not the first ones to get in and out of positions, they lose millions of dollars.
But you can float above this hour-to-hour slugfest. You don’t even have to know what’s going on from day to day. And if you have only the vaguest notion of what your investment is doing week to week, that’s okay too.
Because you have the luxury of investing in a way that most big-money funds can’t: You can pick your stocks for their long-term potential. Not their potential for next month or next quarter, but next year… or perhaps two years from now.
Just think of the freedom such an approach allows…
You can invest in that retail company that enjoys such big profit margins - even if you (or everybody else) think the holidays won’t be great for retailers.
You can invest in that mining company doing such a great job of discovering silver… even if the price of silver isn’t going up as much as expected right now.
You can invest in that medium-sized rig-contracting company that has the best rig fleet around - even if investors are selling the stock because the price of oil is going down.
But there is a price to pay for this freedom: Patience.
The stocks you buy with long-term profits in mind could go down more before they go up. That has never bothered legendary investor Warren Buffett. And it shouldn’t bother you. Eventually, he makes impressive gains on the vast majority of his investments. All he does is wait.
And that’s all you have to do.
[Ed. Note: There's no rush. You can make money just by making smart decisions about where and how you invest. Find a company with good fundamentals, and you'll be sleeping soundly for years. Investment expert Andrew Gordon can help you pick the winners. Learn how here.]
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
William Jennings Bryan
The Paradox of Choice, or All I Wanted Was a Loaf of Bread
By David Cross
“If you can find bread, buy it!” My friend’s advice seemed almost comical as we sipped tea and enjoyed scones, strawberry jam, and cream on a fine spring day in 1990 in Bristol, England.
But he’d already been where I was headed: an earthquake relief effort in Leninakan (now Kumayry), Armenia. And he was right. Amidst the devastation, when I did manage to find a loaf of bread in a rundown store, I bought it without hesitation. It was the fourth shop I’d tried. It was the last loaf on the shelf, the bag was split, and some of the pieces had spilled out. But it was the only bread available, so I scooped up the pieces and paid for it.
Back home in England some months later, my first visit to the local supermarket to buy some staples was a bewildering experience. An entire aisle was crammed with bread, cakes, confections, and pastries, not to mention people squeezing and inspecting the packaging to check freshness, sell-by date, ingredients, and prices.
“Does anyone really need so many choices,” I thought, “when all you want is a loaf of bread?”
And that brings us to the paradox of choice.
More Choice, Fewer Sales
You probably want to offer your customers as many choices as possible. But too many choices can be overwhelming, confusing, or just plain off-putting. And overwhelmed, confused, or off-put customers may spend their money elsewhere.
In an oft-cited study from Columbia University, a display of jams and preserves was set up at a gourmet food shop. On Day 1 of the test, the researchers displayed six flavors. On Day 2, they displayed 30. The display of 30 flavors attracted more attention than the smaller display. But - and here’s the shocker - shoppers were only one-tenth as likely to make a purchase when faced with the 30 choices.
The results of this study support other studies and examples I’ve come across in business and my personal life. When faced with too many options, people become paralyzed by “analysis paralysis.”
Just recently, for instance, while shopping online for digital picture frames, the Philips website was so confusing it stopped me dead in my tracks. I shifted over to Kodak’s to find and buy what I was looking for. (That’s a $250 sale that Philips lost.)
Think back to the last time you went car shopping - wading glassy-eyed through model after model and feature after feature. A decision that could have been made in minutes probably took weeks.
And consider the plight of a first-timer perusing the Starbucks menu and trying to make a decision. (Milk, alone, comes four ways - regular, low-fat, no-fat, and soy.) I’m guessing most of them give up and say, “Er, um - just give me a plain coffee.”
Choice. Way too much choice.
Barry Schwarz’s book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less offers up more examples and demonstrates further how too much choice can be a bad thing.
Let’s say you have an online business. You want to give your site visitors enough information about what you’re selling to make it possible for them to make a decision, but you do not want to give them so much that their eyes “glaze over” and they leave without buying. So how much is enough?
Here are three suggestions that have worked well for my clients.
• Offer only one version of your product - which means you’re giving people two choices: Take it or leave it.
• Give them three options. That gives you three ways to target your prospects. More than that might be confusing.
• Offer only one product, but give your prospects an upsell or add-on option. (”Buying the pen? How about a nice leather-bound notebook for only $10 extra?”)
If you must offer multiple products or options, at least make it easy for your customers to comparison shop. The Honda website, for example, allows you to compare the features of their vehicles against those of other Honda models… and even against similar vehicles from other companies.
You could also allow your customers to narrow down the number of products displayed by having them select characteristics that are important to them (color, size, price, etc.). AT&T does an excellent job of this in the wireless-phones section of its website. When I selected PDA + International, my choices were reduced only to products that suited my needs.
More Important Than Choice
Regardless of how many options you offer people for what to buy, it is imperative to give them only one clear choice on how to take the next step and make the purchase. Confusing or overwhelming a customer at this point will translate into fewer sales for your business.
Not sure how to present that step? My recommendation is to do a series of simple A/B split tests, where you match two possibilities against each other. Or you can use multivariate testing to see how different combinations of elements impact response. In a shopping cart checkout process, for example, this could include placement of text, images, buttons, security logos, padlocks, and confidence items like guarantees and company contact details. Over time, the multivariate test will indicate which combination of elements will likely give you the best conversion rate - the highest number of people performing the specific action you want them to take: buying your product.
It may sound strange… but offering your customers fewer choices can result in more sales. It is true that you must provide enough information for “fact-finder” types. But even fact finders, once they’ve made up their minds, want an unfettered decision and action process.
[Ed. Note: Too much choice is a turn-off. So give your customers one to three great options - and that's it. For more advice on how to make your website more customer-friendly, come to ETR's 2008 Info Marketing Bootcamp. David Cross and 11 other experts at making money have agreed to reveal exactly how attendees can make at least $100,000 in 2009. Learn more about the marketing masters and business-building experts who'll be spilling their guts right here.]
Are You Embarrassed of What You Do for a Living - or Just Tired of Doing It?
One woman was both, and while her “acquaintances” at a dinner party snickered and poked fun, she had the last laugh. In as little as two weeks she started a new business for less than $99, soon had to hire additional employees to handle the work, and now lives a life without money worries of any kind.
Here’s how you can do the same, even easier and faster than she did.
Reader Feedback: “Thanks to everyone at ETR for their invaluable assistance.”
“In 2000, I wrote an Internet reference article that was the culmination of my effort and expertise on the subject. My work has since been plagiarized by several online sources. It was insulting and infuriating to see others claiming my work as their own and using it to draw Internet traffic to their websites.
“A few months ago, Mr. David Cross wrote a very informative article about dealing with a Web-based plagiarist. I employed his tactics - and by the next morning, I received my first e-mail from a Web host informing me that they had shut down the offender and three or four other websites the offender had with them! The website with my stolen material: Gone.
“The result,” as Mr. Cross stated in his excellent article, was “quick and severe.” It was amazing to see the thunder brought down so summarily on these unscrupulous individuals. I was delighted with the immediate result, and further encouraged to pursue other offenders.
“This is my letter of thanks to everyone at ETR for their invaluable assistance in this situation. I would never have received these results without your professional and experienced insight. ETR is the best e-zine I subscribe to!”
Danny Bowes
Foresters Falls, Ontario, Canada
importtractorparts.net
[Ed. Note: What's the best way to get more of the information and advice you want the most? Let us know what you like! Write to ETR at ReaderFeedback@gmail.com and tell us what's helped you, what you love, and what you want to see more of.]
The Challenges and Rewards of Being a Business Builder
I am living proof that you can do well as a business builder, even if you hate hard work.
For me, hard work boils down to one of two things:
- Doing something that bores me.
- Doing something I don’t care about.
One of the best things about owning your own business is that you can make it into anything you want. That means you’re doing something that interests you at every stage of its development. And since you have control over your company’s future direction, you can’t help but care about it.
How do you keep your work interesting?
The answer, for me, is simple: What is new and challenging is always interesting. It’s the old, routine work that is dull and boring.
I don’t think I’m unusual in that respect. I think almost everybody feels the same way. Yes, routines are comfortable and relaxing. But it’s the new and challenging work that makes life exciting and fun.
By changing your role as your business grows - from primarily employee to primarily manager, and then to primarily business builder and wealth builder - you fill your business life with interesting challenges. At every stage of your company’s growth, you have to overcome new obstacles. To do so, you have to learn new skills… and work hard.
You may feel, as I did years ago, that you don’t want to work harder; you want to work easier. That’s good. Because that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
In fact, looking back at my career, I see a pattern of starting work and then trying to make it easy. I get an idea. It seems very exciting. I work with someone to help me launch the business. And from then on, I’m trying to get other people to take over my work so I can do something new… and, therefore, more interesting.
[Ed. Note: The above was adapted from Michael Masterson's blockbuster best-seller, Ready, Fire, Aim.
You can meet Michael Masterson in person this November. He'll be revealing exactly how you can add six figures to your income in 2009. And he's not the only one... 11 other money-making experts have responded to ETR's Internet Ultimatum. Find out how it can make you millions.]
Work Out to Protect Against Breast Cancer
Recently, actress Christina Applegate was diagnosed with breast cancer. It seems like just yesterday she was playing a ditzy teenager on the TV sitcom Married With Children. Ms. Applegate’s diagnosis is now a cold reminder that breast cancer can strike even women who appear fit and healthy.
To reduce your risk, Canadian and Australian researchers recommend staying as active as possible, even if it’s just with recreational activities like walking. After reviewing 62 studies, these scientists found that increased physical activity in women was associated with a 25-30 percent decreased risk of breast cancer. The more exercise the women did, the better. Greater activity was associated with an even greater reduction in risk in 85 percent of the exercise studies examined.
[Ed. Note: Working out can be as simple as taking a brisk walk each day. But if you'd like a routine that focuses more on building muscle and blasting fat, check out fitness expert Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training program.
And while you're increasing the amount of exercise you do, make sure you're eating right. You can get advice on healthful food, delicious recipes, and overall motivation by signing up for ETR's natural health e-letter.]
== Highly Recommended ==
What’s Keeping You From the Success You Deserve?
It’s easy to say, “I didn’t achieve such-and-such because I was swamped at work.”
But let’s face it - we’re ALL busy.
Yet some people manage to make massive progress toward their goals - whether they want to become bodybuilders or marketing masters or billionaires.
The same world of opportunity to succeed is open to you.
So what’s the difference between you and the ultra-successful?
It’s Fun to Know: A New Use for Cinnamon
ETR’s health experts have often talked about the benefits of cinnamon. Cinnamon can lower cholesterol and reduce blood sugar. It’s reduced the growth of leukemia and lymphoma cancer cells in a study done by researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Maryland. And Copenhagen University researchers found that it relieved arthritic pain.
But it’s recently been discovered to have a far different use….
You see, cinnamon stops fungal and bacterial growth. Because of this, bread may soon come wrapped in waxed paper that is made with cinnamon oil. In fact, the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry recently reported that bread packaged in a cinnamon-based wrapper stayed fresher for as long as 10 days. Not only that, but when the wrapper was tested on bread that was already beginning to mold, it inhibited mold growth by 96 percent.
(Source: The New York Times, healthdiaries.com)
Word to the Wise: Stanch
“Stanch” (STANCH) - from the French - means “stop a liquid from flowing.”
Example (as used by T. Coraghessan Boyle in A Friend of the Earth): “Out of the corner of my eye I can see one of Shiggy’s daughters busy at the rear door with a mop and a mountain of napkins, furious activity, but not enough to stanch the flow of water seeping inexorably into the room.”
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2008
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In the article “It’s fun to know: A New Use for Cinammon” a sentence claimed:
“In fact, the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry recently reported that bread packaged in a cinnamon-based wrapper stayed fresher for as long as 10 days.”
Now I ain’t no English grammar expert, but isn’t “fresher” a comparative? Should it read “…cinnamon-based wrapper stayed fresh for as long…”? Or does the article/author want to convey that it stays fresher for 10 days vs. 5 days for regular bread? I’m going to assume that this was the NYT’s doing, can’t believe that ETR would make such a gaffe.