LESS IS MORE

Over the weekend, I went to a Greek restaurant as I was craving some healthy Mediterranean food

It was my first time there. I hadn’t planned to go, but happened by the place

I sat down and instead of offering a menu, they handed me a book

The leather-bound volume was full of dishes, every one of them highlighted as the “specialty of the house”

There was the anticipated moussaka, pastitsio, and souvlaki on the first pages

Followed by pizza, burgers, roast beef, tapas, spaghetti, pad thai, sandwiches, steak, and much more

I counted 36 pages of assorted dishes from all over the world, not including the separate drinks list

To say that I was both surprised and overwhelmed is an understatement

It was too much. I just wanted great Greek food, not this smorgasbord

I think they took Mae West too literally

BE GREAT AT YOUR THING

The experience was a solid reminder that my favorite places do just a few things well

This is true of any brand or service

If you offer too many choices, it’s bad for your customers

It’s also bad for business

You are splitting your sales across more choices when you could be really, really focused on just a few things

You may think you are actually helping your customers, offering them more

When in reality, they just need you to be really great at your thing.

FOCUS IS BETTER

I love going to Trader Joe’s

If I want olive oil, they have one choice

If I want cereal, I don’t have to sort through multiple redundant brands

There’s just their brand- one choice

It’s perfect for me

But I realize it’s not for everyone

If I really want Cap’n Crunch, Baked Lay’s, or Dino Buddies I’d be out of luck

I’d have to go elsewhere

In exchange for fewer choices, Trader Joe’s saves me time and money

Which saves them time and money

It’s good for me, it’s good for them

THE SCIENCE

We live in an age of abundance

We can find anything we want

But there’s a problem with this

Too much choice is paralyzing

More time can be spent on Netflix looking for something to watch than the actual time spent watching the thing

Search for something on Amazon and you’ll get hundreds of suggestions

In America, whatever you’re looking for, you can find it with many choices

It’s not by accident

Brand owners and marketers have decided that more is better

But there are two forces at play here

One is the Pareto Improvement, an economics concept that means this 👇

Additional choices are better for some people and make no one worse off

So no one is harmed by the 14th variant of Oreos, but it will make someone out there happy

The other, opposite force is the Paradox of Choice

Psychologist Barry Schwartz coined this concept in his famous book

In his experiments on consumers, he found that fewer choices led to better satisfaction and also higher conversion

His team ran studies across assortments in convenience stores, ice cream shops, retirement plan options, and grandma’s jam

They consistently saw that more choice actually decreased sales as consumers were paralyzed by overwhelming choice

So which is right?

In your business, is it better to offer more products, more services, more product tiers?

Or is it better to focus and have fewer?

There is a sweet spot between these two forces

THE PATH

Here’s an exercise I want you to do

Ask yourself these 2 questions about your business or company

1- If you only had one product or service, what would that be?

2- Are you the best you can be at that one thing?

The answer to these will reveal what your focus should be

If you can’t answer the 1st question, you definitely have too many options

If your answer to the 2nd question isn’t YES, you’ll want to double down on perfecting that one thing before you consider product and service extensions

Don’t worry, if you realize that you have too many choices in your business, you’re not alone

Companies like Nike, Target, Procter & Gamble, and Starbucks go through cycles of growing and then shrinking their product lines as they constantly try to optimize their assortments

If you find you’re able to edit down, it will be a win for your business

Fewer products for you to manage means more effective marketing, more efficient inventory, and more focus for your team

You’ll be surprised at how this will grow your business

And grow the happiness of your customers

CHAD’S ROUND-UP

📚 What I read: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara- In my teens and college years, I worked in restaurants. I thought of it as just a job to make some money for textbooks and beer. In this book, the General Manager of Danny Meyer’s NYC restaurant Eleven Madison Park shares how he and his team became the #1 ranked restaurant in the world through providing a level of service unheard of anywhere. The stories are the stuff of legend in the service world. This book has great leadership lessons, tips on management, teamwork, and a view into what excellent hospitality is really about.

🎞️ What I watched: SNL 50th Anniversary Special- There is a type of entertainment that I’ll call Camp. It revolves around wit, sometimes risqué humor, and comedy sketches. Shows like Mad TV, In Living Color, Monty Python, and Little Britain have come and gone. But Saturday Night Live endures. Fifty years in, it’s still entertaining, endearing, and cheesy. The 50th Anniversary show was incredible, packed with stars from the early days and some of our favorite characters like Coffee Talk, Debbie Downer, and Drunk Uncle made an appearance. The bonus was the music- Paul Simon teemed up with Sabrina Carpenter and our favorite Beatle Paul McCartney showed that he’s still got it. I don’t know if television still exists in 50 years, but I hope this type of entertainment lives on.

🕵🏻‍♂️ An interesting discovery: Napkin AI- You know the legend of how great ideas started as a drawing on a cocktail napkin? Someone shared this appropriately-named AI tool with me- it transforms your words into a business illustration, which can be used for pitch decks, powerpoint presentations, or your website. I used to spend way too much time getting deck images to look great, not anymore. This one is a cheat code and it’s free to try.

That’s all for today

I’m rooting for you!

Chad