Too Many Choices, Too Little Time

By Jim Endicott, Owner/Manager of Distinction

Jam.  Not the kind at 5pm outside your office but rather the blackberry or strawberry variety that line your supermarket shelves. That was the focal point of a much publicized 2000, Columbia University research project on the topic of choice and decision-making.  Since so many of our presentations today are about trying to influence an audience in those important areas, it seemed like there was something we may be able to glean from their surprising findings.

Most of us have believed over the years that choice is an inherently good thing.  The more choices we have, the more satisfied we are with our decisions. To bring this back to the world of presenting, you don’t have to look any farther than most sales-oriented presentations. The content is pretty predictable. After a few opening comments and a walk through some customer lists, the presentation quickly turns to screen after screen of product or service descriptions complete with pictures usually appropriated from some sort of printed material. (Driving the PowerPoint file size into the stratosphere.) 

The prevailing thought in this setting appears to be if recounting the features and benefits of three or four products/service offerings is a good thing, then eight or ten must be great, right?  Faced with such an impressive array of ‘solutions,’ their audience will feel overwhelmingly compelled to stop the presenter and give them the order right there on the spot. Think so? Not necessarily say those who study human behavior.

Two researchers from Columbia University, Iyenger & Lepper, decided they were going to validate their hypothesis about the positive value of choice in the decision-making process. To do this they set up two displays of exotic jams in an upscale grocery store in California. On one table, passers-by could view a table with 30 varieties of jams and jellies. On another, only six jars were displayed.  As they watched the shoppers, nearly 60% of them would congregate around the table with the 30 varieties with only 40% going to the table with six. So far, so good they thought. However, what blew them away was when the time came to make an actual decision, only 3% purchased from those who viewed the table with 30 choices while 30% of those viewing the more limited six choices bought the product. Significantly fewer choices yielded a 10x factor increase in purchasing propensity.  So what the heck happened?  After validating their findings, they came up with a simple explanation. The shoppers had “choice overload.”

Based on research projects like this one and others, the whole idea of how we move people to decisions is being re-evaluated. Presentations that offer a sea of choices and options because the presenter had not done enough homework to narrow the offers to more relevant needs, may inadvertently be reducing their audiences inclination to make a decision at all. This idea flies in the face of the “throw a bunch of specifications or ideas against the wall and see what sticks” content approach used by many business professionals today. So how do you customize options in a presentation?  How can you simplify the choices an audience needs to make so they don’t get choice overload? I’ll give you a few ideas after you read this additional research tidbit.

In a follow-up study, just to make sure Iyenger & Lepper hadn’t been “sampling their own jams,” other researchers came up with a different slant on the same conclusion using Godiva chocolates. Not only was choice once again better facilitated with fewer options, but those people also indicated “greater satisfaction and were more likely to purchase chocolates again” compared to the other group choosing from the 30 choices.

I may be stretching the implications for business communicators a bit but maybe not. Audiences today are faced with very complex decisions everyday.  When our presentations give them a long set of features, customizable options and an overly broad portfolio of products or ideas to choose from, it’s no longer as easy to decide.  The more complex the decision variables, the less likely a timely decision will be made.

Here are just a few ideas for customizing screen content so you don’t “jam up” the decision-making process with your customers:

Creative Hyperlinking
Instead of jumping right into your pre-planned set of solutions (possibly to a yet undetermined problem) use a series of discovery questions early on and then enter into a slide that has some hyperlinks that allow the presenter to seamlessly bridge into more relevant and focused solution areas.  You can leave behind the 50% of your presentation that had no bearing on your customer’s specific needs.

Custom Shows (Slide Show/ Custom Shows)
This feature in PowerPoint allows you to design custom paths through the same set of slides depending on your most immediate audience.  Only time for a high level, executive overview presentation?  Instead of running prospects through the entire “deck,” pre-plan a path that only takes them through higher-level content.  Perhaps the decision you are facilitating that day is simply to have you back for a second call?  Dump the content truck on them and you might just have blown a big opportunity, or at least delayed it.

Hidden Slides
This is a no-brainer. Simply go into your Slide Sorter and hide the extra slides before you actually start your presentation.  This actually assumes you open the presentation before your meeting.

Maybe the first point is not to build presentations that are simply a regurgitation of your company brochures or every idea offered up in a brainstorming session. But one thing is for sure; too many choices mean that people are less likely to decide.  Decide between products.  Decide between ideas on the table.  Decide whether to bring you back or not.  What our researchers also discovered is that when the cost associated with wrong choices is much more prominent and/or there would be substantial effort required for choosers to make truly informed comparisons, the decision-making process was often deferred or even delegated. Simply put, the higher the stakes, the tougher the decision-making process becomes and it becomes our job to make it easier.

Whether you’re selling a product, service, idea or budget, our goal is to give people greater confidence in making those decisions and that comes through succinct and relevant choices, crisply articulated options and a presenter’s ability to convey confidence and passion in whatever they are “selling.” In today’s competitive environments, both inside and outside your company walls, you need every edge you can get. This just may be a big one!

Learn more about Jim Endicott and Distinction in our Contributor's section.