I run into this kind of question every day in my profession. What exactly should I offer my clients or my customers? Although it might seem more intuitive to offer your customers a million options for your products and services, studies actually show that less choices equates to more overall sales. Sheena Iyengar in her TED talk below helps us to see that in a world inundated with hundreds of choices we all must make every day, people are simply less and less likely to take the time wading through options to find their golden ticket.

Sheena Iyengar, professor of business at Columbia, relates a study conducted by her team on the market impact of the overwhelming choice. She actually found that a tasting table of 6 flavors of jam will far outsell a table of 24 flavors. The bottom line is that by diluting your option menu with too much variety of items will only work to make the chooser more confused and less likely to buy. Have you ever been at one of those restaurants with a bible sized menu of unlimited options? It can actually create a wave of stress and anxiety just to seen all those options in one place.

Part of our job in providing specialty services or products is finding and offering only a handful of the best possible options. So, if you are wondering how to apply this to your business, just ask yourself, "What is my absolute best product or service?" In other words, if you were buying from yourself, what would you buy? Often times that is exactly the first and only thing you should offer your customers.