How to Simplify the Complex So You Make the Sale Jeff Sexton - Sep 27, 2011

What do customers really want? Answer: Customers want simple solutions to complex problems.

Unfortunately, complex, thorny problems usually don't have simple, easy answers -- and when they do, they're of the simple-but-hard-and-painful variety.

A lot of good companies lose sales to less-conscientious competitors -- competitors who are more comfortable over-simplifying and (often) over-promising.

Good business owners frequently find themselves in a quandary: do they also engage in their competitors' pernicious brand of deceit, or continue telling the truth and losing their shirts in the marketplace?

No Simple Solutions, but Viable "Third-Way Alternatives"

Unfortunately, there really aren't any dead-simple solutions to this complex problem, but there are some workable solutions that, while a bit trickier for you, do provide your customers with the allure of perceived ease and simplicity when doing business with you. Here they are:

1. Bundling Services into a Grab & Go Flat Rate Solution

As simple as the adage, "burn more calories than you consume" may sound, losing weight is never easy, and frequently requires behavioral change on multiple fronts: eating habits, exercise, sleep, psychology, etc.

Bundling a total solution in an as done-for-you a package as possible, can make buying from you an easy or simple option (or at least simpler and easier by comparison).

Look at most successful weight loss franchises and you'll see some combination of "done for you" and easy bundling at play. Slim Fast = done-for-you meals in a can. Another brand might combine done-for-you meals with bundled-for-you behavioral counseling, shopping and dining our guides, as well as community support.

CarMax offers a similar bundled product, where used cars are offered already reconditioned, inspected, and certified at a no-haggle price and in-house financing and warranties. Car savvy individuals can certainly find their own cars, get the car history, have a mechanic inspect it, haggle for a price, etc. But CarMax makes it easy by eliminating (or appearing to eliminate) much of the complexity and uncertainty found in buying a used car. Hey, there's a reason they've become as successful as they have!

Also, when you can, don't forget to include flat rates on your bundles, since that's the part that eliminates uncertainty, reverses risks, and generates more clients.

2. Simplify the Complex by Speaking to Unifying Principles

Unifying principles are often the allure of Grand Theory experts, and why so many of them are able to achieve such far-ranging success.

Continuing on with the weight loss examples, Zone Diet developed by Dr. Barry Sears is in no way, shape, or form a simple diet. It requires the counting of carbohydrate, fat, and protein grams at every meal. But the over-arching theory is incredibly easy to understand: keep your blood sugar level and eat the right ratio of protein, fat, and carbohydrates and you'll feel better, lose weight, and never go hungry.

Whatever the industry -- whether it's investing, sports, communication, or entrepreneurship -- there's usually some famous guru who's boiled the complexity down to a simple formula, even when executing on that formula requires grappling with complexity.

Find the unifying principles in your industry, make them easy to understand and remember, and you'll wind up with a lot of prospective customers who figure that, if you can make the complex easy to understand, you're the kind of expert they want to do business with.

3. Give 'em a Brain-Dead Simple and Straightforward Guarantee

"If you buy X, and don't save Y dollars in Z months, I'll pay you double the difference." Whether it's used for an air conditioning tune-up, a security system, or a landing page optimization service, that kind of formula gives clients a dead-simple guarantee to focus on, making an already simplified, bundled solution into an even simpler decision.

So think of a simple guarantee -- one without loopholes or wiggle-room -- that will help take the clients mind off of the complexity involved with the service or product by focusing it on the guaranteed benefit and no-risk safety of doing business with you.

Conclusion: People want simple and easy. If you give them simple and easy, they'll usually buy from you, even if they have to pay a premium to do so. While Apple can arguably claim product superiority in a lot of areas, the ones they're most famous for are ease of use, ease of operation: "It Just Works." They're goal has always been to take previously complex tasks and make them easy. Seems like they've had some success with that model....