Have a look at your website. Count how many different things you sell.
Go on, I’ll wait.
If the answer is more than you can list without checking, this blog is for you.
One of the most common things I see when I start working with a business owner is a list of products or services that’s grown out of control. A bit of this. A bit of that. A package for one client that never got taken down. A “bespoke” option. Three slightly different versions of the same service with three slightly different prices.
It happens for all the right reasons. Someone asks for something, you say yes, and before you know it you’ve added it to the list. But a long list of options doesn’t help you sell more. It usually means you sell less.
Why Too Much Choice Stops People Buying
When people are faced with lots of options, they don’t feel spoilt for choice. They feel stuck. They worry about picking the wrong one. So they do the easiest thing.
Nothing.
They tell themselves they’ll come back to it later. They rarely do.
Think about the last time you sat in front of a huge menu in a restaurant. Twelve pages, every cuisine under the sun. Did you feel excited? Or did you just order the thing you always order?
Now think about Aldi. A big supermarket can stock tens of thousands of products. Aldi stocks around 2,000. There’s often one type of ketchup, not twelve. You know what you’re getting, you know it’ll be good value and you’re in and out in no time. That’s not an accident. Fewer choices make buying easy. And it hasn’t done Aldi any harm. It’s now one of the UK’s biggest supermarkets.
Your customers want the same thing. A clear choice that’s obviously right for them.
What a Cluttered Offer Costs You
It isn’t just your customers who suffer. A messy menu costs you too.
- It’s hard to market. If you sell ten things, which one do you promote this week? You end up promoting nothing very well.
- It’s hard to deliver. Every different service needs its own process, templates and paperwork. When you’re a one-person business, that’s a lot of different hats.
- It’s hard to explain. At networking events, when someone asks what you do, you either list everything (and watch their eyes glaze over) or you mumble something vague.
- It’s hard to price. With lots of overlapping options, it’s difficult to see which ones actually make you money.
Simplifying fixes all four.
How to Simplify What You Offer in Six Steps
Step 1: List Everything You Sell
Start with a blank page (or a spreadsheet if that’s your thing). Write down every product and service you currently offer. Include the ones on your website and the ones you only offer when someone asks.
For each one, note down:
- How many times you’ve sold it in the last 12 months
- Roughly how much it brought in
- How long it takes you to deliver
- How much you enjoy doing it (marks out of ten is fine)
Be honest. Nobody’s going to see this but you.
Step 2: Spot Your Stars and Your Strugglers
Now look at your list. You’ll probably find a few things stand out.
- Your stars. These sell regularly, they make decent money and you like doing them. Keep these. They’re the backbone of your business
- Your hidden gems. These don’t sell much, but the people who buy them love them and they’re profitable. These might just need better promotion
- Your time-wasters. These take ages to deliver for not much money. Or you dread doing them. Or both
- Your ghosts. These haven’t sold in a year. They’re just sitting on your website, cluttering things up
Step 3: Keep, Combine or Cut
For each item, make a decision.
Keep it if it’s a star or a hidden gem.
Combine it if it overlaps with something else. Often you’ll find two or three services can become one clearer package. Instead of “Website Audit”, “SEO Check” and “Content Review” you might have one “Website Health Check” that does all three.
Cut it if it’s a time-waster or a ghost. This is the hard bit. You’ll want to hang on to things “just in case”. Don’t. You can always do something as a one-off if a client really needs it. It doesn’t need to be on your menu.
Tracy Hatch of Raspberry Interiors knows this well. Her sales were going up every year, but her profit was going the other way. Raspberry Interiors prides itself on being approachable and flexible, and that brought in plenty of enquiries. Just not always the right ones. Together we looked at which projects were worth taking on, and how to politely say no to the ones that weren’t. Now Tracy and her team are clear about what they offer (and what they don’t). In her words: “We’re no longer just busy; we’re building a business that works for us.”
Step 4: Aim for Three Core Offers
There’s no magic number, but three is a good place to aim for. It’s enough to give people a choice without overwhelming them.
A simple structure might look like this:
- A starter option. Lower price, smaller commitment. A way for people to try you out
- Your main offer. The thing most people buy. This is your bread and butter
- A premium option. For the people who want more of you, more support or a bigger result
Each one should be clearly different. Someone reading your website should be able to see in seconds which one is right for them.
Step 5: Give Each Offer a Clear Description
Once you’ve got your shortlist, describe each one in plain English. For each offer, answer four questions:
- Who is it for? Be specific. “New business owners in their first year” is better than “anyone”
- What problem does it solve? In your customer’s words, not yours
- What do they get? What’s included, how long it takes and how it works
- What changes for them? The result. The want, not the need
If you’ve asked your customers what they really want, this is where those conversations pay off. Use the words your customers used.
Lush is a good example. It sells hundreds of products, but each one has a clear name, a clear purpose and a clear story. You know exactly what a bath bomb is for. You aren’t left wondering.
Step 6: Tidy Up Everywhere
Once you’ve decided on your simplified range, update everything:
- Your website (including any old pages that are still live)
- Your social media bios
- Your Google Business Profile
- Your email signature
- Your proposal templates
- Your networking intro
That last one is important. When someone at a networking event asks what you do, you should be able to answer in a few words and talk about the outcomes.
“But What If a Client Wants Something Different?”
This is the question I always get asked. And the answer is simple. You can still say yes.
Simplifying your menu doesn’t mean you can never do anything else. It means you don’t advertise everything. If a client comes to you with a specific need, you can create something for them. You just don’t need to add it to your website afterwards.
The other thing that often happens is this. When you have a clear offer, clients stop asking for odd things. They can see what you do and they buy it.
Simple Doesn’t Mean Small
I want to be clear about one thing. Simplifying what you offer doesn’t mean doing less or earning less. In my experience it usually means the opposite.
When you’re clear about what you sell, you can promote it properly. You get better at delivering it. You can create templates and systems that save you time. And you can charge more, because you’re known for doing one thing really well rather than lots of things quite well.
Being amazing at three things beats being mediocre at twelve.
There’s a knock-on effect on your week too. Fewer offers means fewer processes to remember, fewer templates to keep up to date and fewer things to chase. You’ll spend less time switching between jobs and more time doing the work you’re good at. For an ultra-small or one-person business, that’s a big deal. It’s often the difference between finishing the day feeling on top of things and finishing it wondering where the time went.
Your Next Step
Block out an hour this week. Grab a cuppa. Make your list of everything you sell and work through the steps above. You don’t have to change your website straight away. Just get clear on what’s worth keeping.
If you’d like more help getting the foundations of your business sorted, download my free guide, Back to Business: 7 Simple Steps to Boost Your Income and Impact This Autumn. It’s practical, it’s clear and it’s free.
And if you do this work, please share your outcomes in the comments below.