Continued From: Psychology of Choosing

Let’s examine the pain points associated with choosing. Making a choice requires sacrifice. Choosing one usually means not choosing another. In some situations, there’s a way to make trade-offs and enjoy the “best of both worlds,” as the saying goes.

But let’s stay focused here and agree that choosing a taco means no burrito, enchilada, quesadilla, torta, and so forth. Sacrifice sucks. No matter how much you might like all of the foods, you’re probably not going to order the entire menu to not miss out. That’d be really weird … and a waste of money.

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But people tend to be loss averse. No one wants to give up the range of options or make a wrong decision. Think about Choose Your Own Adventure books. By choosing one scenario, you cannot choose another. In life, unlike in the book, we cannot turn back the pages if we encounter an unpleasant outcome and take the path not taken.

No one likes making wrong decisions. Therefore, people want to make the decision that will benefit them the most. (Remember, customers have priorities.) It’s a matter of minimizing loss.

What this means for you as a photographer is that you need to develop your product options carefully. A package list, for example, that’s difficult to understand and navigate makes decision-making hard for clients, and it may actually motivate them to use someone else—someone with a nice, clean, easy-to-understand price list—for their photography gig.

Create Less Attractive Packages

Think in terms of how you can reduce the sacrifice of customers who choose your services and decide on specific packages. Understand that by committing to one package, an individual is choosing to miss out on some features of a different package. And the more attractive all of your packages are, the more loss your clients would feel because of opportunity cost.

Therefore, even though it is silly, create package(s) that are less attractive to make the one that you wish people to buy more desirable. Remember that people only understand value through comparison.

For me personally, years after graduation, I’m still imagining what my life might be like if I had studied computer science instead of political science. I can’t help but wonder whether I could have been one of those new tech startups published in Forbes. I’ll never know …

lawrence chan - tofurious

This is just one more reason you need to understand your target market and figure out what they prioritize. Help customers feel excellent about a decision to hire you to capture their once-in-a-lifetime moments by aligning the features that matter most to them and making it available at the right price.

Next: Create Photographer Packages that Sell

Other Sections

Yours Chipotle-loving friend,

Lawrence Chan

P.S. Delightful note by Nerinna Valera about my pricing e-book.

The book was informative. I downloaded immediately after I got the link, hopped onto a train and finished it within 1.5 hours – just a few minutes before I had to hop off.

I’ll probably have to keep re-reading a few parts just to make sure it’s engrained into my brain. So, please keep putting stuff out there because everyone can learn from you. Really, really good stuff.

Read more about this rewritten 2nd edition pricing e-book HERE.

Or …

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