Less is More

Sometimes, you need to tell a customer "the whole story" as one of my favorite marketing gurus, Sean D'Souza says. But sometimes less is more.

I recently got a call from a client, Michael, asking for help dealing with a situation with one of his prospective customers -- let's call him Seiji. Things were getting out of hand. Michael sells sophisticated medical equipment. The product is quite technical and requires coordinating the settings on various pieces of apparatus. Since compressed oxygen is involved, it's important to get pressures in range and to proceed in the right order or things can get pretty explosive... literally!

Seiji had had some technical questions and Michael had tried to answer them. Several emails had gone back and forth, with each answer from Michael creating a new question in Seiji's mind. Instead of calming the waters, Michael's detailed answers seemed to be making matters worse. By the time Michael called for help, a very large sale was at serious risk!

Now understand that I'm an editor. I don't do counselling. But clearly, something about the way Michael was answering Seiji's inquiries was creating a problem. I read through the correspondence and realized that Michael needed to say less, not more!

It's the same mistake that an inexperienced, well-meaning parent often makes with very young children. The parent makes a request. The child says why. The parent explains, believing in the power of reason and logic. The child asks for further clarification. The parent explains. The child... Well, you know how it goes. In the end, the parent loses patience and yells "Because I said so!" Sometimes, it's better not to start down that road.

"Michael," I said, "he's asking you whether he's doing things correctly. He just needs to know yes or no. He doesn't need to know WHY he's right or wrong. Stop explaining! Let's make your next email as short as possible so that there's no room for him to create any more questions."

So we did. We cut Michael's draft down from 800 to 200 words. It was friendly, brief, and to the point.

It got the sale.