Adding benefits is killing your pitch

Researchers at the University of Chicago ran an experiment that'll make you rethink how you position "value" and "benefits" in your sales and marketing.

They split people into two groups and told them about tomatoes.

Group one heard that tomatoes improve heart health. That's it. One benefit.

Group two heard that tomatoes improve heart health and strengthen bones. Two benefits. More value. Logically, that should be better, right?

Then they asked both groups the same question: how effective are tomatoes at improving heart health?

The group given more information rated tomatoes nearly 10% less effective — at the thing both groups were told about. Adding a second benefit weakened the perception of the first.

And they didn't just run this one study. They ran 6 different experiments and confirmed that adding benefits to something erodes the perceived value of each one.

They call it the goal dilution effect.

You've felt this before.

If the server at a restaurant with a 12-page menu offering pizza, Thai, Italian, sushi, burgers, and Mexican says they have the best burgers in town, you're probably going to question it.

But if you heard the place down the street that serves only ramen is 5-star ramen, you're more likely to believe it.

The same is true of the "I do everything” handyman. Best person to diagnose and fix the foundation cracks in your home? Probably not.

Or think about getting diagnosed with a serious health issue. To treat it, are you picking the doctor who treats that ONE condition all day every day? Or the one whose website says he does cardiology, dermatology, orthopedics, and nutrition counseling?

That's dilution. And once you see it, you see it everywhere.

I see this in business quite a bit.

The sales pitch that stacks benefits. A rep tells a prospect: "This will save you money, save you time, reduce your risk, improve your team's morale, AND increase revenue." Really? The prospect now half-believes all five instead of fully believing one.

The entrepreneur who's CEO of 8 companies on LinkedIn. They've got a content company. A consulting company. Half a dozen others. And of course an AI company. Assuming it's not Elon Musk, do you think any of them are the absolute best in the business?

The proposal that pads deliverables. You have a conversation with a prospect about sales coaching, then send a proposal that includes sales coaching, recruiting, onboarding playbooks, CRM setup, marketing strategy, and weekly reporting. Now they're confused what they bought.

Or the job posting with 14 requirements. You want to hire a sales closer, but it'd be nice if they could help elsewhere, too. So you post a job with requirements of sales, project management, leadership, technical knowledge, CRM expertise, strong written communication, public speaking, etc. That closer you really need reads that and thinks, "This isn't a sales job."

Some companies take this concept and run with it as a complete business strategy.

Raising Cane's does nearly $4 billion a year selling five things: chicken fingers, fries, coleslaw, Texas toast, and one dipping sauce. One sauce. You don't get to pick. They could add wings. They could add sandwiches. They could add salads. They won't. Because the constraint IS the strategy.

But if someone said it was the best fast food chicken on the market, would it surprise you?

Five Guys does over $2.5 billion a year on burgers and fries. And they were relentless about being a "burgers and fries" business. While McDonald's is chasing 40 items trying to be everything to everyone, Five Guys said "we just make burgers" — and people believe those burgers are worth twice the price.

And it's not just restaurants.

WD-40 does $590 million a year selling one product. One blue and yellow can. For 70 years. They could have launched other sprays, other lubricants, cleaning supplies — they didn't. And because of that, when you hear WD-40, you don't wonder what it does. You know what it does, and you know it works.

That's what zero dilution looks like.

Now — I already know what some of you are thinking. "That's cool, Ray. But I'm not WD-40. I can't just offer one thing. I'm a full-service IT company doing help desk, cybersecurity, cloud, compliance, VoIP — I can't pretend I only do one of those."

And you're right. If you want to be a fully outsourced provider, you can't really shrink your business down to one service.

But that's not the only way to think about the goal dilution effect.

Five Guys, Raising Cane's, and WD-40 are leveraging zero dilution by changing what they DO.

You can leverage the same psychology by changing what you SAY about what you do.

For example, go look at your homepage. If the first thing someone sees above the fold is "we are the best at cybersecurity, cloud migration, help desk, compliance, VoIP, backup and disaster recovery, and strategic IT consulting" — you are the 12-page restaurant menu.

The prospect who came looking for cybersecurity help now trusts you less to do that particular thing. Because every service you listed next to it diluted the one they actually cared about.

The same thing applies with all your sales and marketing materials: trying to convince people you can do everything leads to them believing you're the best at nothing.

Go up a level.

For example, above the fold on a website, don't lead with the services you offer. Lead with one outcome.

"We make IT the last thing you worry about."

"Your entire IT department. Without the overhead."

Or, "Start making technology your competitive advantage."

One promise. One belief. An umbrella big enough to hold every service underneath — without listing them all and killing your credibility.

Then, below the fold, clickable cards. Cybersecurity. Help desk. Cloud. Each one links to its own page where that service gets the singular, undiluted message treatment. The cybersecurity page talks about cybersecurity. Not VoIP. Not backup. Just cybersecurity.

Same thing in your sales pitch. Don't stack every benefit you can find into your slide deck.

Say you're an MSP and you run a proper discovery with a prospect. You uncover six things wrong with their current provider — slow response times, bad communication, security gaps, outdated tech stack, low satisfaction scores, and they haven't done a proper audit in two years.

The normal instinct is to put all six in the proposal. Then throw in a few more selling points for good measure — your certifications, your CSAT scores, your years in business.

Shock and awe. Kitchen sink. More is better.

But now you know what happens. Every item you add dilutes the ones before it.

10 selling points don't hit 10x harder. Each one hits a fraction as hard.

So the discipline is being surgical.

Ask yourself two questions:

And resist the urge to throw in the kitchen sink thinking it's going to help you close the deal. Because that "more is better" instinct backfires.

It's not shock and awe. It's surgical strikes.

The researchers found it wasn't just that people believed less. The mental association between the product and the benefit got objectively weaker.

They measured it with reaction times. The more benefits you attach to one thing, the weaker each connection becomes.

That's how belief actually forms.

So whether it's your homepage, your pitch, your proposal, marketing emails, or your LinkedIn headline — the discipline is the same: one message per moment.

Not because you can only do one thing.

Because they can only believe one thing at a time.

Adios,

Ray