Are you helping or hurting your customer's ability to make a decision?
OCCAM'S
RAZOR
RAZOR
And the Art of Selling Online
Strip away what is not necessary.Do not introduce complexity without reason.Do not require ten assumptions when three will do.
Are you making the decision easier—or harder?
The Customer // He Did Not Come to Admire Your Website
There Is Water Pouring Through the Ceiling
At 2:00 in the morning, a homeowner searches emergency water removal near me.
He probably does not want your corporate history, mission statement, company-picnic photographs, or an introduction to all seventeen services you provide.
I have water in my house.Can you help me?Can you help me now?Can I trust you?How do I get you here?
That is the cognitive path.
Your job is to help him travel it.
The Interruption // Every Unnecessary Question Has a Cost
One Problem Becomes Twenty Decisions
Slow arrivalMailing-list popupCookie bannerRotating heroChatbotTwelve navigation choicesFinancing promotionCompany historySix service categoriesVideo request
Somewhere among all of this is the telephone number the customer originally came looking for.
We took a customer with one problem and gave him twenty decisions.
The Cognitive Block // Complexity Is Not Neutral
Every Element Introduces Another Thought
Every additional thought can move the customer toward the intended decision—or away from it.
Intended thoughtMy AC is broken → I need somebody today → these people can do it → call.
Interrupted thoughtWhat does this mean? Which service? Where do I click? Are they local?
A Cognitive Block does not necessarily stop someone completely. It interrupts the intended progression of thought and gives the customer's brain another problem to solve.
The Achievement // Don't Make the Customer Think About the Website
The Best Acquisition Environment Can Feel Almost Embarrassingly Obvious
You have this problem.We solve this problem.Here is why you can trust us.Here is what happens next.
The customer should not have to understand your information architecture, decipher your terminology, learn your navigation, or determine which department owns the problem.
The technology should disappear. What remains is the proposition.
That is an extraordinarily short cognitive journey. Protect it.
The Standard // More Information Is Not Necessarily More Persuasion
Positive Information Can Still Weaken the Decision
37 years of experience.An award.Financing.Twelve certifications.Seventeen communities.3,000 reviews.
Each fact may independently strengthen the company. Displaying all of them simultaneously does not necessarily strengthen the decision.
Do not askIs this good information?Ask insteadDoes the customer need it now to make the next decision?
Message Continuity // Cognitive Boost or Cognitive Block?
The first thought continues uninterrupted. The second gives the customer homework.
Cleverness does not get extra points on the income statement.
The Razor // Every Element Must Earn Its Place
01
Does the customer need this to make the decision?
02Does it measurably improve the probability of the decision?
03If you do not know, test it.
04If the answer is no, what the hell is it doing there?
This is not minimalism. It is decision engineering.
Subtraction // The Shortest Distance to Revenue
Conversion May Improve by Removing Things
Remove the distraction.Remove the ambiguity.Remove the unnecessary choice.Remove the jargon.Remove the delay.Remove the navigation that sends paid traffic wandering.
Remove everything standing between the customer's existing intention and the action capable of satisfying it.
What remains may look remarkably simple.
That is the point.
The Nova Methodology // Your Website Has Two Jobs
Did the experience become available quickly enough for the proposition to reach them?
Did the proposition reach the mind clearly, or was it buried beneath unnecessary cognitive work?
The first problem is technical. The second is cognitive.
Both can destroy the economic value of a successful click. Neither is fixed by buying more traffic.
The Final Question // Are You Helping or Hurting?
Every Element Must Answer for Itself
Does this make it easier or harder for this customer to make the decision we brought them here to make?
Then measure what happens when you change it.
The objective is to move a human being from need to understanding to confidence to action with as little unnecessary resistance as possible.
Occam had a razor.WE HAVE
ANALYTICS.Perhaps it is time to start cutting.
ANALYTICS.Perhaps it is time to start cutting.
Continue the Nova Research Series
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The Speed Paradox
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