Three-option proposal

A proposal built as three options rather than one figure: a fully-loaded anchor at the top, your real target in the middle, and a genuine smaller way in at the floor (often the paid diagnostic itself). The structure converts a yes/no negotiation into a which-one choice, and the high anchor makes the middle option read as reasonable. Three is deliberate — one is a coin-flip, and four or five triggers the paradox of choice while removing the middle that the whole design depends on. Presented live off a one-page prop, most expensive first; for WPH the numbers surface in the session, never on a public page.

Source: Blair Enns, Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profitable Ideas (PRACTITIONER), reinforced in The Four Conversations chapter 4. Enns reports that offering three options “increases the percentage of positive outcomes by half” over a single option, and argues for three rather than four or five on paradox-of-choice grounds (“four doesn’t have a middle”).

First used in: 3.2 · Three-option proposals