Own or Be Owned Book: Cut the Menu: Trim Your Product Line
Founders love adding new offers like a bored chef adding more pages to the menu. The image above shows a brutal but freeing idea: your real job is not to keep every dish alive, it’s to kill the ones that no longer deserve a spot. When you trim products, you’re not shrinking your business, you’re reducing noise so the winners can actually win. Cut the menu, and suddenly customers know exactly what to buy and why.
How to Start Trimming Your Product Line
Print that highlighted line from the image and tape it above your desk. List every product you sell, then mark which ones actually drive profit, growth, and joy to run. Anything that’s distracting, unscalable, or propped up only by guilt goes on the chopping block. Communicate clearly with customers, shut it down cleanly, and re-route all your creative energy into the slimmed-down menu. Less to sell, more gets sold.
The Psychology Behind Cutting Products
- Every extra offer forces customers to think harder, which quietly kills conversions.
- Old products with lifetime promises feel sacred, but they can drain focus, support, and profit.
- When you sunset losers, your time, energy, and marketing pile behind the few offers that actually scale.
- A smaller menu signals confidence: you’re curating hits, not begging people to pick anything.
