Thoughts on why people buy stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmj2z3Uq9Rg

Transcription

Want versus Need.

I'm Brian Pombo, welcome back to Brian J. Pombo Live.

I wanted to talk with you tonight about the concept of want versus need in terms of the customer relationship. So if you are a business owner, if you're an executive, if you're one of the people in charge of developing products and services of the company that you work at, this is something you got to wrap your mind around.

And it's tough, it's a really tough conversation to have because it has so much to do with semantics. The meaning of these two words is so broad in English, that it's difficult to have this conversation, because what does want versus need actually mean?

What is a want?

What is a need?

Can you somewhat come to a conclusion about it?

Because I've even heard Gary Bencivenga say that it's a semantic argument that we shouldn't get into. But I think it's important to understand the concept.

Don't get hung up on the words, the words you can mean want. When you're saying need and you can mean need. When you're saying one, that's the problem with it.

But they're very subjective and relative to whatever it is that you're talking about.

But let's go into that, shall we?

So are you selling a product or service that people need or that they want?

Now they may want it but not need it or they may need it and not wanted.

What situation do you want more is to see how it gets confusing.

So let's take an example. Let's say what people really want are hot dogs. But what you're selling is broccoli. Now they may need I'm not going to get into the vegetable versus meat conversation here.

But let's say that broccoli has the vitamins and so forth, that people in general, are lacking. And just for the sake of argument, we're just using this as an example. I'm not going to get into actual nutrition, okay, we're just saying you say broccoli is that thing that has what people need.

But what people really want are hot dogs.

Now you can try to sell them broccoli, but you're going to have an uphill battle because you're selling them what they need, not what they want. Where if you sell them hot dogs, you're selling them what they want, it's gonna be easier.

Do you see the difference?

So that's the first step, the first step is just to understand the fundamental difference, but that it doesn't end there. Because there are multiple things that you can do with this, let's say we're only dealing with this binary argument.

I say sell them the hotdogs include this broccoli on the side. Now you have a chance of them actually getting what they need while also getting what they want.

It's nearly impossible to sell people what they need if they don't want it.

But here's another thing. Let's say people really did, you're going through a period of time where people really do want broccoli, maybe there's a shortage or whatever.

Maybe Oprah or somebody famous came out and talked about the wonders of broccoli and how they're able to lose weight by eating only broccoli or whatever. All of a sudden, broccoli's demand comes up.

People want broccoli, people also turns out they need the broccoli.