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Goes out second Tuesday of each month.
Selling the Need: Survival Needs
Last month we looked at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as clues to customer motivation. This month we will begin looking at each of these needs in depth. This month we are looking at the most basic type of need – survival.
Nothing matters more to your customer than simply staying alive. Survival needs include such things as adequate food, water and air, protection from the elements and maintaining health.
Obviously, certain products are directly related to these needs. Food, drugs, protective clothing and housing all relate directly to maintaining the survival of the customer. If you are looking for a product to sell or to add to your current line of products one that ensures survival certainly will have a built in market.
However, you can use appeals to survival needs even with products which don't immediately suggest such an appeal. For instance, let's say you are selling a book about starting a home business. Part of your marketing message might focus on providing the necessities of life for your family.
Indeed, in today's world money is a survival product. In the old days, someone would find a piece of land, plant food, cut down trees, dig a well and literally "make" a living. Today, we are one step removed from producing the necessities of life. We make money, and, with money, we buy a living.
Products which can be shown to promote health can also be sold with a survival angle. That shampoo you sell made from all natural ingredients can be sold on the basis of it doing good things for your hair, but it can also be sold by showing that using chemical based shampoos can be dangerous to your health.
You might not only appeal to personal survival, but also to global survival. Today, many people are concerned about environmental threats such as pollution and global warming as things which not only threaten quality of life, but things which may shorten life itself. Showing how "green" your product is, how it helps the environment or at least doesn't harm it can be a selling point for many individuals.
While merely surviving, is not enough for most of us, the rest doesn't matter much if we haven't first met those survival needs. Help your customers meet those needs, and they will become regulars.
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About The Author:
Terri Main is the Speech Communication Instructor at Reedley College in Reedley, California. When she’s not busy teaching,
she’s running her own business. Visit Terri at http://www.wayfarersjournal.com.
* Information provided in this column is for entertainment purposes only.
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