The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WANTS AND NEEDS

In today’s consumer-driven economy, it’s easy to mistake a want for a need. Take a look at the following statements:

• “Sally needs a new wardrobe. The clothes she’s wearing make her look silly.”
• “John hates the way his hair looks. He says he needs a better barber.”
• “I simply have to have that new handbag!”
• “We need a bigger house.”
• “We need a nicer car.”

None of those things are needs. They are not things you can’t live without. Our actual needs are few. Air, water, food, shelter, transportation (sometimes), and some basic articles of clothing. Everything else we buy is based on wants.

Even when we buy things we need, our decisions are usually based on wants. We want a certain type of bread, a specific brand or style of clothes, a house in a particular neighborhood, and so on.

So if your customers don’t need your product, how do you make them want it?

• In your promotional copy, you promise your prospective customer that taking a certain action (buying your product) will result in the satisfaction of a desire (want).
• You create a picture in your prospect’s mind of the way he will feel when that desire is satisfied.
• You make specific claims about the benefits of your product, and then you prove those claims.
• You equate the feeling your prospect desires (the satisfaction of a want) with the purchase of your product.

Whether you find your customers through television or radio, magazines or newspapers, at home reading their mail or on the Internet, ...