Seven Things Everyone Wants (or Budnik’s Manifesto)

Update: Based on your reactions, I’ve reworked the article to include more specific examples of how you can meet these needs.  Take a second look and let me know what you think.

FundRaising Success Magazine is an industry publication for non-profits. I read it because many of the lessons I learn from them are applicable in any industry. Everyone should read their most recent article “The Seven (or Nine) Things Everyone Wants“.

The author delves into our deepest psychological needs and how social media helps us meet those needs. In the words of the author, “We are showing how… deep needs can be employed to foster a humane world”. I love reading someone who gets it.

Need #1 To have Hope for the future

The author made this “Need #4″. Actually this is your customers’ #1 Need. Everything else is just another way of meeting this one need. I renumbered the needs to reflect this truth. Your customers have certain expectations about you and your product whether you foster them or not, even if their hopes are not reasonable or rational. Do you know what your customers’ hopes are when they buy from you? How can you encourage and deliver on realistic expectations while not promising too much? Remember, you don’t want to promise something you can’t deliver.

Nothing is more upsetting to your customers than frustrated hopes and nothing will make them complain about you more bitterly. However, if you are able to get them to have realistic expectations and then if you can exceed those expectations, you will be their biggest hero. They will happily give you testimonials and send you referrals. Get this right and nothing can stop you from having a successful business.

How can you find out what your constituencies hopes and fears are? Find online forums by going to Google and typing in your product or industry and “forum”. Click through the top posts on the most frequented forums and you will get a pretty clear picture of what your potential clients are thinking about. Now, they might not come out and tell you “I really hope ‘x’ does this” or “I’m worried that ‘y’ might not do ‘z’”, but you should start to see certain patterns and be able to adapt your product or sales pitch to those concerns. Your email newsletter or blog is the perfect place to address these hopes and fears. However, we’ll talk about this more later in the post.

Need #2 Seen and Heard

Need #1 is actually the second biggest need. This is how you find out what people hope for. They have a vision for the future and it’s your job to fulfill it. The Internet is a powerful place for listening to customer needs. Whether your customers shop online or in person, they do their research online before they buy. Connect with your customers online, find out what they are interested in, learn what their objections are and find other items that they want that complement your current product or service.

You can foster some sense of being heard by asking your audience to respond to a survey, blog entry or email. However, it can be a challenge getting responses. Even if you do, the responses are not always accurate. People often have a hard time expressing their latent hopes and fears. You have to read the responses, go to the forums, and really listen to your audience. Once you think you understand them, parrot back what you think they’re saying and then ask for a response. You can say something like “This is what I think you’re saying, is that correct?”. Of course you need to put it in your own voice and one that they’ll respond to. It’s in this interaction where you’ll uncover their true needs and how you can meet them. Then they’ll really know that you were listening.

Need #3 To be Connected to someone or something

Social media enhances your connection with your clients. If you make a mistake, your customers will know about it immediately and tell all of their friends. If you provide great customer service, news will also spread quickly. What are your customers saying about you? Your credibility is won or lost online with each sale even if you never sell a single item on the Internet. Budnik Group helps you connect with your customers online and foster a healthy relationship with them.

People make mistakes. You make mistakes and I hate to admit it, but I make mistakes too. In a healthy relationship, it’s okay to make mistakes, as long as you acknowledge them and move quickly to fix them. You can foster healthy relationships with your audience using blogs, email, and surveys. In healthy relationships, we also give each other gifts and think about each other. If you come across an article your audience might like, send them an email with a link to the article or blog about it. They will love you for it. Remember the great marketer David Ogilvy’s maxim “The consumer isn’t a moron. She is your wife”. Treat your clients with the same manners and respect in your online communication as you would your wife. That is a real connection with your audience that you can take to the bank.

Need #4 To be part of something Greater than themselves

Your clients need to feel like they belong to part of a community. You can create a sense of community in person, but how much community can you build with a 30 minute visit to your store or office? Online you can connect your customers with one another so that they feel part of a community. Social networking websites are particularly helpful for creating communities. One of the best ways to do that is by setting up a page on Facebook, which gets about the same amount of traffic as Google, but is much more interactive.

If you can pull it off, you should be working within a community moving toward a common goal. You don’t need to create the community or movement, you just need to be able to be identified with it. This ties back into our #1 need, hope in the future. If you listen to what your audience’s biggest hope for their life is and identify with it in the context of a community, then you are on your way to having a mega impact.

You can see this with the phenomena of a company like Whole Foods which was able to tie into the need for trust and honesty with food products. They were able to connect this need with the environmental community and its movement toward harmony with nature. Through social networking websites, blogs and forums it can be a little too easy to become associated with these movements, so be careful. Make sure you’re only participating in those causes that directly tie to your core audience.

Need #5 To have the Security of trust

People need to trust you before they will buy from you. That’s why people go online and research you before they buy from you. They want to know what kind of reputation you have. How do you manage your reputation online? We build trust by delivering on our customers hopes. When those hopes are frustrated they will complain, not to you, but to their friends, on their blog… basically to anyone who will listen.

I don’t have to rehash all of the other needs this connects with. Basically, it just comes down to having a healthy relationship with your audience. People need to know that you support their hopes and will help them achieve their goals. If you’re just in the relationship for a quick buck, then everyone online will know that very quickly and you’re not going to get very far. Use all of the tools I mentioned above and stick with them. Consistency wins every time.

Need #6 To be of Service

Believe it or not, people want to help you. Yes, even your customers want to help you. They want to help you build a better business. Why wouldn’t they? When they help you improve your business, they get products and services that meet their needs more completely. When customers see that you are listening to them and engaging them (Needs 1 & 2), they will provide you with great references and testimonials you can use to build you business.

Also, remember that they’re also part of a community. Communities are built through common action whether online of in person. If you’re the one always giving, then it’s not a real relationship or community. Build real relationships and communities by asking for something back once in a while. Betty Crocker does great job of this when they ask their consumers to send in their favorite recipes. They have cooking competitions and publish the best recipes on their boxes. People love this. They love to see their name in print. The online world is a great place to publish links and recipes for your audience. If you set up your website correctly, you should be getting thousands, if not millions of visits. Sharing this exposure with your audience can create a bond that your competitors will have a hard time breaking.

Need #7 To want Happiness for self and others

It is tough to separate this need from Need #6. The difference is instead of helping you, they are helping themselves and your other potential customers. Where this differs is that if you’re not fulfilling these seven needs, instead of helping you, your audience will help your competition. They will help others find happiness by telling them to avoid you and go to someone else who can exceed their hopes and desires. It’s tough to remain neutral online. Either you have a good relationship with your audience or you don’t.

If you don’t think you have to worry about your online presence, you’re wrong. This effects everyone, especially if you all of your business is in person. You could get odd questions that you aren’t prepared for or even start losing visitors to your business or office without warning. Remember most people research online before they spend money in person. If you manage your online presence effectively, these in person interactions will go much more smoothly. If you don’t, you’re in for a rude awakening.

Everyone shares these basic needs. At Budnik Group, we have the tools you need to effectively manage your online presence. We want you to use these tools so that you live more richly in all areas of your life. Visit www.BudnikGroup.com to get started on the path to true wealth.