Wants vs. Needs -- no contest

Not all business is marketing... just the stuff that matters. Someone does need to make the product. But they’ve got to make something someone wants. “Wants” are all about marketing.

Often times inventors seek to create something they like that solves a problem that intrigues them. In the end it doesn’t sell because no one else really cares or his solution is worse than the problem. Inventors (include in that genre composers, writers, creative performers, etc.) seriously people “need” their product. (In the picture are the other founders of VMT getting an award for Innovation because we focused on what people want most -- an affordable car that saves fuel and still has high performance. From L-R: Dick Wilson, Gary Lee, Steve Sutherland and Mark Stoddard.)

Maybe. But here’s the rub, Hamlet. It is far better to create something that people want rather than something they need. Go to a poor section of town. What do they need? Most of all they need education.

Everyone is six inches away from being successful, but that six inches is between their ears. Got to fill it with something that’s useful and accurate. Madame Walker who had the distinction of being the first American millionaire who came from African lineage, once said, “It’s not what you know that can hurt you, but what you know that just ain’t so.” Poor people know a lot. They just don’t know what they need to succeed.

Can you make money from what they need? Sure. But it’s more difficult. It’s better to find out what people want. Those poor people need education and skip that. They want televisions, DVDs, CDs, and cars they can’t afford. Obviously, they’ll sacrifice what they want for what they need.

How does that apply to performers? Quit trying to tell people that what you have they need. Understand what people really want. Some call that selling out. That is foolish.

Shakespeare thoroughly understood what people wanted – action, romance, love, passion, intrigue, something new, something different, a way of looking at things they’ve never thought of, reaffirmation of values, power, and glory.

Even simpler we all know people are motivated or do things because of five simple things: sex, power, love, money, and glory. Human emotions are immutable. The entire human race deals with the big five constantly. Ask a crime detective what the motive for the crime was... “one of the big five.” Ask a marketer why someone bought something. Same answer. Ask a priest who someone sinned. As Sam once played again, “It’s still the same old story, it’s a fight for love and glory.”

Don’t be like the socialists who try to retool human behavior. “If only people acted another way.” They don’t, won’t, can’t and shouldn’t. Goodness fills sex, power, love, money and glory. So does perverseness. Let your product lead the human race to the good side of these things.

Sell them what they want and they’ll make you wealthy. As you do that, you’ll be performing the job of marketing, the essential stuff of business.