For example, if a customer wants to buy tires, it is not a thing he or she would do with excitement. It is a necessary thing, without which he couldn't use the car. And he usually has to spend a lot of money for a matter that doesn't need to be glamorous. Tires are not meant to be glamorous at all, they must only provide safety when driving the car. And when your mechanic tells you your old tires are unreliable, even dangerous, your priorities suddenly change. You usually go out and spend a lot of money on it, giving up the new plasma TV you have always dreamt of. your safety on the road is more important and you do it without second thoughts.



What we must understand out of this example is that customers have deep, universal, human needs that they are trying to satisfy. They don't need the things you are trying to sell them. What you must do in order to keep up the good business is to identify the needs of your customers, and thus determine how your products can help to satisfy those needs. This can sometimes get very hard to do, but you cannot act differently.

Most of the times, the financial security is very important for a customer and the need for status may be his main motivator. So he may decide for the most expensive things, in order to satisfy the need for status, esteem and respect.

This is life, we fight to satisfy common human needs and sometimes we do buy things to satisfy those needs, even if this doesn't do all the work for us! We cannot buy everything a person needs, and thus, the majority of people isn't at all happy with their own selves.

You must think of human needs based on the theory developed by Abraham Maslow regarding these matters. According to his theory, there are five levels of needs, starting with physiological or biological needs and the need for safety and continuing with love or belonging, then status needs and last, but not least, the need for actualization.

This is just a pattern, on which we can develop millions of other hierarchies, but all having this one as a base point.