We all have needs. Even the affluent have needs, though some would say they're more capable of having them fulfilled. One of the basic strategies of sales and marketing is fulfilling our prospect's and client's needs.

Think about what is consciously on your mind. You're reading this article, so it's possible these words are all that you're thinking about. But if I was writing an article about bananas, then you'd start picturing a banana, or thinking about bananas. If your doctor told you you had to start eating bananas or potassium, you'd probably think about them even more.

And unless we were involved in the growing and harvesting of bananas for a living, there would be really no use for us to think about them too very often, though when a doctor advises you to eat one a day, you're going to have them in the conscious part of your mind more often.

The reticular activating system is the part of the brain responsible for regulating our consciousness. It's central to motivation and arousal and is involved in the central nervous system's activities. The reticular activating system helps us to pay attention to what is most important and disregard what is not at the moment needed.

Researchers have shown that our conscious minds can hold approximately seven bits of information at any given time.

When you're driving down the freeway, singing along to the radio, you're probably thinking about what you're going to do when you get to your destination, you aren't thinking of using the bathroom, unless you need to. You aren't thinking of getting some water, unless you're thirsty. You aren't thinking of stopping at a gas station for gas, unless you're running out. You aren't thinking of stopping for food, unless you're hungry.

But once you need any of these, they become extremely important and they are part of your conscious thought processes until the need has been satisfied. All of the sudden, it doesn't matter what's on the stereo or what the scenery looks like. All that matters are the road signs telling us what's available to eat, where the next gas station is, etc.

What happened to those thoughts before? Well, they really weren't in our consciousness. Once these thoughts begin to hold relevancy we can seize control of them and leverage them to our advantage, then put them away when they're no longer applicable to us.

Your prospect's values and criteria are their needs. By eliciting their criteria, we can illuminate their needs for them, especially in relation to our products or services. By speaking to this higher level (or deeper level) we are fine tuning their reticular activating system to our advantage. And as we work with full integrity, this turns out to be to their advantage as well.

Eliciting criteria is mandatory in pointing us in the direction of satisfying our prospect's needs. The persuasion comes quite naturally after that.