This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Today's listener is inspired to learn more about the core emotional needs of a potential customer. But he isn't sure how to do that, how to figure it out, or what to do with the info. Like, are these needs always the same? Do they vary? If it's a product, if it's a service?
What kind of product, what kind of service? Are they always the same core emotional needs? How do you figure that out? What do you do with it? Welcome to Side Hustle School.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. I've been writing about this topic for quite a while. The importance of understanding the emotional connection that your customer has to whatever it is that you're selling. I wrote about this a lot in the $100 startup and also in Side Hustle. Both of those books, I went into it in some detail.
And I think the concept is worth studying because if you have a good understanding of the emotional need that your product or service meets, like why are people desperate for what you're offering? Or what is the root level of that need? This is what I'll talk about in the episode. And you go all in with crafting your copy and other messaging around it. It can make a tremendous difference.
It can make a huge, huge difference. And conversely, if you don't understand what the emotional need is, then it's gonna be a tough sell. So let's hear the question from our listener. And then in my answer, I'm gonna give you a couple of different examples. So if this sounds kind of esoteric or too broad, I'm gonna make it really specific in my answer.
All of that's coming up in about 30 seconds. [Music]
Hi, Chris, this is Luke from Portland. Hope the start of the year is going as well as possible for you. I've been listening to the show for a couple of years and I'm still enjoying the stories, puns, and advice. You often mention how important it is to be aware of a consumer's emotional needs.
This makes sense, but I'm not always sure what to do with it. How do I discover what those emotions are for a product? Or how about a service like bookkeeping? Are they always the same? Lastly, once I understand what the emotional needs are, how does that affect what I do next?
Any help putting together the puzzle pieces would be appreciated. Thanks. - Hey, Luke, thanks so much for listening and for the question. This is a concept that is really important, yet also misunderstood. So I'm glad to be able to talk about it here.
Figuring it out, figuring out the emotional needs of your customer, they're definitely not all the same. It's a thought process. It's kind of like learning the power of observation, which I've talked about from time to time, like where do ideas come from? Like where do money-making ideas come from? Well, there are skills you can develop to where you'll be able to spot them more easily.
And from there, it's a question of which idea is best for me? How do I get started, et cetera? But the point is just learning that basic power of observation. So here too, it's a skill that you can develop. And one way to do it is kind of like this yes and principle of improv, like an improv.
You have this concept of you're always trying to add something, only in this case, you're doing it backwards. So if you think about anything at all that is for sale or might be for sale, first ask what need it meets on the surface, and then go back a step and say, "Okay, but what's the deeper need there?" And then just keep going back until you get to the fundamental root level. So a couple of examples. Let's start with bookkeeping, since Luke brought that up. Bookkeeping, on the one hand, you could say it's kind of a basic service that might be thought of as boring.
You don't disrespect any bookkeepers out there. What you're doing is quite important. It's just, that's the perception and you know that, right? Like everybody knows bookkeeping is considered to be boring. Yet getting audited is not boring.
It's stressful, right? Not knowing the state of your business as a small business owner, because your accounting is poor, that produces anxiety, it produces fear. So if you don't have good bookkeeping, like you're always worried, you're always worried, you might feel guilty, you might just be like uncertain, all these negative emotions. And the core emotional need a bookkeeper provides is relief, like that's it. It's not so much like the need of actually like updating my balance sheet or my profit and loss statement or whatever, it's relief.
It's like, okay, I know where things stand. I know that my tax preparation is in order and so on and so on. And that's how I think a good bookkeeper would market themselves. Like you don't wanna mess with this stuff, but you know you need to do something. Well, leave it to me.
Okay, another example, totally different thing. Let's talk about grocery stores. Let's talk about going into the grocery store and there's a row of snacks, like hundreds of snacks, right? The average Western grocery store, you know, you're overwhelmed by choice. And they're not all marked in generic packages, right?
Like all these snacks, they don't just say calories on them. So we can't say that the need these snacks are meeting is hunger, like that's clearly not it. There's so many choices. The need could be something like the deeper need could be something like, well, you know, this snack is good for you and it tastes good too, which is benefit-driven language. And if I see that as a consumer, I think, well, great.
You know, this satisfies my need to feel like I'm eating healthy along with a desire to not punish myself while doing so. That's one example. The emotional need could be nostalgia. Doesn't have to necessarily be, you know, feeling like I'm eating healthy. It could be nostalgia, that rice pudding you had as a child.
Mm, it could be comfort. Comfort and nostalgia are connected, but it could be distinct. That delicious vanilla bean ice cream. And as to what you do with this information, well, let's start thinking about this. Maybe, you know, on the box of those snacks, that ice cream, whatever it is, maybe there's a picture of a family or maybe there's something of nature.
It's some kind of messaging that's signaling something. The grocery industry in particular is a cutthroat field. Like most products that actually survive and like remain on the shelf year after year, they're doing something right. So you can learn from that. If you think about bookkeeping and groceries, these two non-sexy categories, and see how deeply felt those emotional needs can be, then you can probably find the answer for your idea.
You can start applying this process. Like just remember to keep working backwards. That's what you do. Keep working backwards to get to that core emotional need. And then once you've found it, well, you play it up.
Like you use it in your messaging. You put it in your copy. You make it really clear this is what you're trying to help people with. And as I said, like if you can really identify this and nail it and then communicate that, it's gonna be so much easier. It's so much easier to sell something that people desperately want than it is trying to teach them about something they have no idea about and showing them that they have this need and you happen to have a solution for this need that they didn't even realize.
So there's a lot more we could say about this. This is why I've written a lot about it in my books. But hopefully this gets somebody thinking about that core emotional need. What is it that you're trying to meet with your product, your service, or your next idea? I hope that is helpful.
If you have a question or comment, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're gonna continue to feature them throughout the rest of the year. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure you're subscribed wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
