It's 10:00 PM. Do you know who your customers are?

This week, I started reading Brian Tracy's The Psychology of Selling and listening to Matt Abrahams's Think Fast Talk Smart podcast. Each source discusses the importance of knowing your target audience and crafting your messaging to meet their needs and desires.

In Chapter 3 of Tracy’s book, he lists 11 basic human needs that motivate customers to take action. While reading, I was surprised by the overlap between his list and those measured in the Motives, Values, and Preferences Inventory (MVPI) from Hogan Assessments.

I matched both lists as best I could below (MVPI is on the right and in Bold):

1. Money | Commerce

2. Security | Security

3. Being Liked |Altruistic

4. Status and Prestige | Aesthetics

5. Health and Fitness |

6. Praise and Recognition | Recognition

7. Power, Influence, and Popularity | Power

8. Leading the Field | Aesthetics

9. Love and Companionship | Affiliation

10. Personal Growth | Science

11. Personal Transformation |

Two needs on Tracy’s list I couldn’t match to the MVPI were:

1. Health and Fitness

2. Personal Tranformation

In addition, Aesthetics could match Status and Prestige (I like to show off nice things) or Leading the Field (Being an early adopter of new things).

The two MVPI Needs I could not easily match to Tracy’s list were:

1. Hedonism (it’s about wanting pleasure, excitement, and variety)

2. Tradition (honoring history and convention, high standards, and social norms)

When reviewing new training and leader development content, I often find myself asking my team the following questions:

1. Who is your audience?

2. What’s in it for them? (WIIFM), and

3. What do they need to know or be able to do after consuming this material?

As Trainers, we tend to focus more on the what and How-To and less on the Why and the What-if. Spending time getting to know what our audience values, what they desire, etc., can help us design and deliver more targeted content and increase the chances of training that sticks.

It’s easy to identify people’s needs once you know what to look for. The two lists above are a good place to start. Clues I look for when getting to know someone or a new team are:

1. The clothes they wear (pay particular attention to accessories - shoes and watches)

2. The cars they drive

3. How they decorate their offices or team spaces

4. What they do for fun outside of work

5. What they read (or don’t read)

Of course, talking to them is the best way to get to know someone. I will never forget the acronym FORD for topics to cover when you meet somebody new for the first time:

• F - Family

• O - Occupation

• R - Recreation (what they do for fun)

• D - Dreams and Desires

In my experience, finding out what drives someone is straightforward. You must pay more attention, ask more questions, and listen more than you talk.