So, we’ve talked about how you can’t create or destroy desires or pains inside of someone’s mind. You can only find the ones that currently exist and then you connect them to your products/services, connect them to the action you want them to take, and amplify those desires or pains. Today we’re going to review a concept that you should be familiar with if you have been in my profile for a while now, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Which outlines the basic human needs (when I say needs, I mean human desires and pains, the things they want the things they to avoid losing) that every human has that you can connect. These are the things you’re gonna tap into with every single product you promote. Now some products initially might seem like they only really fit one level of this hierarchy. But soon you’ll see that you can layer in the higher and more powerful levels that go further up this hierarchy to make a huge impact in your reader’s mind, and also to help provide a lot more value to them in the form of the products you sell. So let’s start with the levels of hierarchy of needs.

Physiological needs

The base level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is the thing that you have to take care of before you can worry about everything else and that is like the physiological needs. Things like do I have air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, shelter, sleep, clothing. Basic biological physiological needs. Those are the things that on a base level, humans have to have some products address them directly. Other products have nothing really to do with them, but that is the base level of human needs

Safety needs

Feeling secure, personal security, having employment, having resources coming in, and having a secure future is an important part. That’s where safety comes in, that’s a bit higher value than just giving someone physiological needs. Feeding someone is cool, but someone knowing that they can be fed for the rest of their life is a lot more powerful.

Love and belonging

Above Safety needs in the hierarchy, we start to get to the fun part, which is love and belonging, friendship, intimacy, and brotherhood. That type of stuff is significantly higher. If they feel like they have a group of people who love and care for them or feel like the people who are in their lives will love and care for them more, that is a much more powerful emotion than just safety. I mean you need to have all of these in life and your product will fall somewhere along the spectrum. But the problems or pains and desires that your product helps with will fall somewhere along the spectrum, but you’re going to want to learn to layer all these together. I’m giving you a quick overview so you can see them in action as you continue to do your research and continue to practice this.

Esteem

Above love and beyond, you have esteem, it’s status amongst peers, “ do people respect you?”, “Do people inside your tribe (your group of people) respect you?”. Now everybody is part of a group, everybody is part of a tribe, they want to be respected, by their family, their friends, their coworkers, the people in their world they have certain values and they want to be viewed as high status inside of those values. That is one of the most powerful motivators, one of the most powerful desires, and the flipside most powerful fears, they feel if they lose their esteem or they feel like they’re embarrassed in front of everybody that they love and care about, that’s a pretty powerful pain that you can tap into.

Self-actualization

Now at the very peak of the pyramid is self-actualization. The belief that you are all you can be, the belief that you are doing the best job, the belief that you are righteous, that you are upright. Self-respect is the ultimate pinnacle of the human’s desire for fulfillment, believing that you are fulfilling your divine purpose, which is the ultimate level of needs and desires.

Now in every one of these levels, there are opportunities and there are threats. There’s an opportunity to eat food and then there’s the threat that you’re not going to have any other food. There’s the opportunity of getting a job and making money for the rest of your life, and then there’s the threat of losing your job and being homeless. Like there’s a threat and there’s an opportunity to each side of these. One side is pain and one side is pleasure. You need to understand these basic human desires, scroll up, and analyze this pyramid. Look at the things that you have and the things that you want on this pyramid. It will be very helpful, because if you seek to inspire a desire or inspire pain in the minds of your readers, you need to understand these basic human desires and pain, so you can connect them to your product, to your services, or to the thing that’s going to help them improve their life and achieve a higher level of success.

Now if you are in marketing or a copywriter, or you’re a brand owner looking to increase your sales, then look no further. This article is part of a mini-course called How to Trigger Desires and Pains on Command, you can grab it here.

That’s about it! Thank you for reading.