Hi Paul,

Great post! :) You said a lot of really useful things to think about.... And you shared your cool phrase....

> Did I coin this phrase? "Give them what
> they need, and sell them what they
> want." If not, I apologize to the
> originator.

I haven't heard it before, so maybe you did coin it! It's a great phrase, I think.... It shows that you are doing what works ("sell them what they want") but also thinking of people's welfare ("give them what they need")....

I agree with you, it is MUCH easier to appeal to people's WANTS than to their "needs".... You can see this in "preventions" vs. "cures."

A good example might be good preventative dietary habits. A lot of people may NEED to eat more vegetables in their diet, but it's darn hard to convince people of what they NEED if they don't want it. What is it they really want?

It's much easier to promote a cure, which is what they WANT. People never really believe they need a prevention (we tend to not believe that anything bad will happen to us), so they never want it.

But if something's gone wrong, we WANT a cure, and we'll pay whatever we have to to get it.

We won't spend a dollar on prevention, but we'll spend thousands on a cure. It's human nature -- part of our general optimism, I think. And it really shows the difference between "needs" and "wants."

Thanks for sharing those great insights, Paul, and your very good phrase.... :)

Cheers,

Dien