Schlagwort-Archive: Needs

First things first

When the affairs are not going as desired, you start looking for reasons, such as searching on the Internet. With the search term I am looking for customers, Google provides 10 billion links regarding marketing (e.g., finding customers, getting more clients, customer engagement, leads, customer database, digital marketing, etc.). This leads to tasks that completely absorbs you. It begins with the website, goes to content design and admin, smart keyword choices, regular social media feeds, and eventually to the adaption to search engines (SEO). Whether your deals subsequently improve is rather unlikely. The only beneficiaries is the SEO biz.

The Business Model Canvas provides ideas regarding customer segments, value propositions, channels, relationships, revenue streams, activities, resources, partners, and the distribution of the costs. To prioritize the missing aspects and discover the useful leverage points, you map these building blocks to Maslow’s pyramid. In this post, you find some examples. Subsequently, this results in what needs to be done – from the bottom to the top.

  • Basic Needs
    Your trade needs sufficient resources, the clear target groups, compelling value propositions, and feasible actions to maintain viability. Without these ingredients, you will not be able to deliver. The assortment should be understandable to customers, the necessary means be available, and you have to know what to do.
    As long as these building blocks are only envisioned, it would help if you prepared primarily these biz basics – an adequately sized oven for the targeted quantities; the right number of bakers; money to procure ingredients; an appealing range of baked goods; last but not least you should master the relevant activities (e.g., purchasing, dough preparation, baking, and selling).
  • Security needs
    Understandable rules and safeguards for the participants are needed to secure the transactions. Employees, partners, suppliers, and customers must be able to trust you. To achieve this, it is not enough to demand trust; you must earn it through appropriate actions. Additionally, the infrastructure and the to be delivered results should work together smoothly – the bakery and the salesroom fulfill the requirements; the baked goods are digestible, if not healthy; the price-performance ratio is acceptable; sales ensure survival. Without the design of the level below, this layer is not possible.
  • Social needs
    This level takes care of the participants and their interaction. How are the external resources involved? How is the collaboration done (hopefully with a Win-Win)? How do you involve the employees? Even if the customer segments are already in place, you look at the customer relationships and set up the marketing efforts. Who are the customers, and what do they want? What media do you use to reach the customers? What can I offer them? Additionally, you find the organizational and operational structure on this layer – the organization and processes of purchasing, manufacturing, and sales; contracts with suppliers and partners; the website, posters, flyers, and social media activities. Satisfying social needs ensures that interaction runs frictionless.
  • Individual needs
    After the company is up and running, you focus on the wishes of the individual. It is about increasing personal well-being through joint decision-making, treating each other with respect, and creating a stress-free working environment. This includes the values and their practical implementation that the people involved are proud of. Today’s bakery takes care of all areas – e.g. natural production, healthy ingredients, circular economy, and training for employees. Each person’s needs are considered, generate commitment and the reliable cooperation of all – which in the end promotes customer satisfaction.
  • Self-actualization
    The top-level of Maslow’s pyramid is reached when it becomes possible to support those involved’ life goals. In this case, the company promotes the individual’s growth by supporting the development of their personality and their projects outside the firm’s actual purpose – e.g., in sporting, artistic and social passions. In our case, this can extend far beyond the boundaries of the baking trade – e.g., support for hobbies, club activities, or social engagement. Satisfied employees contribute more proactively. Even the trade benefits when employees’ creativity makes new offerings possible.

Bottom line: A look at Maslow’s pyramid prioritizes the business model’s building blocks according to their importance. To energize the revenue, work your way up from the bottom. As long as something is missing on a lower layer, that should be done first. The layers above need it as a foundation. As said initially, marketing is likely tackled too early since the relevant building blocks are not yet available. On the other hand, advertising efforts convey the feeling of caring for customers. But what matters most to customers are the offers and everything that is related. The showcase with its displays means nothing while there are no offers. This makes it clear that the lower levels are most important – in particular, sufficient resources, the availability of customers, a compelling value proposition, and the existing capabilities for the required activities.

System relevance – verbal showstopper

System relevance is a current euphemism that is used by all possible parts of society to underline the importance of something. This label evolved into a verbal showstopper that nips any contradiction in the bud. However, we can also transfer the term to the reality of most people’s lives. A system separates itself from its environment by defining certain elements and relationships as a belonging and mutual interaction. Example: The ball sport of football consists of a marked field, two goals, teams with eleven plus active field players, several referees, competitive events in different leagues, sometimes worldwide, spectators, television rights, etc. Relevance stands for the meaning in a certain context. Example: The football game satisfies social needs and is therefore systemic relevant. In contrast, the business is oriented towards the satisfaction of individual business strategies. These different perspectives result in the business arguing with social needs in order to secure its business. The pyramid of needs must serve as a verbal showstopper.

With the Maslow pyramid of needs we can try to assign system relevance. Here we have to find a border that contains the really important aspects and differentiates the things that go beyond. Where the limit is, and which industries are concerned lies in the eye of the beholder.

  • Physiological needs
    These basic needs are essential for survival – clean air, clean water, food, a healthy environment, etc. The sectors concerned are water supply, agriculture and fishing, energy supply and environmental protection. The higher levels build on the fulfillment of this lowest level.
  • Security needs
    On the next level we safeguard our existence – physical and mental health, economic livelihood, a roof over our heads, employment. Manufacturing, construction, transport and warehousing, administrative and support services, education, health, and social work operate in this area. With this level we are able to survive.
  • Social needs
    Once the existential things are in place, we desire social relationships – friendship, affection and love, family, community, personal exchange, mobility and understanding. Here are active the art, entertainment and recreation, accommodation and food services, information and communication, public administration, social security. Deficiencies at this level lead to an unhealthy self-image, a tendency to inappropriate generalizations, biased perceptions, and anti-social behavior.
  • Individual needs
    Belonging to one or more communities is the starting point to compare oneself with other people – success, self-affirmation, trust, ratings and, with the satisfied social need for belonging, the urge to freedom and independence. All possible private services work here. With this level one leaves the systemic relevant areas. It is now a matter of satisfying individual desires and longings that go beyond the essential foundations of life.
  • Self-realization
    When all needs and desires are satisfied, completely new personal desires arise – to have the freedom to be creative, to unfold potentials and talents and to give a special meaning to one’s own life. This is the domain of industries that deal with luxury products and services as well as financial and insurance activities. On this level, a strong personal pressure arises to those, who have mastered the other levels.

Bottom line: The system relevance of sectors is determined by the direct satisfaction of the needs of individual citizens. The importance is decreasing noticeably on the levels of basic, security, social and individual needs as well as the ultimate desire for self-fulfillment. Therefore, any indirect explanations claiming to satisfy the needs should always be viewed with skepticism. Examples: To call banks systemic relevant, even though they do not provide any service to the people but generate especially for the savers in Germany losses of over 650 billion Euros through low interest rates. Or ball sports, such as FIFA football, which today is primarily a revenue machine of over four billion US dollars, at the expense of the general public. The Corona crisis has brought people down to the level of security needs. And as soon as survival is assured, the need for social contact are immediately claimed. How long it will take, before we again reach the level of individual needs for success is not foreseeable. In the meantime, system relevance becomes a verbal showstopper that nips any contradiction in the bud and demand for one bailout after another.

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