What sells?

Understanding what people want has to come with understanding their core emotions. From this, you can make money.

1. What drives human beings, everywhere, regardless of geography or culture?



2. Knowing the drives of human beings, what can you sell them to allow them to fulfill these drives?

Abraham Maslow described what he thought people were moved by in his theory known as Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. The diagram often used to describe the needs are shown below.

Now, without going into too much detail (of which can be found on the Wikipedia entry), the above diagram shows what Maslow believed humans wanted from a humanistic psychology perspective.

From a simplified, evolutionary psychology perspective, one could argue that there is a simple, overarching framework as to why people buy things. They buy things that they think will make their genes survive and perpetuate in the world.

So when opening up a business, if you can create an idea associated with the purchase of this item that by doing so, their genes have a better chance of perpetuating in the world, then they will buy.

How so? Aren't there problems with that statement? What about religion, or altruism?

The religion one can be explained rather easily. People are motivated by a desire to live. The desire to live comes from the genetic blueprint that we are all born with. If we didn't want to live for at least a period for which we could pass on our genes, we would have failed the evolutionary race long ago.

Religion promises people a comfortable afterlife if followed, with the alternative choice of a miserable afterlife. Thus, a feeling explained by earthly things (i.e. the genetic desire to live), can be exploited to the point of irrationality.

Now what about altruism? For this I suggest you read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. He argues that altruism within families, bees, and other things is guides by a desire to pass their genes on or help similar genes to pass on (i.e. those of children or relatives). Relatives share a lot of genetic material, thus it is beneficial to help your relatives in their lives.

So, in looking as to what you can sell people anywhere, you should trigger responses that create a feeling that a person's genetic raison d'etre is being fulfilled.