Know Your Product or Know Human Psychology, Which Would You Choose?

In one of the first ever series of the hit TV show ‘American Survivor’, one of the women who was voted out by her fellow Survivors just a few spots from the final challenge was asked what she would do differently if she were to have her time again.

Her response?

She said she spent so much of her time in the lead up to the show’s start learning how to survive in the jungle.

How to cook food from scratch.

How to light a fire.

How to tie a knot.

But, she admitted, what she should have been learning – in order to ultimately win – was human psychology.

It was never a game that was meant to be played around the campfire.

It was a game that was to be won or lost between the ears.

It was all a reflection of human psychology, and it always will be.

In the economic world we live in, the story is the same.

When it comes to the economic world around us, there’s often a realisation that is so obvious that it is missed by even the most capable of human beings. And that is the realisation that every little thing we see around us…

Every product.

Every service.

Anything and everything that can be purchased or sold.

Anything and everything that can be traded.

Anything and everything that has ever been created or invented.

Is a reflection of people.

Economics – and the selling and buying that makes it up – is not a reflection of the quality of products or services that exist within that economy.

It is not a reflection of what people have created for their own hobbies and interests.

It is a reflection of people and what they demand – and then that which is therefore supplied.

And that demand is psychological.

It’s a psychological demand, no more and no less.

If the brain doesn’t want it, the human doesn’t want it.

Phenomenal business is therefore not a reflection of creating the latest and greatest product.

Rather, it’s a reflection of understanding people and the psychology that they operate with. 

It’s not products and services.

It’s psychology.

The products and services only exist because we as ‘the market’ decided we wanted to spend our time and attention on that product or service.

It’s not ‘market trends’.It’s psychology.

Market trends are only a measure of what is causing collective human psychology to respond a particular way at a particular time.

It’s not ‘stock market changes’.

It’s human freaking psychology.

Stock market changes are only a reflection of what people are fearing, doubting or appreciating at any given time.

The best product and service designers – who are the creators of what we have the opportunity to buy – are aware of this.

They’re aware that it all starts with human psychology, and reverse engineering a product that adheres to it from there. So many others aim to make their product fit into the psychology like a square peg in a round hole – and fail dismally.

Because they missed the point.

They thought the point was to create an incredible product that they hoped would make people feel good.

And missed the blatantly obvious fact that it was all about seeing what makes people feel incredible first, and creating the product to lead to that result.

It’s all psychology. All around you.

You can’t miss it, unless you forget to look for it.

Darcy J Smyth is the lead trainer and creator of the Tonal Persuasion Method for Sales, the methodology designed to ensure you are closing sales without the need for the dreaded ‘Hard Sell’ that turns so many buyers away in the modern business landscape.