We all have 6 basic human needs no matter where we come from, our age, nationality or background. If you have already listened to Tony Robbins speaking about this, you will certainly enjoy this article. If you have not yet done so, please look for Tony Robbins’ videos talking about it.
Listen to «6 Human Needs and Networking»
episode 13 of Saletrategy podcast
These basic human needs run deep at the core of our behaviours. They affect our thoughts, our feelings, and our outcomes. In fact, all our actions and decisions are motivated by these 6 elements. Because they have such a powerful effect in what we do and why we do it, we should take them into account when we do business networking. Understanding why people give us or do not give us referrals is key to multiply the business we generate by referrals.
6 Basic Human Needs
1. Certainty: The assurance that you can avoid pain and gain comfort and pleasure.
2. Uncertainty/Variety: The need for nice surprises, the unknown, change, new stimuli.
3. Significance: The need to feel unique, important, special or needed.
4. Connection/Love: The strong feeling of closeness with something or somebody.
5. Growth: The need to expand our skills, capacities, capabilities or understanding.
6. Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others.
(source: tonyrobbins.com)
What do these 6 needs mean when you do business networking?
Certainty
If your core driving need is certainty, you need to feel safe and secure. You will only give referrals to someone you certainly know will give a nice experience to your contact. No surprises. If you don’t know much about how your connector deals with referrals, you may doubt about who will meet with your contact. Will it be your connector himself or a junior advisor? It’s not the same for your contact. Or how soon will they be in contact? Does your connector always phone your referral within 24h or are they lousy and take days or weeks to follow up?
“In order to live a life filled with certainty, your life has to stay the same — a nearly impossible expectation to fulfil.” says Tony Robbins. What does it take for your connector to feel a high degree of certainty about how you handle their referrals? For some people certainty is critical. They would value it at maybe 9 out of 10. So you must understand two things:
- What is it about your services and products that meets their strong need for certainty so they give you referred clients?
- What do they understand well about your referral process that meets their need for certainty in order to give you referrals?
Variety
If your core driving need is novelty, variety or uncertainty, you may be constantly moving on to new things. You won’t be afraid of getting to know new people and facing unknown situations. People that have a great need for variety will be bored out of their minds if you present your business the same way day in day out.
How are your presentations and interactions meeting their need for uncertainty? And the same questions that applied for certainty are relevant here:
- What is it about your services and products that meets their strong need for uncertainty so they give you referred clients?
- What do they understand well about your referral process that meets their need for variety in order to give you referrals?
Significance
If significance is one of your client’s or connector’s core needs, then they probably crave recognition. “Recognition provides you with a sense of validation that makes you feel seen, special and/or needed,” says Tony Robbins. “Recognition is a major driving force behind human behaviour because it provides us with a measurement system to analyse and track our significance.”
You have seen that in many clients, haven’t you? They need to be told how much they know. How great they are. How important they are in the community, in their organisation, in your business. The same applies to some of your ideal connectors and referral sources.
- What is it about your services and products that meets their strong need for Significance so they give you referred clients?
- What do they understand well about your referral process that meets their need for Recognition in order to give you referrals?
Connection/Love
If this is one of your connector’s core need, they are always striving for a closer connection. They will refer to you more business if they feel they have a deep and meaningful relationship with you.
- What is it about your services and products that meets their strong need for Connection so they give you referred clients?
- What do they understand well about your referral process that meets their need to be Loved in order to give you referrals?
Growth
If this is your referral source’s core need, they are always striving to be better and do more. They may be always attending conferences, courses, seminars, listening to podcast, reading blogs, books, you name it. So how are you meeting their need to grow both personally and professionally?
- What is it about your services and products that meets their strong need for Growth so they give you referred clients?
- What do they understand well about your referral process that meets their need to Develop in order to give you referrals?
Contribution
If this is your referral partner’s core need, they are likely generous and thoughtful.
As Tony says, “the secret to living is giving” your connector will likely appreciate this on a deeper level and seek to make valuable changes in their organization and their community.
- What is it about your services and products that meets their strong need for Contributing so they give you referred clients?
- What do they understand well about your referral process that meets their need to Share with others in order to give you referrals?
Remember that when your service or product meets at least three of this basic human needs to a high degree, your client will become addicted to working with you. And this applies to your connector’s experience too! When your referral process meets at least three of these basic human needs both for your connector and the contact they refer to you, he will be addicted to giving your more and better referrals.
If you want to learn more about the 6 basic human needs, how you prioritise them in your own life and in your business value proposition and how they can help you get what you want, let’s have a conversation.
Share your ideas and how you apply this in your strategy. And if you liked this article, I would love to answer your comments. Please share in your social media too.
