To be a success in business, be daring, be first, be different.
—Henry Marchant

Now that you know one of the most important secrets—that people do not buy products because they need them—they buy products to satisfy a need, the question becomes “Why does the person have a need?”

We will discuss needs in more detail later in the book, but for now, we will say a need or problem arises from a person’s desire to make a change.

Think of some of your recent purchases. First, there are the trivial examples such as grocery purchases. You “needed” those groceries because you wanted to change your ability to eat at home. Without food in the refrigerator, you would have to eat at a restaurant outside your home or go hungry. So, what forces you to eat at home? Apparently, you wanted to make another change. Perhaps you wanted to change your health by avoiding unhealthy fast foods. Perhaps you wanted to change your ability to add money to your savings account, assuming you could eat at home for less money.

A less trivial personal example is the purchase of a car. If you traded in your old car to buy a newer one, you were making a change, both literally and in your mind. What were you trying to change by buying a different car? Were you trying to change the reliability of your transportation? Were you changing the size of your family? Were you changing your image? What was changing?

Look beyond the “need.” Look for what is changing.

Some products and services may not appear to be associated with changes. When you go to the grocery store week after week, it might seem that nothing is changing. You simply “need” food. But could you really eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, day after day?

It is true that some products and services involve less change than others. But your ability to continue winning the orders week after week depends on your ability to find or create change. If you don’t, then someone else will do it to you. For example, is there a restaurant in your town that has taken a very common, unchanging item, such as the hamburger, and made some changes that result in your willingness to pay a lot of money for it? Perhaps it has special meat, or special condiments. Or perhaps the restaurant is decorated like a gold mine or a barn.

As a change leader, you must find or create a change beyond the apparent “need.”

Look beyond the need—look for the changes driving the need. li> Create a “change experience” for your customer. Be the first to change—before your competitor does!