Ask a customer why they chose a supplier and you get a tidy list of reasons: better support, stronger reporting, more experience in our sector. The list is genuine, and it is often assembled after the decision was taken.
Needs get you onto the shortlist, and wants decide which name on it gets the work. Owners who sell only on needs can lose to a firm with a thinner specification and a higher price.
What is the difference between a want and a need?
A need is functional. It is the box that has to be ticked for you to be considered at all: capacity, compliance, a delivery date, the right accreditation, a price within range. Meeting every need only gets you compared against other firms who also meet them.
A want is what the buyer gets out of the decision: an end to a recurring argument, their weekends back, looking competent in front of a board. Wants are rarely written on a tender document, and they often tip the choice.
The want often comes first, before anybody has finished reading the quotes. The list of rational reasons is assembled afterwards, because a decision has to be defensible — to a co-director, a spouse, a board, or to yourself.
Does this apply in business-to-business?
It applies to business buyers as well as consumers.
Business buyers are people spending somebody else's money, which changes the wants. The dominant want in many business purchases is protection: not being the person who chose badly. Add to that the operations director who wants the complaints to stop, the finance director who wants a predictable number, and the owner who wants to stop being the only person who knows how anything works.
None of those appear on the specification, and all of them affect the decision.
How do you find the want?
Find the want that is already there; it is rarely in the first answer you get.
“What made you start looking now, rather than last year?”
This surfaces the trigger, and the trigger is often attached to the want.
“If nothing changes, what does this look like in twelve months?”
This makes the cost of doing nothing concrete. Many sales are lost to the buyer deciding to live with the problem for another year rather than to a competitor.
“Who else in the business will notice if this works?”
This tells you whose problem it is, and who will have to be persuaded after you leave the room.
Then listen for the sentence with feeling in it. People change tone when they reach the real thing. That is the sentence to repeat back to them in your proposal, in their words rather than yours.
How to use it this month
- Ring your last three customers and ask why they bought. Push past the first answer, which will be the justification. The second and third answers are the wants, and they are what your marketing should be saying.
- Rewrite one proposal. Open with the outcome in the customer's own words and put the full specification in as evidence rather than as the argument.
- Add two questions to your first meeting: why now, and what happens if nothing changes. Then stop talking for longer than is comfortable.
- Read the first screen of your website. Count the sentences about what you do against the sentences about what changes for them. Sites that are entirely specification tend to attract enquiries that are entirely about price.
- Separate the two in the pricing conversation. Give the value first and the justification second. Lead with the justification and you have invited a line-by-line comparison against the cheaper quote.
- Brief whoever answers the phone. “What are you looking for?” gets you a specification. “What has prompted the call?” gets you the want.
The mistakes to watch for
The first mistake is assuming that because you can list rational reasons for your own purchases, the reasons came first. Look at the last significant thing you bought for the business — the vehicle, the software, the premises, the hire. There is a specification behind it, and there is also a reason you did it that quarter rather than the previous one.
The second is the opposite error: hearing this model, throwing out the specification and selling entirely on outcome and feeling. That loses at the justification stage, because the person who wants it still has to defend the spend to somebody who was not in the room.
The third is the one that costs reputation: deciding what a customer ought to want and pushing it. Buyers can tell the difference between being understood and being handled.
Questions to ask yourself
- Out of 10, how well could you state what your last five customers wanted, as opposed to what they specified?
- What does your best customer get from working with you that they would never write on a tender document?
- When you last lost on price, what was the want you never uncovered?
- Does your marketing sell the specification or the outcome — and which one would your customers say?
This underpins the sales and marketing work in Business Coaching. Selling on need alone turns each conversation into a price comparison. Read it with State Your Price and Shut Up, which is what to do once the number is on the table, and the Value Ladder, which gives a buyer a smaller way to start. The full set is in the Mindsets library.
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Frequently asked questions
Is selling to wants manipulation?
No, provided the want is discovered rather than assigned. You cannot manufacture a want; you can only find the one that is already there, and buyers can tell the difference between being understood and being handled. The dishonest version is deciding what somebody ought to care about and pushing it, or inventing an urgency that does not exist. The fair version is asking why they are looking now, what happens if nothing changes, and who else will notice if it works, then repeating what you heard back to them in their own words. If the want you find does not match what you sell, the right answer is to say so.
Do wants apply to business buyers?
Yes, though they are different wants. Business buyers are people spending somebody else's money, and the dominant want in most company purchases is protection rather than gain: not being the person who chose badly. Alongside that sits the operations director who wants the complaints to stop, the finance director who wants a predictable number, and the owner who wants to stop being the only person who knows how everything works. None of those appear on a specification and all of them influence the decision. The specification still matters, because it is what lets the buyer defend the choice to people who were not in the room.
How do I get past the first answer a customer gives me?
Assume the first answer is the justification, because it often is, and it will be the tidy, rational version the buyer has already rehearsed. Two follow-ups do most of the work. Ask what made them start looking now rather than last year, which surfaces the trigger. Then ask what this looks like in twelve months if nothing changes, which makes the cost of doing nothing concrete. After each one, stay quiet for longer than feels comfortable. Listen for the sentence where the tone changes, and it is the sentence to open your proposal with in their words.