Thinking Out Loud – Episode 2

This is the second episode in a series called Thinking Out Loud. In these videos, Armando Lanuti, the President of Creative Works, shares some of his thoughts on business, leadership, growth, operations, and anything else on his mind. Below is a transcript of some of the points he discusses in the video.

Hey everybody. I just wanna talk a little bit about something that’s on my mind today. We’re all business owners, or trying to be a business owner, and you’ve gotta deal with managing your team, you’ve got to work on how to position your products to the demographics so you’re trying to reach based on what you are trying to sell and who you’re trying to market to.

For those of you that know me, I’ve been to a couple of Tony Robbins conferences lately and, you know that he’s got this principle that everybody has six basic human needs. So that’s what I wanna talk about a little bit today.

The first one is going to be certainty. Certainty is that need for you knowing the exact outcome for having a scheduled day. You have that need for things to be in order.

Then there’s that paradox. That paradox is the people that like variety as that second human need, or uncertainty. That spice of life person. They wanna make sure they’re never eat the same meal on the same week twice. They want a job that’s not monotonous. They want spontaneity, and that’s what drives them.

The third human need is going to be significance. With significance, that’s you know that need to feel special, to be noticed, to be that one that singled out in the crowd, to have people looking up to you. That’s what you’re really going for with significance.

Then significance also has a paradox. The paradox for significance is love and connection. You’re not necessarily in it just for yourself. You wanna feel that connection, whether that be with your coworkers with your significant other, you want that intimate relationship that you’re able to have.

And those four are more the personality needs. From that he also talks about the spiritual needs. Spiritual needs are growth and contribution.

Again, you get a little bit of paradox there, with contribution really being what a lot of people would say is charity, which is giving away something of monetary value or giving away a good, but there’s also that charity of people with their time. Those that like to be teachers, that are wanting to teach and give back in other ways.

On the growth side of things, the most important thing for a business owner when it comes to your team is that sense of progress, that sense of meaning, like I’ve got a path, I’m going somewhere. I’m not stuck in a dead-end job, so to speak. So with growth, when you’re looking at your team members, you’re gonna look at them you’re going to rate those six needs and growth needs to be one of the top ones that most of your good team members have. And so you no need to find a pathway for them to grow. It’s not just about money giving them a raise or benefits. It’s: do they have a path? And that path could be better responsibility. It could be a job title. It could be a new role or different aspect of your company that they want to grow into. It could be just a skill set. They want to learn this software program, or that software program, or this skill that they didn’t have before. And those can be means of growth that will break up that monotony and give them a path to something more with the company.

Now, you also need to think about these six human needs in the same way, when you’re trying to deal with your customers. When you’re targeting mom or dad, if you’re in the FEC business or targeting kids for birthday parties, what are those human needs that each of your target demographics are going to have as their primary focus?

Are you in a very affluent area that, by nature you might be wanting to focus a little bit more on significance for your product or are you in an area that’s densely populated by millennials? And if that’s your product, that you’re going after, a lot of millennials have love and contribution and charity a lot higher on their hierarchy of needs than significance. From their standpoint, they’re the ones that are going to be looking at if you are using organic foods, you’re gluten free are they paying attention to what’s going into their bodies and into their food a lot more? They want to know is it locally sourced? Are you giving back to the community? Something like cause marketing would be another big business play for targeting that demographic as well.

So, just wanted to give you a little insight on what those human needs are and make sure that you’re thinking about them when you’re working with your teammates and the subordinates that are under you, as well as your demographics to try and find the way to approach them and get them to where you need to go. That’s what’s on my mind, and we’ll talk to you soon.