How to Understand Customer Needs Before Creating an Offer | EVUNN
PROBLEM: I know my audience has a problem, but I don't know what makes them care enough to pay for a solution
To make people pay you to solve their problem, you must understand customer needs and why they act
STEP 2: Understanding Human Behaviour & Motivation
In Step 1, you identified potential problems your expertise could help solve.
But a problem existing doesn’t automatically make it a business opportunity. People live with problems every day without doing anything about them.
So now we need to understand:
What makes someone want progress badly enough to act?
Your job isn’t to push your expertise onto the customer.
It’s to understand the struggle that creates demand.
The EVUNN Mindset Shift
From What I Offer → Why They Act
Don’t ask: How can I convince them to buy?
Ask: What is happening in their world that makes them seek a solution?
Understand the struggle before you design the solution.
To find the need, use Book 2. Title: Demand Side Sales
The Big Idea from the book:
Customers don’t simply buy products or services.
They seek solutions that help them make progress.
You see: I offer consulting.
Your customer sees: I need something to change.
The goal is to understand what is driving that desire for change.
What does this Book Help you Understand?
Demand Side Sales helps you uncover:
- Why people act, or don’t act
- What creates urgency
- What progress they want
- What they’ve already tried
- What triggers them to seek a solution
This helps you distinguish between a problem that exists and a problem people are motivated to solve.
Should you Read this book now?
Yes. You identified potential problems in Step 1.
Now look at them from the customer’s side. Right now, your job is simply to become better at seeing valuable problems.
As you read, keep asking:
“Why would this person actually do something about this problem?”
Which Chapters in this Book Matter to you most right Now?
Focus on these chapter only for now:
Chapter 1: Two Perspectives on the World
Essential: Shift from supply-side thinking to demand-side thinking.
Chapter 2: Frameworks for Demand-Side Selling
Essential: Learn how to identify what is happening on the customer’s side.
Chapter 3: Solving the Customer’s Struggle
Essential: Understand the struggle behind the problem.
Chapter 4: Seeing the World Through the Customer’s Eyes
Essential: Prepare to understand the customer’s experience.
Chapter 7: Moving From Pushing Products to Creating Pull for Progress
Recommended: Understand how customer progress creates demand.
Skim or skip these chapters for now
Chapters 5–6, Chapter 10 & 11 if applicable to your edition, and supplementary material. They are less relevant to this stage.
Buy on Bookshop.org
Supporting Book: Influence by Robert Cialdini
Author:Robert Cialdini
Listen on: Libro.fm | Get Book at the Bookshop
Demand-Side Sales helps you understand why people seek change.
Influence adds another layer:
What influences whether people act, delay, choose or reject a solution?
You are not reading it to learn manipulation or sales tactics.
You’re learning to recognize the forces that can shape behaviour and decisions.
Chapters to focus on
Chapter 3: Social Proof
How other people’s behaviour can influence decisions.
Chapter 4: Authority
How perceived expertise can influence trust.
Chapter 6: Commitment & Consistency
How previous choices can shape future behaviour.
OPTIONAL CHAPTERS FOR THIS STAGE (GO DEEPER IF YOU WANT)
Chapters 1, 2, 5, 7 and 8 provide additional insight into behavioural influences.
YOUR STEP 2 OUTCOME
By the end of this step (going through the chapters + toolkit), you should have:
By the end of this step, you should have:
- 3 potential problems you could build a profitable business around, worth investigating further
- Understand the struggle behind each
- Know the progress the person wants
- Understand possible triggers for action
- Know the consequences of the person doing nothing
At this point, you haven’t validated the problems yet.
You’ve simply started understanding what creates demand around them.
🔒 READY TO DO THE WORK?
Knowing the questions is one thing.
Working through them systematically is another.
The EVUNN Customer Motivation Toolkit helps you uncover:
Struggle → Motivation → Desired Progress → Trigger → Consequence → Existing Alternatives
Unlock the toolkit and complete Step 2 →
One subscription. All EVUNN toolkits
That takes us to step 3.
You now understand the struggle behind the problem.
But you’re still looking at the customer from the outside.
The next question is: can I understand this problem from the customer’s perspective, not just my own?
