Implicit needs

We talk of explicit needs and implicit needs in marketing. More often than not, marketers and individuals react to explicit needs without taking the trouble to find out the implicit ones. What people say they want, and what they actually want could be totally different.

Once a professional working in the IT industry walked into a recruitment agent's office and when queried about his career objectives said,

“I’ve got to get out of the IT industry, the work hours are long, it is a sweat shop and the industry is killing me day by day”

The recruitment counsellor empathised with him and gave him a bunch of forms to be filled that will enable him to facilitate the search in a different industry.

When the candidate did not return for a week, the recruitment counsellor called him up and set up another meeting. The candidate turned up late but had not filled even a single form.

Again on listening to his story about how IT industry is taking the life out of him, the recruitment agent threw in a harmless question,

“What will happen if you don’t get out of the IT industry?”

“My wife will divorce me.”

“Do you want your wife to divorce you?”

The candidate couldn’t keep the smile off of his face.

It was clear to the recruitment counsellor then that he would never change his job until it had given him what he wanted: a divorce, with his wife taking the initiative — and the guilt.

This was his implicit or hidden need. One needs to understand this. And one can’t help people change or find their mission when they have a hidden agenda.