Don't Spend Any Time Thinking About The Product, Until You’Ve Discovered The Market!
By Noel Peebles   ©2004 All Rights Reserved

Make no mistake; there are literally thousands of potential tightly niched markets out there. Markets abound! Your first job is to find one, and discover what it is the market wants. Then, and only then, do you consider what kind of products or services you might be able to supply to that market. Notice I said "wants" as opposed to their "needs."

This may sound like a rather profound statement; but the fastest way to a debtor's prison is to find a NEED and try to fill it. The market you want to find is one that really, definitely, badly wants things. Mothers want to know how they can nurture their children better, fishermen want to know how they can catch more (or bigger) fish etc. I mean it! If there's one thing I hope you really get from this article, this is it! There are different levels of need, starting with the basics. We're talking about survival here. There is food, water, shelter, clothing and even paying taxes. These are the things we need to have, or do, on a regular basis. Without fulfilling most of these needs, our very survival is threatened. We need to eat in order to survive, but we can still do so on food that tastes awful. People from third world countries often lack more than the most basic food, but they can still continue to live on it. I've visited temples and monasteries in countries like Burma and Tibet, and seen monks eating their one small meal a day... the same ghastly menu every day. These are places where food is not meant for enjoyment, but is needed for survival. There is a second level to these needs. We need tasty food. We need decent clothes, nice shelter etc. So are these things really needs? We need shelter, but do we need nice shelter? Do we really need tasty food and decent clothes. What we are talking about is "wants" as opposed to "needs." Think about it, the things we need in order to survive, revolve around breathing oxygen, assimilating nutrients etc. Almost everything else outside of that is actually a WANT! Pizza instead of a handful of grain or plant roots, a 4 bedroom home rather than a lean-to, a car rather than a donkey, a pure wool suit rather than a piece of sack cloth. If we look more closely at those things that define a "want", as opposed to a "need", we find that a want is most often defined as something that is desired. Other words that describe a want are craving, wish, or fancy. None of these words pertain to need. We can survive without something we wish for, crave or desire. A want is something people are willing to spend time, money and energy on. Do any of us really need a Mercedes Benz, or do we desire one? Do we need three weeks in Hawaii, or do we fancy it? Do we need a television, or do we want one? We all seek out those things that we want - and we always will. That will never change. It is simply and forever a component of human nature. Throughout the passage of time, this fact has been demonstrated by nations wanting to conquer other nations to create wealth and power. Such actions are motivated by the want for something better, bigger, faster, safer, more beautiful etc. If only searching for "needs" motivated us humans, then our world would not have advanced beyond a primitive state of hunting and gathering. Progress is borne of our "want" for more and better things. © Market Leaders Limited. All Rights Reserved.

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