Time, Money, Sex (and Salvation)

Last week I walked through the frameworks in art and technology and how they can be applied to just about any discipline - unveiling my own framework in the process. We looked at The Three Buttons that divide up the sales cycle: Search (prospect looks for answers and finds you), Subscribe (they become a part of your network and you cultivate the relationship) and Buy (they buy your products and services).

This week I want to look at attacking the ever-thorny issue of Why We Buy:

There are a lot of reasons why we plunk down money for stuff. In this case, I'm separating wants from needs. We need water and food and shelter and all those Maslow things. We want a Senate bid, ripped abs, passive revenue and our own island (or at least I do and besides, Ron would look smashing in a Jackie Onassis pillbox hat). I'm talking about things that we want so much that we're willing to convince ourselves that we need them.

I cook this down to three categories (cue Venn diagram - I am loving PowerPoint 2007!).

Time, Money and You-Know-What

Stay with me.

Most of the reasons we spend money on things we don't really need are tied to one of these three areas. Let's take them one by one.

Time

So much of our daily marketing intake is promising more results in less time. Our busy and active lifestyle is driving us nutty and we need to be able to pack in more more more. We want to have it both ways (spend a day looking at every marketing message you see and try and find the how it convinces us we can have it both ways).

How do your products and services help me make time for what is important? Quality time, family time, workout time, reading time, meditation time, church time. Time for the things that are crucial that often get overshadowed by workity-work-work.

How do your product and services help me have more leisure time? This is a mix of the above two. Part of being middle-to-upper class is having time to spend on pointless shit. Well, pointless in terms of 'not getting you closer to your Nobel Prize.' You know what I mean.

And efficiency. How do you products and services help me use the time I have better? Extract more value? Get more things done so I can have more leisure.

So take out a piece of paper and write out three ways your products and services help people save time. A corollary is that the time to 'install' or 'learn' is worth the payoff in saved time.

What are three ways your products and services help others have more time?

Money

It makes the world go round (thanks Kander/Ebb). Sometimes it grosses me out how much blogging has become only about making lots of money (irony). But especially in the current global econalypse money is more important than ever ibecause it keeps us free from worry. The gospel of prosperity promises that God wants us to be rich and that being poor is a moral failing (ergo the super-rich are blessed). Abundance and scarcity battle it out in our heads, our dreams, our bank accounts and global commerce.

How do your products and services help people create more wealth? Whittle down their expenses?

Money is about luxury. Having more than enough. Profligacy. Conspicuous consumption. Spending money to spite others. I'm always amazed at how The Great Depression has echoed three generations down to my own midnight money panic attacks.

What are three ways your products and services help others make money?

S'e,x

Back when I was writing and directing plays, part of my approach was to get my actors to 'act from their DNA.' That no matter if you are doing Ibsen, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Mamet or Wibbels, the way to really grab an audience is when characters are stripped down to clawing for their own survival whether it be murdering their children to spite their husband worrying about a room with a view, or trying to get a bowl of soup.

When we 'act from our DNA' our basest needs are tapped. The urge to spread our genes. We want it more often. Or better. Or more partners. Or more pleasure. We lose weight so we can have more sex. Or better sex.

So much of modern marketing is dedicated to convincing you that you are completely unfuckable and must buy the product advertised to be worthy of the affections/lust of (an)other(s).

But how does this relate to business where sometimes the bow-chicka-wow-wow isn't as obvious?

It isn't just spreading your genes - but also your memes. Sex appeal for a business is about visibility. How can your ideas and products and messages spread? How can you increase your findability online?

What are three ways your products and services help others increase their sex appeal or visibility?

I Lied

I'm a cynic so I think most of us do thing for our own immediate gain. The one thing I learned from World History in college is that usually is is a war for money or god and usually when it is od it is money anyway. But some people are genuinely motivated by the need for salvation.

Or a deeper connection to their own divinity or God-liness or a more intimate relationship with the deity of their choice. You either have grace or you don't. My grandmother would call this 'Providence' - that things happened for a certain reason. That and you don't mess with Novenas.

Any Buddhists, Muslims, Hindu folks want to chime in? For atheists I was going to put smug self-satisfaction.

Power, Control and Meaning

Every worthy argument in the world is about control. Who has the power and who doesn't.

Every time you fight with your spouse, parents, boss, children... you are fighting over who has control. We look to iPhones, anti-depressants and 400 thread-count sheets to give us more control, more power of our lives.

And with our ongoing nod to Maslow, more control, more power gives us the opportunity to have more time, more money, more sex, more efficiency, more value, more visibility and ultimately - full dominion over our lives and ability to create meaning.

So if you retain nothing from this essay at least remember this question:

What are three ways your products and services help others increase the control they have over their lives?