118: Why DO people spend money?

Fun Business Fun Money Podcast

Money is an integral part of our society, we all use it in some form or another.

But WHY exactly do people spend money on certain things? There’s not always a logical reason for it.

We’re going right back to basics to ask why people spend money. The answer is a simple one, but it also has an important impact on the niche you focus on in your business.

Why do people spend money?

There are so many nuances involved in setting up, running and marketing your online business. One of those things is knowing exactly why people spend money. Why do they? Why do you?

Getting the answer to this goes a long way to defining your niche and the people you want to work with.

I highly doubt anyone has ever said “I want to work with the most difficult clients possible. I want to work SO DAMN HARD to get my message across to those particular people that I will accept high stress, low pay, not being paid at all, being ghosted, chargebacks and failed payments, and let’s throw in some burn out because I’ll be trying to handle it all with a smile.”

Nobody ever said that! LOL!

Side note, if thats how your business feels and operates, please stop immediately.

Your physical and mental health are far more important than the accolades of saying you pushed on through and conquered that mountain.

You’ll live much longer and happier without that kind of stress.

Something else I mentioned in episode 117 on niching that bears saying on repeat… “There is someone else better suited to helping the people that you don’t.” I’m also going to add “You can’t help everyone, and you really SHOULDN’T.”

The answer is obvious… or is it?

Let’s look at this question of just why DO people spend money?

I know theres an obvious answer there because that’s how society is set up. That’s not what we’re talking about here. Why DO people spend the money they have?

They spend money because of improvement. People buy improvement.

Whether thats a product or service, everything we buy is in pursuit of some kind of improvement.

If its a new dishwasher, you’re probably wanting to improve the experience you have cleaning up the kitchen. If its a weekend away somewhere nice, you’re most likely wanting to improve how you feel, to relax, to feel better about life in general.

There’s no real logic to our buying decisions because its almost always an EMOTIONAL decision. Not a logical one.

A perfect example of this is back when we were selling our last house.

We discovered at the last minute, a week before the auction, that the shower in the one bedroom flat, or apartment, over our garage was in desperate need of retiling and waterproofing.

We couldn’t in good conscience sell the house with it in that state. Up to that point we had no idea how bad it was because nobody had opened the shower door to check.

Because it was a last minute job and there was a much bigger amount of money involved in the actual sale of the house, we ended up paying a tiler four times what it would normally cost to get it done.

It was a highly emotional decision, there were zero regrets about paying him, even though I was dying a little inside at the same time.

We buy things because we believe will improve our lives in some way.

Whether they actually do or not? That doesn’t matter. WE BELIEVE IT WILL.

 Spending that money to fix the shower meant we had zero stress that the new owners would try to negotiate a price reduction, or they would come back at a later date with legal action over something that wasn’t up to standard.

Reducing stress is a massive life improvement.

I’m going to leave you with another couple of questions to think about:

🤔 What do YOU do that people are willing to spend money on?

🤔 What’s the transformation they get from your expertise, products or services?

🤔 To put it another way, what improvement does your expertise, product or service make in their lives?

I would LOVE to hear your answers to these questions!

Send me a DM, I’m @funbusinessfunmoney, all one word, on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. If you’re on LinkedIn, I’m Deirdre Amies there.

Maybe you reduce stress, you save them time, energy, money, their sanity! People will pay good money for something that helps them do that.

Write down all the ways you transform their lives, ALL the things, nothing is too small or insignificant here.

You’ll start to see a niche you can truly monetise.

We’ll talk about THAT in an upcoming episode.

Why DO people spend money? To improve something, to transform something about their life, career, business, health, relationships, family, their environment, their quality of life. It really is that simple.

As I’ve said before, its not rocket science, its people science.

Our personalities and emotions drive our buying decisions. That’s how MY expertise helps you improve and transform, by reducing the stress of figuring out why people do what they do and how to align YOUR business with what they want.

Take care, have fun transforming people’s lives, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.