Here's a question: How do you drive an exceptional customer experience, one that generates loyalty among your customers and drives repeat and recurring business? It all starts with understanding customer needs.

And today, we're going to talk about understanding and identifying customer needs, using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and just how that applies to the service business of Voice Over.

Voiceover is at its best a business of service, and it's not just providing a service as opposed to a product, although that part of it is crucial as well. What I mean is voiceover is a business of service to others.

When we're doing our job right, we are solving a real problem for people, one that they cannot solve for themselves. If they could… look, you and I know how fun this job is. If people could do it on their own, they would. We're helping them in a very real and tangible way, and I think a lot of voice actors have a fear around sales and marketing, and I think much of that fear is driven by the fact that they're missing this point.

The best salespeople in the world understand the complexity of the problem that they're trying to solve, the difficulty of the problem they're trying to solve. And so they understand the value of solving that problem for the client. They approach sales and business in general as an act of service.

It's not about what we can get from someone. It's about what we can give.

It's not about annoying or pestering or convincing or manipulating. It's about starting a dialog with someone to understand the complexity and the nuance of their problem and to see if we can serve that person by solving that problem for them. If clients could solve the problem themselves, they would, but they can't because they're not trained professionals who can do what we do.

Now, one way of understanding or looking at our service and our business of service is by looking at client needs through the lens of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. In his famous 1943 paper, A Theory of Motivation, psychologist Abraham Maslow grouped human needs in a five level, now famous, pyramid. Now, Maslow called self-actualization a growth need, and he separated it from the lower four groups of needs, lower on the pyramid, which he called deficiency needs.

He said that if you fail to meet your deficiency needs, then you'll end up suffering some sort of negative repercussion, harmful or maybe unpleasant results. Maybe that's an injury, a sickness, maybe it's self-doubt, loneliness, starvation, or other negative repercussions. Now, while self-actualization needs can make you happier, more fulfilled, more at peace, you won't experience necessarily any negative consequences when those self-actualization needs are not met.

So what that means is self actualization needs only become a priority when those lower four levels needs are already met. Okay. So Maslow said that when those deficiency needs are not met, those needs on the lower four levels of the hierarchy, that serious consequences, especially when it regards health and especially when it regards mental health, can happen.

People whose physiological needs are not met could become extremely ill or even die. When safety needs are not met, things like PTSD can happen. People who don't feel love or belonging can experience depression and anxiety. Lack of self-esteem or the inability to self-actualize can also lead to depression and anxiety.

So now that we understand the importance of the human needs in Maslow's hierarchy, let's talk about the hierarchy in the context of the service business of voiceover.

Physiological Needs

Maslow said that these are the most basic needs of the organism to stay alive things like food, water, sleep, shelter, warmth. Now, as we think about this in voiceover, the most basic needs that we meet as voiceover business people are product related because if we can't provide a good basic product, then there's really not much else to talk about.

The basic product has to be script-correct, yes, but also a clean recording. No mouth noise, no clicks, no slapback or echo in the room, no boxiness, with proper levels and dynamics. The file has to be in the proper format, has to be delivered on time to the right place using the right method. And artistically, even the most basic product should reasonably convey the tone and emotion intended.

Now, this stuff is just table stakes. Any professional voice actor should be able to provide the basic, the physiological, needs of the project.

Safety Needs

These needs have to do with safety and the security of the service that we're providing. Safety needs are about trust and how we build that trust with our clients. We have to make sure that our clients are and feel safe.

Sometimes we may have to sign a nondisclosure agreement, an NDA, in order to help the client feel safe and be safe from competitive compromise. Non-disclosure agreements, NDAs, and non-compete clauses are all about keeping the clients safe and helping them to feel that way. Our website and all the interactions we have with our clients, whether they're digital or otherwise, should always be safe and secure.

This is why you should have a secure certificate on your website. Comply with GDPR guidelines. Use password protected sites like Dropbox and Google Drive that are safe and secure when you're delivering your files to your client. Trust is also about setting and meeting or ideally exceeding expectations over time. It's about doing what you say you're going to do consistently over time.

It's about keeping confidences. It's about making your word, your bond. If our clients don't feel safe, if they don't trust us, then they're not going to be our clients very long.

Belongingness and love

Now, this is the part of the business I love the most. Belongingness and love are all about building relationships and friendships. When I'm lying on my deathbed, hopefully in another 40 years or so, I'm not going to look back and remember that explainer video I did back in 2022.

I'm going to look back at all the friends and the wonderful people that I got the privilege to get to know and to work with over the years. And hopefully the ones that I've gotten the help over the years as well. For our clients, it's about making sure they feel like they're in the right place, working with the right people.

We often call this fit. Look, if you get an audition for a monster truck spot and you're typically just a nice light guy or girl next door who have light narrative stuff is your wheelhouse, then you may have to have the self-discipline and the empathy for the client to not audition for that piece. Admit that it's not a good fit and move on so that you free the client up to find a belongingness love fit somewhere else.

Ideally, you might even recommend others who might be a good fit for the client where they can find belongingness and love. And therefore you can build trust that way with your client. And this is true not just for the role, but also for the budget. If you typically book within standard rates and your prospect is looking for somebody to do it for a dollar a holler, then you're just not a fit.

And there's likely no belongingness or love between the two of you. Do we value the relationship more than the project? If there's a context of belongingness and love, then the answer is yes, always yes. The point of business is not to see how much money you can make. The point of business, to me, is to see how many people you can help.

How many friendships you can collect, how rich can your life get, not just your bank account.

Esteem Needs

Esteem needs are about accomplishment and prestige. This is a huge measuring stick, and for voice actors, it's not about how many client logos you can jam onto your website. Did we help our client get their job done faster? Easier? On time, on budget?

Did we help them have fun? Did we give them joy? Did we take a load of worry and stress off of their plate? Did we anticipate their needs before maybe they even communicated them? And did we work to fulfill them without even being asked? Did we raise our clients prestige by making them look like a rock star to the people that they serve? Did we help our client win an award?

The best and highest form of service is to help people serve their people. When we can do that, we find real esteem and not the kind from landing a big client, but the kind from having a big impact.

Self-Actualization

Maslow said, "What a man can be, he must be."

Did we, through consistently fulfilling our client's needs, help them to realize their full potential? Is our relationship with the client helping us both do that? Are we trained well enough that we can elevate our own work over time in order to help the client meet their mission and solve their problem? Even better? Does our relationship with our client help us both be our best selves?

Are our lives better because we work together?

I hope this video helps you approach your voice acting business from a perspective of service to others and helping you meet your clients’ needs.

If you found value in this video, if it helps you, if you think it will help other voice actors, then help us help YouTube find them with a like, a subscribe, and hit that notification bell to be the first to know when we publish a new video each week. And for more information about my VO Freedom Master Plan to take charge of your direct marketing and take control of your own career, hit that link, and for my Thursday newsletter, the Move, Touch Inspire Newsletter for voice actors, that comes out every Thursday, hit that link as well.

I can't thank you enough for your support. Our channel is growing every day and I'm deeply grateful and we will see you back here soon. Thanks so much.