How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow

Based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - describe in one paragraph for each of the five needs on how your brand addresses the customer's needs.

There are five levels in Maslow's pyramid. At the base are physiological needs. Then come safety, social belonging, and esteem, and at the top, self-actualization, which is where people are more likely to have peak experiences - what ought to be, is, and life feels great. Reading Maslow woke me up to the idea that if there are self-actualized people in the world, then maybe there could be self-actualized companies, since companies are just collections of people.

So in "Peak" I break down Maslow's pyramid and apply it to key relationships - employees, customers, and investors. I took Maslow's five levels and turned them into three levels: the first two levels, physical and safety needs, are just survival. Levels 3 and 4, social and esteem, are just success needs, how the world sees you. At the top of the pyramid, self-actualization, is a transformative state, where you've moved beyond your own ego. So I created the "transformation pyramid": survival on the bottom, then success, and transformation at the top. I then applied those three levels to the motivations of employees, customers, and investors.

As Chip Conley described below, there are four qualities that are creating customer evangelists. Let's focus in on the fourth quality - what could your brand do to satisfy giving your customers something that they never imagined?

There are four qualities that define companies that are creating these customer evangelists.
Second is giving your customers the ability to truly express themselves.
Third is making customers feel like they're part of a bigger cause.
The fourth quality is offering customers something of real value they hadn't even imagined.