How product managers can create irresistible products

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TLDR

Product psychology goes far beyond traditional product-market fit. When customers feel compelled to buy products, they move from rational comparison to emotional connection. Successful products trigger what Laurier Mandin calls “the flip” – transforming wants into psychological needs, making purchasing non-negotiable.

Key topics:

• The psychology of “I need that” responses vs. traditional product-market fit
• How the “dog brain” makes purchase decisions 250x faster than rational thinking
• The “coveted condition” framework for emotional product connections
• Why products need to be 10x better to overcome status quo bias
• The CLIMB framework for identifying functional, emotional, transformative, and transcendent needs
• Integrating product development and marketing from the concept stage
• How craftsmanship and attention to detail create emotional value

Introduction

What makes a product not just desirable, but absolutely necessary in the minds of customers? In this discussion, we’re investigating the psychology of product development and marketing with Laurier Mandin. He is a product marketing strategist who has spent over three decades guiding hundreds of innovative products to market success. As founder of Graphos Product, he’s helped numerous startups and established brands through need-centric product development and compelling marketing strategies. With a deep understanding of consumer psychology and behavioral economics, he brings a unique perspective to product creation and marketing. He is also the author of  I Need That  and creator of the Product: Knowledge podcast.

You’ll come away from this conversation with fresh insights and practical frameworks for creating products that customers don’t just want – but feel they absolutely need. 

Beyond Product-Market Fit: Creating Products Customers Are Compelled to Buy

Product managers often focus on achieving product-market fit – that sweet spot where a product satisfies a specific market need well enough to sustain itself and grow. I asked Laurier what the different is between a product that achieves product-market fit and a product that a customer is “compelled to buy.”

While product-market fit focuses primarily on rational factors like features, pricing, and market size, being “compelled to buy” taps into something deeper – the psychological transformation that happens when a want becomes a need.

The “Flip” From Want to Need

Laurier described this transformation as “the flip” – the moment when our mind converts a desire into a psychological need. Beyond basic physiological needs, our perceived needs are mental constructs. When a product triggers this flip, owning it becomes entirely non-negotiable. Customers will overcome any friction or barrier to get it.

Products that merely satisfy a need constantly battle price pressure and competition. In contrast, products that trigger an “I need that” response bypass these challenges because customers are no longer rationally comparing features – they’re emotionally invested in owning the product.

This shift from satisfaction to compulsion represents a powerful strategic advantage for product teams who understand how to engineer it.

The Psychology Behind Purchase Decisions

Understanding how customers make buying decisions is crucial for creating products they feel compelled to purchase. Laurier explained that our brains have two primary decision-making systems: the “dog brain” (limbic system) and the rational brain (neocortex).

The Dog Brain vs. The Rational Brain

The dog brain is our emotional center, where intense responses and impulsive behaviors originate. It operates about 250 times faster than our rational brain. This explains why buying decisions often happen in milliseconds, driven by emotion rather than logic.

Here’s what makes this understanding so powerful for product development:

• Purchase decisions start in the emotional center of the brain
• The rational brain only rationalizes decisions after they’re made emotionally
• Creating emotional connections happens before rational feature comparison

Why Our Brains Prefer Emotional Decisions

Our brain’s preference for emotional decision-making isn’t random – it’s about energy conservation. While the brain represents only about 2% of our body weight, it consumes approximately 20% of our energy. This creates a natural tendency to avoid energy-intensive rational thinking.

The brain prefers activities like daydreaming, which require less energy than analytical thinking. This presents a major opportunity for product teams: If you can trigger your customer’s brain to daydream about your product, you’ve found a neurological shortcut to desire.

The Coveted Condition Framework

Building on this understanding of brain function, Laurier introduced the “coveted condition” framework – a tool for creating products that trigger emotional buying decisions. The framework focuses on what customers dream of becoming through using your product.

It follows a simple structure: “I need [product] to become [coveted condition/desired future state].”

The coveted condition isn’t about the product’s features – it’s about the better version of themselves that customers aspire to become. When you understand this aspirational state, you can design products that naturally trigger emotional desire.

For example, truck commercials rarely show the everyday uses of pickup trucks. Instead, they show vehicles conquering rugged terrain, conveying power and freedom. The actual product experience might involve commuting and hauling supplies, but the coveted condition is about adventure and capability – emotional states that trigger the “I need that” response.

By focusing on the coveted condition in your product development and marketing, you can bypass rational feature comparison and tap directly into your customers’ emotional decision-making system – making your product feel like a necessity rather than just an option.

Integrating Product Development and Marketing

Laurier described the value of integrating product development and marketing from the earliest stages of product development. In many organizations, these functions operate as distinct phases – engineers and product managers build the product, then throw it “over the wall” to marketing to make people want it.

Breaking Down Functional Silos

This separation creates a fundamental problem in product development. Engineers and product managers tend to excel at functional outcomes, while marketers are better at understanding emotional connections. When these teams work in isolation, the result is often a product that functions well but fails to create the emotional response needed for the “I need that” reaction.

Laurier explained that successful companies introduce marketing thinking at the concept stage, having marketers involved in early product discussions. This approach ensures products are designed with emotional triggers in mind from the beginning.

Learning from Apple’s Approach

The interview highlighted Apple’s approach under Johnny Ive, who designed many of their most successful products starting with the colorful iMac. Ive often discussed how product development, design, and marketing were inextricably linked at Apple. This integration created feedback loops that ensured products weren’t just functional but emotionally compelling.

Steps to Better Integration

For product managers looking to implement this approach, consider these practical steps:

• Invite marketing team members to early concept discussions
• Focus early conversations on emotional reactions you want to trigger
• Create cross-functional feedback loops throughout development
• Prioritize features that spark emotion, not just solve problems
• Design onboarding experiences that deliver immediate gratification
• Build in shareable moments that encourage word-of-mouth marketing

The 10X Better Rule for Product Success

For a product to breakthrough the competition, it must be at least 10 times better than the existing product. Incremental improvements often fail to generate significant market traction, despite seeming like they should be sufficient.

Why Incremental Improvements Don’t Break Through

Many product managers assume that making a product twice as good as existing solutions should be enough to drive adoption. However, Laurier explained that a major psychological barrier stands in the way: the dramatic mismatch between how consumers and innovators perceive value.

Research shows two critical factors at play:

1. Consumers overvalue what they already have (the status quo) by a factor of 3
2. Innovators overvalue their new product by a factor of 3

This creates a 9:1 perception gap that must be overcome for a new product to break through. This means your product needs to be 10 times better than existing solutions to truly trigger the “I need that” response.

Examples of 10X Better Products

Laurier shared several examples of products that achieved this 10X improvement threshold:

• Tesla’s early electric vehicles: Not just electric, but better in nearly every measurable category – more powerful, more user-friendly, and featuring innovative details like pop-out door handles
• The original iPhone: Dramatically superior to stylus-based touchscreens on devices like the Palm Trio and Blackberry, making the interface vastly more intuitive
• A cycling computer: Compared to a basic speedometer, it tracked multiple metrics simultaneously, providing transformative data for serious cyclists

Implementing the 10X Better Rule

For product managers looking to apply this principle, consider these strategies:

• Identify the emotional metrics that matter most to your target customers
• Focus innovation on dimensions with high emotional impact
• Don’t spread improvements thinly across many features
• Concentrate resources on making a few aspects dramatically better
• Test whether your improvements actually trigger the “I need that” response

The 10X Better Rule reminds us that breaking through consumer inertia and triggering psychological need requires dramatic improvement, not incremental change. This understanding helps explain why some innovative products succeed while others with seemingly good improvements fail to gain traction.

The Role of Customer Research

Understanding customers is fundamental to creating products they feel compelled to buy.

Going Beyond Surface-Level Research

Traditional customer research often focuses on functional needs and use cases. While this information is valuable, Laurier suggested that product teams need to dig deeper to uncover the emotional drivers that trigger the “I need that” response.

Effective customer research for compelling products should:

• Identify what outcomes customers truly want to achieve
• Uncover the “coveted condition” customers dream about
• Determine what triggers genuine excitement
• Test emotional reactions, not just feature preferences
• Discover pain points that have emotional weight

Finding the Emotional Connection

Laurier explained that great products transcend being mere tools – they become pathways to who customers want to be. This perspective shifts customer research from focusing solely on what tasks customers need to accomplish to understanding how they want to feel when using your product.

Testing for Emotional Response

One advantage of modern digital marketing is the ability to test different emotional triggers quickly. Laurier described how nimble ad testing allows teams to:

• Try multiple emotional angles simultaneously
• Measure which messages create the strongest response
• Scale up approaches that trigger genuine excitement
• Quickly discard messaging that fails to connect emotionally

By incorporating emotional testing into customer research, product teams can better understand what will transform their product from useful to necessary in the minds of their customers.

This deeper approach to customer research provides the foundation for applying the frameworks Laurier discussed, ensuring that products aren’t just built to functional specifications but designed to trigger the psychological transformation that makes customers feel they need your product.

The CLIMB Framework for Identifying Product Needs

Laurier shared the CLIMB framework – an acronym for Customer Life Improving Mechanisms and Benefits. This tool helps product teams identify four levels of need that compelling products address.

The Four Levels of Need

The CLIMB framework breaks down customer needs into a hierarchy from basic functional benefits to transcendent impacts:

1. Functional Needs: The practical benefits like saving time, reducing costs, and improving performance
2. Emotional Needs: Feelings such as security, pride, belonging, enjoyment, and status
3. Transformative Needs: Personal growth areas including health, sense of purpose, relationships, and confidence
4. Transcendent Needs: Impact beyond the user, such as helping others, environmental benefits, and legacy building

Laurier explained that while any good product addresses at least one level, the most compelling products typically address needs at multiple levels of the framework.

Applying the CLIMB Framework

For product managers, the CLIMB framework offers a structured approach to creating more compelling products:

• Identify your product’s position: Which levels of need does your product currently address?
• Find gaps and opportunities: Which higher-level needs could you incorporate?
• Prioritize applications: Determine which needs are most important for your target customers
• Guide marketing: Use insights to craft messaging that resonates emotionally
• Target audience selection: Identify customer segments most likely to value the needs your product addresses

Using CLIMB for Persona Development

Laurier described how the framework can enhance persona development by viewing needs through the eyes of specific customer types. For example, a family-oriented vehicle buyer might prioritize the transformative need of being a better parent (through safety features) while also valuing the emotional need of appearing successful and responsible.

By systematically applying the CLIMB framework, product teams can move beyond feature-focused development to create products that connect with customers at deeper psychological levels – making them far more likely to trigger the coveted “I need that” response.

The Role of Craftsmanship in Product Value

Laurier explained that perceived craftsmanship creates emotional connections to products. This aspect of product development is often overlooked but can significantly influence whether customers feel compelled to purchase.

How Craftsmanship Creates Emotional Value

Laurier explained that when customers perceive craftsmanship in a product, they value it more highly – even for seemingly utilitarian items. This principle applies across product categories:

• Physical products: Attention to detail in design and construction signals value
• Digital products: Clean interfaces and thoughtful user experiences create emotional connection
• Services: Care and precision in delivery builds trust and loyalty

The “Made with Love” Effect

During our discussion, Laurier shared a personal example – telling his 10-year-old daughter that he made her sandwich “with love” genuinely enhances her enjoyment of it. This illustrates how the perception of care and intention transfers emotional value to the product experience.

Similarly, when companies share behind-the-scenes glimpses of their development process, they tap into what Laurier called the “IKEA effect” – people value things more when they see or participate in their creation.

Applying Craftsmanship Principles

Product managers can leverage this insight by:

• Highlighting the care and attention in your development process
• Ensuring user interfaces reflect thoughtful design decisions
• Creating “evidence of craftsmanship” in product details
• Communicating the expertise behind your product
• Showing rather than telling about quality

By incorporating craftsmanship into both your product development and marketing approaches, you can create deeper emotional connections that help trigger the “I need that” response from customers.

Conclusion

Creating products that customers feel compelled to buy isn’t about clever marketing tricks or feature overload—it’s about understanding the psychology that transforms wants into needs. By focusing on the emotional brain’s role in decision-making, integrating marketing and product development from the start, and applying frameworks like CLIMB, product managers can create offerings that trigger that coveted “I need that” response. As Laurier demonstrated throughout our conversation, successful products don’t just solve problems—they connect to customers’ aspirations and help them become who they want to be.

The journey from product-market fit to creating products customers can’t resist requires a fundamental shift in approach. Rather than asking “What features should we build?” successful product teams ask “What will delight customers?” By aiming to be 10x better in ways that matter emotionally, showcasing craftsmanship in every detail, and focusing on innovation rather than imitation, product managers can create offerings that transcend rational comparison. When customers imagine their lives with your product and feel genuine excitement about owning it, you’ve created something truly compelling—a product they don’t just want, but absolutely need.

Useful Links

• Visit Laurier’s website to get his book and sign up for emails with key takeaways
• Check out Laurier’s book, I Need That: Creating and Marketing Products People Are Compelled to Buy
• Connect with Laurier on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Graphos Product
• Search for Product: Knowledge on your podcast player

Innovation Quote

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”  – Steve Jobs

Application Questions

1. How could you identify the “coveted condition” that your product helps customers achieve? What specific aspirational state does your product enable, and how might you redesign your development and marketing approach to emphasize this transformation?
2. Where in your current product development process could you integrate marketing thinking earlier? What specific changes to your team structure, meeting cadence, or decision-making process would help bridge the gap between engineering and marketing perspectives?
3. Consider the CLIMB framework (functional, emotional, transformative, and transcendent needs). Which levels does your product currently address? How could your team elevate your product to address higher-level needs that might trigger stronger emotional connections?
4. How could your team apply the 10X better rule to your current product roadmap? Which aspects of your product could realistically be made dramatically better in ways that matter emotionally to customers, rather than pursuing incremental improvements across many features?
5. Where could you enhance the perception of craftsmanship in your product? What specific details could you improve to signal quality and care to customers, and how might you better showcase the expertise and intentionality behind your product’s development?

Bio

Laurier Mandin is a product marketing strategist and go-to-market expert who has guided hundreds of innovative products to market success. As founder and CEO of Graphos Product, he brings over three decades of expertise in helping product makers identify and penetrate resistant markets through visionary positioning and strategy. 

Laurier developed the company’s proprietary CLIMB scoring system and Innovative Product Go-to-Market Roadmap process, which have become trusted frameworks for reducing launch risk and maximizing product success. His strategic insights have transformed struggling products into category leaders and helped numerous B2B and consumer innovations achieve breakthrough market performance. 

A recognized thought leader in product marketing, Laurier is the author of “I Need That” and creator of the Product Knowledge podcast as well as an award-winning business columnist. When not working with clients to craft winning product strategies, he can be found cycling, cross-country skiing, hiking or enjoying paddle sports in his local community. 

Thanks!

Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below.

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