Understanding What Really Drives Your Customers and Employees

We all wish we could read minds, especially in business—it would make life so much easier! Imagine knowing exactly what your customers or employees are thinking. While we can’t do that (yet), there is a way to get close.

The Good People Research Company has an approach that helps you understand why people—whether customers, employees, or even friends—make the decisions they do. It also reveals how they process your actions emotionally and mentally.

Imagine This:
What if you had a trusted “advisory committee” of customers and employees available 24/7 to help with your decisions? You could ask them for advice, test ideas, and get real feedback—knowing exactly the right questions to ask. Now you can.

Guiding Narratives®

The key is not to segment customers or employees by demographics or behavior. Instead, you look at the story they tell themselves about the world and their place in it—this is their Guiding Narrative. Think of it as an inner survival manual that shapes their values and decision-making.

If you understand someone’s Guiding Narrative, you can isolate what we call their “decision code,” which is a key value or question their choices hinge on. With this, you can deliver real value to them.

Some Real-Life Examples:

• New moms: How do they decide they’re a “good mom”?
• Parents: How do they define what it means for their kids to be “OK”?
• Police officers: How do they view their relationship with citizens?

Their Guiding Narrative creates the code that drives their decisions and actions.

Bringing Guiding Narratives to Life:

1. Research & Segment: Study your audience to Identify the Guiding Narratives they share.
2. Train AI on These Narratives: Use a specialized AI model to understand the thinking behind these narratives.
3. Create AI-Powered Personas: These insights power Guiding Personas™—AI avatars that embody the personality and decision-making of real customers and employees.

You can interact and converse with these Guiding Personas any time, getting deeper insights than traditional surveys or interviews could ever provide. Over time, they learn and become even more intuitive, offering more valuable guidance.

Why This Matters:

Many companies rely on algorithms to “personalize” interactions. But without a true understanding of the why behind customer behavior, this personalization risks making your brand feel shallow.

By grounding AI in the real inner stories people use to navigate their world, you gain authentic insights—not just abstract data. This ensures your brand builds genuine, transformational relationships rather than merely transactional ones.

In a world racing toward algorithm-driven interactions, businesses using this approach can  understand and connect with people on a deeper level and will stand out — and thrive.