I think it took me over three months to finish this book. Unless you really like looking at numerical charts and graphs about consumer behavior, this isn’t exactly what I recommend for comfy couch reading. But it did put some business-related things into perspective. Cakes aside, here’s what I got out of reading the book:

1) People buy a luxury item (anything in the realm of art and design easily falls in this category) not just for the product itself, but for the experience ~ “Everybody everywhere wants to feel special” (pg. 247). So things like personalized greetings and thank you’s, good customer service, nice wrapping and packaging, any little extra step, the process of it all is just as important as the product itself.

and 2) People like buying things that have stories behind them. They give a personal, human link to the product and whoever created it. 

I can’t say that any of this is new to me or any of you who are already running your own businesses, but it is nice to see it all spelled out so clearly (in scientific terminology like we’re all little colonies on petrie dishes) so at least we know we’re doing some things right!

September 27th, 2007