I have had the amazing opportunity to spend a few days here at Lake Chelan with some close family friends. Between skipping across the lake on a SeaDoo (60+ mph!) and hanging out in the sun we visited a fantastic winery called ‘Tsillan’ which is Native American for “Chelan”, the name of this area. Now for those who know me, you will also know that being fresh out of College I have enjoyed the inexpensive perks of Busch Light at the regular social functions, and while I will probably still drink that on my future Yacht.. I also see the need to widen my horizons to the luxurious of drinks: Wine.
My parents have always enjoyed wine, but they have often enjoyed red wines; which if you aren’t very familiar with different Wines, reds have a very distinctive flavor that often comes with a strong after taste. I’m told that starting with White Wines in your “Wine Career” is best because they are typically a little less full-bodied and carry a lighter aftertaste (if really any at all). Tsillan Winery was a great place to widen my horizons as they had some fantastic wines (not just my opinion) and I was able to sample numerous wines. As expected many of the whites won my favors and as a standout I really enjoyed both the Riesling and the Dry Riesling whites.
So if you are open to expanding your horizons, don’t hesitate to start with the Whites; particularly the Rieslings and expand from there. Everyone has a different set of tastes, but hopefully that helps you get started!
We typically only talk about web technologies, and how to use them in order to build your brand, product etc. However there is an important aspect that too many of us overlook when bringing a product to market; how the hell does it look to the consumer?
Apple is notorious for discrete and sexy packaging that has drawn in buyers and changed our perception of the actual products inside. Apple does arguably make a quality product, but even if you disagree based on use of their devices your first impression is nearly almost always met with a “wow.. that looks cool”. It has even brought about videos of their product that are centered solely on the unboxing experience, which has since bled into other products but none garnish the number of views that Apple products do.
The sad part about the video above? It’s not even the fact that the guy opening the box is so taken back by the packaging, but the fact that this unboxing of a mouse has nearly 30k views! So what is the added value for Apple by putting more time and effort into a nifty package for this mouse? Think of all the people who sought out this video and then made a purchase (drives sales), talked about the mouse and it’s packaging (this blog post, discussions with friends) and even more importantly the customers perception of quality before ever actually using the device.
The consumer perception is everything when it comes to turning prospective customers into buyers and often times makes the difference between a products mediocre success and becoming an absolute start in the firms line up. So next time when you are putting together a physical product to add to your line, or creating a web service you need to remember that the presentation of the device is what does the selling. The quality of the product just continues your success… if no one ever buys it to start with it is hard for them to understand the quality.
This same principle is obviously applied to web development, if your website looks like crap but is rock solid; people are going to remember how it looked and be turned off without even realizing it. Having a clean web services that delivers on only a few key fundamentals is how you win the mind of consumers before they even consciously realize it. (Read more about the reptilian brain to find out about buying behaviors here and expect a follow up post this week)
