Aesthetic intelligence touches all five senses. Think about dining at a great restaurant. In addition to fabulous food and an interesting well-executed menu, there also needs to be an ambience and acoustics that enable diners to talk to one another without having to yell. The lighting needs to work in different parts of the restaurant without casting annoying shadows. And don’t ignore the small details – the cutlery, glassware, table and seating and how they interact with the food to deliver the overall experience.
Brown claims that luxury brands and their leaders need to develop aesthetic intelligence in addition to traditional, artificial and emotional intelligence. She points to classic examples of how aesthetic intelligence can take a commodity product and transform it into a luxury experience. Steve Jobs did it at Apple and Howard Schultz did it at Starbucks. Today, Apple is not as much as a technology company as it is a luxury products company. iPhone purchasers pay a 600 to 700% premium for Apple products compared to competitors whose functionality is equal and sometimes superior to Apple’s.
Using aesthetic intelligence enables your showroom to excite and delight your clients. Delight is not quantifiable, and most companies don’t have a clue of its importance. However, an estimated 80 to 90% of product purchasing decisions are based on how the product or service makes a person feel. Most sales and marketing professionals focus on features, functions, costs and benefits. “We really are in a rather unsophisticated marketplace for understanding how people feel, empathizing with it and actually taping into it. And delivering in ways that are genuine and uplifting,” Brown said.
Your clients want to dream. They want to aspire. It’s human nature. What are you doing in your showroom to leverage aesthetic intelligence and how your recommendations for your clients’ new baths will make your clients feel and enable their dreams to become realities?
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