Psychology of Buying Series, Part 3: APPLE

The following transcription was from the Bulletproof Youtube channel. Here is the https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KCkVnu6SCE

Peter Boulden
0:00:00
This is the third part, the third case study of the psychology of buying, the psychology of pricing, why we buy, how the biggest companies in our economy are using things on purpose to help encourage buying. And I wanted to start this series because I think there is a I think this is just good business fodder I think it's good educationally, but also see it. I mean be I'm gonna try and Try and correlate that to what I see in dentistry and some of these like I said will just be Just simply that it would just be Examples of how it's a cool business thing and that's it. There's no there's no analog to that of dental but because this is a dental podcast I'm trying to loop things back in. Okay so if you're just tuning in again we've done we've done one on Ikea we've done one on Costco and I'm and drew in the correlation to dentistry and those this is part three of or this is the third one this is going to talk about Apple and this is mainly going to be focusing on the packaging and the experience of what the packaging helps create, which is probably one of the harder things to kind of try to loop back into dentistry, although you're gonna see there's an example towards the end where it's talking about sensory, multi-sensory stuff. I think that is the takeaway from the Apple process. If you don't know who I am, my name is Dr. Peter Bolden. I am a co-founder of the Bulletproof Dental Practice Podcast along with my co-host, Dr. Craig Spodek in Delray Beach, Florida. And together we have about 45 years of dental experiences, seven locations between us. And our mission is to create life-changing impact for dental entrepreneurs through our Bulletproof Athlete, through our conferences, our summits, our masterminds, all the things, all the things. Okay, so without further ado, I'm going to change this. And you can see here now we've got a new fancy branding. You see to follow us and subscribe and all the things, right, this is a template on the new service we're using. So I encourage you to engage with us on Instagram. It's at Bulletproof Dental Practice. Looking at the YouTube channel, go join our mighty network at bulletproof.dental if you haven't done so. Things like that, things like that. We have the bulletproofsummit.com, which talks about the next summit. We have Bulletproof Mastermind, which talks about mastermind.com, which talks about our upcoming mastermind classes. All the things, it's just fun. Fun, helping dentists grow. All right, so again, I gave a lot of context to why I thought this was gonna be a little bit harder, because we're really just gonna be focusing on Steve Jobs as a human and the packaging as it relates to the iPhone. So number one, and these are all been based on this thread that this guy named Trung Phan has done on Twitter and it was done back in almost a year ago. But I saved it and I was like, God, this would be good fodder, good content. Everything is content for the podcast and looping things in. Okay, I feel like I'm rambling now. So the first one, the first example, Steve Jobs announced in 2007 that the iPhone was coming out. I kind of remember that time period actually. I remember thinking like, this is the weirdest shaped looking phone I've ever seen. I remember getting my first text message as a matter of fact, and be like, what is this? I don't understand it. How did this person write me? But during the presentation of his 2007 reveal, he noted that it had been noted that Apple filed for 200 patents for the device. And one of the patents was the actual packaging for the case. So it's unusual in certain instances like this where some of the intellectual property, like the IP is associated with packaging. So right then out the gate, like Jobs was obsessed with making sure that the packaging, even that experience was protected from an IP standpoint. So Jobs, and number two, so Jobs and another employee, he had a longstanding employee, Johnny Ive, they understood the value of packaging and basically Ive recounts that, "'Steve and I spent a lot of time on packaging. "'I love the process of unpacking something. "'You design a ritual of unpacking "'to make the product feel special. "'Packaging can be theater.'" Number three, as someone who has seen, before their iPhone, has gotten an iPhone box, right? They know that it's a special thing. Being the cardboard special, the pictures are vivid, it feels substantial in your hands. And this is because they have literally put in so much design and prototype. There's someone who has a packaging room at Apple and hundreds of prototypes and they keep increasing that experience just like they keep increasing their software or increasing their hardware, right? It is, it is, what am I saying? It is being modified no different than the hardware and software, making the experience, it's almost following in suit to that because Jobs was obsessed with that whole initial experience even before you use the phone, even before you hold the phone in your hand, even before you use the iOS operating system.

Peter Boulden
0:05:39
Okay.

Peter Boulden
0:05:39
So number four.

Peter Boulden
0:05:40
So what are, what are they looking for when they were going through this, this

Peter Boulden
0:05:44
packaging thing?

Peter Boulden
0:05:45
So Jobs wanted to make sure it had this luxurious feel to the boxes, right? Does it feel almost has that matte finish, right? It feels luxurious in your hands. Does it have the right amount of friction when you open it to create that drag and that brief pause when you open it. There's that air pocket like release, right? It has to be just right. So no different than what a magician reveals something jobs near the power of anticipation and design that into the packaging and the reveal of the iPhone. This is again, all before you, um, before you even use the product. And so if we kind of stop for a second and say like, how does this, could this apply to dentistry, right? From a packaging standpoint, I think that it starts presenting this psychology of this is going to be different, right? This is going to be a different experience. And what I think about in this example is what we used to use when someone would either, A, ask about, well, let me, can I even, can I see a veneer or can I see one of your crowns or can I see an all-on denture we don't just put it in our hand and be like here it is and then swing around from behind them in the operatory and be like come to the chair be like here is we actually like had them designed in like almost like jewel boxes right like you've ever gone to a jeweler and you've been presented with a necklace they won't just like pull it out of the thing and hand it over to you. They'll actually put it in a display case that has silk in it or velvet or something, right? And you'll open up this box. It's a wooden box and it's beautiful and it's been stained and it's heavy and it's substantial and all these things. It's been stained like dark wood color, whatever it may be. They're handing it over to you and it has this perfect light on it because that's part of the experience. That's creating value. So I used to do the same thing with actual presenting veneers in that it creates value. It says to someone, this is going to be a different level of product. And then people start understanding, well, yeah, there's a reason why their veneers are a little more expensive. It's because they're a better product. They treat them almost like with the white gloves. You put them on those white gloves and hand them over as opposed to the, you know, putting them in, putting it in the palm of your hand and swinging around saying, here it is, Miss Jones, here's our crowns. It's going to catch. So Jobs understood the magic of the reveal.

Peter Boulden
0:08:04
Right.

Peter Boulden
0:08:05
And I think we can also, uh, you heard my dental example. So unboxing things and unwrapping things is kind of a phenomenon and YouTube has brought that to the limelight. I don't know how much of you guys watch YouTube, but the unboxing videos, whether it's unboxing an iPhone or unboxing that newest product, but the unboxing, quote unquote, unboxing videos are this phenomenon. People get millions of views. Like if you're looking at this example, what I have on the screen, these examples of like, this dude's getting like 11 million views every time he unboxes something. And so what is this? What is this? It plays right into our, this curiosity gap. It's called, it's our psychological need to close the information deficit between what we know and what we want to know right now, or we don't know, but what we want to know, and so we stick around, even though we stick around for the boxing, the unboxing, and that's why these videos have millions of views and people have capitalized on just that itself. Cause these content providers get paid for the level of views that they get. So if you're getting 10 million views by simply just unboxing something, like that's a pretty good gig, pretty good gig. Okay, number six. So this is where I think it's the most applicable to dentistry and I'm trying to loop in at every junction I can, a story about dentistry to make us better practice owners, better leaders, better experienced creators, all the things. So this is where I feel like there's something we can learn. And so iPhones are the multi-sensory experience by design. I think we should look at our practices the same way and I talk about this a lot in the five senses. We talk about this in the mastermind a fair amount, we talk about this I think it's in the Bulletproof Field Manual where we give it the summits. But it's, you know, looking at things from, you know, we have five senses, we were given five senses, you know, sight and sound and hearing and taste, and all these things are important in this, in the context of the dental office, especially because usually people are a little nervous to be there. So we can start using this multi-sensory experience. So let me stay with the Apple, the iPhone example for a second, and then we'll jump right into kind of the things that I think we can augment or look at in the dental experience. Okay, so the iPhone experience, you see the box, it's a beautiful box, it looks substantial, it looks heavy, it looks heavy duty cardboard. It's got a matte finish, like I said, it's thicker cardboard. You see this box, okay, so that's number one. Number two, when you're opening it, you're feeling that friction. So you can almost feel it and hear it at the same time as you're kind of opening up this reveal. Number three is you hear this whoosh of air rushing out because it's a tight precise engineered fit. Even the box is engineered to be kind of precise, not sloppy. So it adds this theater and creates this powerful memory recall like like we talked about in the IKEA case study where it's the cinnamon bun, right? It's the cinnamon signifies the reward at the end or the hotdog in the Costco example signifies this like value proposition that you made it through the end and you got, now you're even throwing in your face again, the value of, wow, a cheap hotdog. I can't believe the value. This place is amazing. And you leave with that sentiment. We should be doing the same things. Maybe not so much on exit, although I think you can do that, but it should be curated the whole process. So, again, the senses, I think it's really important. I think smell is one of the most important senses in dentistry and one of the most important senses that we must overcome, because how many of you guys I get told this all the time is that, hey, that smell of dental office, like people, my friends will come to me and they still have horror stories of the eugenol smell, right? Even though eugenol is not used that prevalently anymore in a lot of practices, but it's such a visceral response from people who remember that experience, remember that smell of cloves or whatever it may be. I guess it's cloves. Eugenol is a clove. It smells clovey. I guess it's an essential oil at some point. But it's a very distinct smell, right? And so they remember that, and they remember the pain or the bad experience that they had at that point in time. So people, that can create this, like I said, this visceral response. To overcome that in dentistry, I think that we should be focusing on the smells that are good. Maybe it's not cinnamon buns, but have you ever heard of offices that actually have, like, they bake the cookies and such now, right? They create those Otis Schmuckmeyer cookies. I used to work it up. My first practice I ever worked at had, you know, baked cookies. I think it was to overcome that experience, overcome that whole eugenol effect. I'm coining the term eugenol effect now, apparently. But, you know, it was to overcome that. And then in dentistry, I think we can start even going one step further, meaning at the end of the experience, I think you can be spraying towels with things that are synonymous with spas, whether it's eucalyptus or lavender or, you know, I don't know more of a sense than that. But you know, putting that on the hand towel as someone's getting cleaned up from, you know, impression material or whatever it may be, or just something to freshen up. It's the reason that airlines, you know, hand out a hot towel, because it feels good. It's a memory associated with this is about to be a different experience, whether it's before dining or you're in first class or whatever it may be, right? So people associate that. So there's powerful effects to the sounds, right? I think sounds are a big thing. People hear that high pitched, whew, right, of turbine driven hand pieces, which is why electrics are kind of a little bit better, in my opinion, for combating that. Yes, they're a little more expensive, yes, they're more involved, but there's a reason electrics are popular. And it's not just because they put out a massive amount of more torque. Yes, I know dentists love that they just go right through and they never stop, but the fact that they are so much more quiet, I think starts combating that recollection, that bad memory recall of maybe childhood or previous poor experiences that may have been had. I don't know. But again, sight, sound, hearing, smell, the touch, I'm sorry, yeah, the touch of things. That's why, you know, so be looking, I guess I won't belabor this point, be looking, audit your experience, audit your sensory experience from top to bottom, meaning visually from your website, you know, and then when someone enters your building, like how does your furniture look? How's the dustbin look? How's it clean? Is your staff, staff? Oh my gosh, I just got caught saying the thing that I bust people on the most is your, are your team members dressed well and polished? Are they, are they looking in the eye? Are they greeting you? All the things like audit from top to bottom all the way through your experience and be focusing on this on, on the senses of someone that has a multi-sensor experience and where can you augment that? Can you pipe in music? Can you give someone noise canceling headphones? Can you pipe in sense? Can you make the chairs a little more comfortable? Can you make the, I don't know. Point is, is audit it, look at it, look for little incremental improvements that you can help implement. Not everything right away, but just implement to increase the experience because the experience that the patient is going to receive is going to be the great differentiator going forward in our industry. Dentistry, people can quote unquote go and get dentistry anywhere, but they can't get the experience you could potentially create in this curated experience where it's one that's focused on the site and the customer service and the smells and the sensory and all the things.

Peter Boulden
0:15:59
You see?

Peter Boulden
0:16:00
Okay, all right, I'm going to keep going down. So again, this example number seven says, number seven says even every small detail was looked upon in this ritual of opening, whether it's pulling the plastic off or looking at the earbuds that are held in this origami paper and all this happens before you actually get to their product of actually it being a phone. And all this happens before you even turn the phone on. And number eight, even if you're not a fan of Apple, it's easy to see how a customer can use the heuristic, meaning, and the quote is this, wow, and so they're thinking this, the consumer's thinking this, wow, if they're spending this much time on the packaging, the rest is probably pretty good too. This is probably gonna be a really kick-ass phone. And so Jobs was kind of obsessed with that. And he gives a story, an example of his father, and he were building a fence. And basically, the father said, you got to make the back of that fence look as good as the front. Even though no one's going to ever see it, they will know. I mean, I'm sorry, you will know. And that will show that you're dedicated to making something perfect. So that's a quote by Walter Isaacson. But Jobs talked about that in terms of he wanted everything to be perfect, the experience to be perfect, the packaging to be perfect, the product to be perfect. And so he's obsessed with things, even things that people weren't gonna necessarily see.

Peter Boulden
0:17:23
And that's pretty cool.

Peter Boulden
0:17:24
That's a pretty cool thing to be obsessed with that level of, I'm sorry, I'm gonna say patient experience, that level of consumer experience. And it's a reason why it's the number one, the reason why there's two billion phones made, two billion Apple products, I'm sorry, iPhones have been made. It's the reason that they are kind of the leader in the stock market right now, right? Almost a multi-trillion dollar company. And I believe it starts with things like this, this psychology of creating value to the product in which they produce. Okay, so number nine says Apple's packaging in general has a clear understanding of human psychology and how people shop, right? So they're using pictures more than words. They're using real life imagery on the front of the iPad boxes or things like that. They're using big, cool imagery and they're using very clean, minimalistic designs, right? All these things go into it. I think we can correlate this to this of our website. Meaning show, don't tell people about a product. Use video, don't write a bunch of text down because people don't want to read much about things. They want to be told and shown. You know, even in your consultations, I always say get a damn iPad when you're trying to describe something. Show them the cases you've done. Show them the process of things you wanted to show, don't tell use pictures, not words. Um, and that is the, that is how I'm going to correlate that. That one is a dentist room. Number 10 is, um, is actually talking about the iPod and I'm actually the old school iPod and I'm not going to really go into that one because I don't think there's much to. But number 11 is pretty funny. And I think it's, it's the sure sign that Apple packaging has reached a new level versus other consumer tech products is that people hoard these iPhone boxes and it's actually a meme on the internet. And I, for one started laughing when I saw this example, because I have a little cabinet in my house where I have.

Peter Boulden
0:19:29
It's like an eye.

Peter Boulden
0:19:29
It's an iPhone museum, iPhone box museum where I haven't thrown them away. I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it's that psychology of why you never throw away even old credit cards, because it's like, you know, you just feel like they have value. And so it's just funny. So it's on Twitter. It's almost been a meme is that and someone said this at this or at says, I don't know who needs to hear this, but throw away that box or iPhone came in. You do not need it. You will never need it. And and it had tons of retweets and likes and such as I show of X. I think, I think that strikes a chord with everyone. I think we all hoard our iPhone boxes, which is interesting, right? It is a, just a damn box, but we give it so much preferential value that we're, that we want to almost save it and think that we're going to keep it and reuse it as storage or maybe a jewel case or something, but, but that is, I agree with this last number 11 is that is this year's sign. It's reached a whole new plateau, a whole new level.

Peter Boulden
0:20:30
Um, so that's it.

Peter Boulden
0:20:31
I'm going to continue to kind of keep doing some of these case studies. Cause like I said, and I know I've emphasized this on the front end and now I'm doing it on the back end, but just because there's not a direct dental correlation to every one of these, I think it's good to kind of raise your business acumen. I think success leaves clues in all industries and it's just wise and fun and interesting and educating yourself on this is a it's just good it's just good it's just good practice so I'm enjoying this I'm hoping you are as well and we will see you next time on so I'm enjoying this I'm hoping you are as well and we will see you next time on the Bulletproof Dental Practice.

Transcribed with Cockatoo