Why Is Sugar Sweet?
What makes sugar sweet? I mean, what is the chemistry involved in the sweet taste?
Our tongue detects the sugar molecule by its shape. Sugar molecule fits into grooves in our tongue tip, and when this groove is filled a nerve sends a message to the brain that says -sweet!. It is as simple as that.
Sweetness is not in the sugar, then; but in our minds.
Perceptions, are derived senses actually. They are managed by more evolved areas of our brain. For instance the perception of flavor -a derived sense, is a combination of taste + smell.
And what makes our product sweet, then? Does it reside in product features (molecule shape), or more in how it fits with our client’s taste pores?
Almost all experienced sales people learned how to link product features and benefits. Features (molecule) give you credibility, while Benefits (taste) give you marketability. But it is Positioning (perception) that makes you close the sale. Product perception involves complex associations, based on client’s personal experience on similar products.
The good news is that perception and positioning are (still) far too complex phenomena to be automated by any software means. Experienced sales persons, with good questioning and listening skill can still make the difference.
Posted on set 1, 2009 by Giorgio Buccilli
(1 votes, average: 4,00 out of 5)
Loading ...
Hervé Menga on gio, 5th nov 2009 20:27
Some ideas coming from the book i am currenly reading (Le macroscope, by J. De Rosnay):
You present above only the objective view: you (the human observer) finds the sugar (the object) sweet.
But what is the subjective view, the point of view of the sugar? i mean do you think that the sugar “intends” to be sweet for us, humans ? i guess so, but is it also valid for other observers than humans ? may be not. So what makes the difference ? because somebody (a human) had got once the idea to concentrate the juice of the sugar beet into a powder that a human can put in his mouth (or in his coffee).
Then, the sugar is not only a “dead” object composed of molecules, it also contains the human knowledge of the sweet taste.
And this is the information that the human tongue is perceiving through the human brain : this piece of material contains the human knowledge of the sweet taste.
In fact, we do not need to really feel the taste of the sugar. We “recognize” the human knowledge of sweetness directly by looking at the sugar powder: Everybody knows that if he wants to make his coffee sweeter, he can just put some sugar in it!
So why sugar is sweet for humans ? because sugar contains human knowledge of sweetness…
Now let us return to our good old mechanical engineering world. How can we fix two plates easily (so from two floating plates make one rigid plate). Well, we can drill a hole into both plate, and put a screw and a bolt, and turn the screw into the bolt…
What makes the plate-screw-bolt rigid ? We all know, we mechanical engineers… it is because this human knowledge of fixture is included in the screw-and-bolt (in fact it has been included by another human, who had once upon a time this strange idea!!!)