There is profit in pleasure

Credit: Philipp Torres / Unsplash

As Shakespeare put it in The Taming of the Shrew, “No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.”

A study in the Journal of Marketing suggests we are often willing to pay more when we know that someone really enjoyed making the product or delivering the service – what the authors call “production enjoyment.”

It is rational, if largely unconscious.  If you enjoy doing something, you’re probably doing it better than someone who sees the same task as drudgery.

Ironically, however, people who enjoy providing their product or service, instead of charging more, actually tend to charge less. The authors speculate this may be because they unconsciously see the enjoyment as part of the compensation.

So, if you are marketing yourself or your work on Fiverr or Etsy, don’t be afraid to mention how much you enjoyed your work.  Or if you’re opening a restaurant, open the kitchen and let the patrons watch the chef put on a show.

There are, of course, caveats.  This correlation of paying more for “production enjoyment” hinges, to some extent, on the skill required to do the job. If it’s a task that’s automated, then production enjoyment won’t matter as much compared to, say, a hand-stitched quilt, which requires a high level of ability.

It is also unclear whether this applies to big brands – or how it could apply.  The study focused on smaller-scale, more personal transactions. But could a big, mainstream brand put this to work?  For example, when a large spirits brand highlights the joy and skill of its master distillers, does that convey “production enjoyment” and thus spark a willingness to pay more?