From the Telegraph.co.uk: Meet the most elite assistants in retail

From the Telegraph:

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG8870347/Meet-the-most-elite-assistants-in-retail.html

The Hubby once bought me an Armani jacket and matching pants set.  They were gorgeous (and in a SALE!) and we saw them as once-in-a-lifetime pieces, something you buy once and wear over and over again because they are timeless.  Something to hand down to a daughter or granddaughter.  Something you don't buy twice because you just can't bloody afford it unless you take out a bank loan.

Anyway, this article reminded me of the lady who was assisting us when we bought those pieces.  We just saw her yesterday actually, we went by the Armani store in KLCC to see if she was there, she was and it was amazing that she remembered us.  I know she wasn't pretending because after she'd greeted us, she asked "And how's the jacket?"

I remembered her because of the service that she delivered.  She didn't just sell me a jacket and pants.  She sold me hopes and dreams.  For the jacket, she sold me a dream of looking classically elegant wherever we were.  Okay, actually classically elegant only in somewhere cold because if I were to wear that jacket to an event in KL, I would be dripping in sweat and that's not very elegant is it?

For the pants, she knew what my greatest fashion fear was - my pear-shaped lower half.  Yes, Nature made me into an awesome child-bearing machine with these hips but it also sent me to sartorial doomsland.  She sold me a dream of being slender and tall when she sold us those pants.

This is really what selling is all about, isn't it?  You don't sell the customer toothpaste, you sell him the idea of pristine straight white teeth and a smile so great you'd dazzle all the ladies.  You don't sell him a tv, you sell him bragging rights over his buddies as to who has the largest flat screen in Kepong.  You're not really selling an iPad, you're selling coolness and style.

Isn't this why we pay through our nose for some stuff?  It's because we're not buying STUFF.  We're buying hopes and dreams and there is no price too high for that.  There are some points made by  the retail assistants in the interview that remind me of what I used to encounter in my days when I used to sell something for a living.

I'll remember that the next time I get ker-plonk! back into doing sales.