Back in the eighties, (no, not the eighteen-eighties, smart alec!) when men were men and women wore shoulder pads, I went to work, after fifteen years as a stay-at-home mom, as a salesperson at a high-end furniture and design store in Northwest Oklahoma City. "High-end" meant that most of the furniture was expensive and the customers who came in to buy it were on the expensive side too. And sophisticated.
My mom-clothes were a little less than sophisticated though, so my friend, Fran came to my rescue once again. We went through her closet and she gave me a lot of her things and I adapted some of my clothes in various ways. Did you know you can buy shoulder pads separately and move them in and out of different clothes for a sophisticated look?
My boss, I later learned, had hired me not only because of my---ahem---great sales ability but because he was impressed by my obvious sophistication: I had worn a business suit to the interview (Fran's). It had shoulder pads. I later found out that he almost always hired anyone who came to an interview wearing a business suit. There was, however, one little detail I neglected to mention to him at the time. I barely knew the difference between a lounge chair and a lawn chair.
My first day, my first customer: " I'm interested in seeing some wing chairs with cabriole legs." Me, sophisticatedly: "Certainly, right this way." I let her go first. When she stopped at a chair with curvy legs I figured maybe that was it so I showed her all the other chairs with curvy legs and when she found one she liked I sold it to her. Hey, I might not have known furniture but I did know how to sell!
One key factor in selling is to establish rapport with your customer and maintain eye contact. In a furniture store that means when they sit on a sofa or chair you sit down also, when they stand you stand. You do so in an elegant fashion There are a lot of ups and downs. The exception to this is mattresses. Of course they have to lie down on the mattress to try it out but this is not the time to lie down with them and take a nap. That is not sophisticated. To keep myself awake when the customer was lying there I would hop up onto the mattress in a sophisticated manner (Stop rolling your eyes!. It was twenty years and forty pounds ago. I could hop back then) and walk elegantly back and forth. Mrs. Jones did not roll over toward me or bounce up and down. She could imagine that portly ol' Mr. Jones could flop back and forth trying to get his nose to drain on both sides all night long and maybe she could still get a decent night sleep. Sold! After the first time I did this I decided to ditch the business suit with skirt and make sophisticated pants suits my everyday uniform. With shoulder pads.
I was particularly grateful to be wearing pants the day my customer stopped in Children's Furniture to look at bunk beds. Bunk beds don't have box springs. They have something called a Bunkie board and if someone, like the kid whose job it is to move furniture around, neglects to put the Bunkie board under the mattress and someone sits down on that mattress, CRASH! the mattress will tip and that someone will be down inside the bed frame with both her legs sticking up and her arms twisted under her and her rear end stuck between the slats. The sophistication meter would be decidedly low. It would take both the customer and the kid who moved furniture around to pull me, I mean, that someone, out. I don't think that customer bought the bunk beds. I kind of think he was exhausted after that and said he'd send his wife back in.
In spite of my bed hopping--does that sound right?--I always maintained a professional image. Sophisticated customers expect and appreciate that. Imagine my surprise, then, when I was writing a sales ticket one day and felt something sliding down my arm. I looked down just as my shoulder pad fell out of my sleeve onto the counter coming to a stop right in front of the customer. I didn't recall anything in The Sophisticate's Guide to the Universe handbook for this particular situation. It was past the point of pretending not to see it. It lay there looking like a gelatinous lump of mashed potatoes in a satin case. What else was there to do? I picked it up, pinkie finger extended in an elegant manner and slid it into my pocket. Then I hunched my shoulder up to compensate for the loss on that side and said "What day would you like this delivered?"
Sophistication just comes naturally so some people, I guess. With or without shoulder pads.
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