Master of the upsell

In Brazil there are some excellent (retail) sales people. If you go shopping for shoes, you will learn this immediately. I have gone shoe shopping more than a couple times...naturally! Firstly since I pared down my "To Pack" pile of shoes from 32 to 20 when I left NYC (yes, seriously - and have regretted this rash downsizing every single day since) and quickly realized I needed to re-stock my options when I got here. But also, there are some great shoes here and they are somewhat affordable (see Mythbusting post from last week). But, back to the shoes… Great shoes (as if I needed an excuse).

So, when you go shopping for shoes, if you ask to try on a certain pair, the sales girl will come back with (hopefully) the pair you requested, plus about 10 additional boxes. Really, she has just grabbed every other shoe they have in stock in your size. She will then proceed to open each and every box and showcase each new pair to you. This one? (as she tries to put it on your foot). No, how about this one? It’s actually less aggressive than it sounds writing it but its assertive enough that you usually end up trying on at least a few additional pairs and you eventually have to guide them back to the pair you actually wanted in the first place. Though let's face it, its shoes we're talking about here so they are often successful in this methodical upsell. If they do not in fact find a suitable additional pair of shoes for you, there are usually an array of belts, handbags and other items that she can waylay you with on your way to the cash register. I might add that since very few people speak English here (also covered in Mythbusting post), this is all done quite effectively even with the language barrier. It involves the usual - lots of one word exchanges, waving, gesturing, smiling etc. At first this drove me nuts but now that I know the drill, whenever I want to purchase something, I have come to expect it and now find it rather entertaining. The sales girls are good at it, so I may as well just let them do their good work and sell me yet another cute pair of heels. I mean!

But, to take this on a work related note, I have also been a bit baffled by this. I cannot figure out how the retail sales people can be so good at the upsell but we cannot get our partners to add on any kind of our business intelligence software to their sales, literally to save their lives (and frustratingly, my primary mission while working here in Brazil). Apparently, this skill is reserved for the cute young retail bunnies. Maybe I should bring one these cuties to my next partner meeting (preferably in casual Friday get up), maybe I'll actually get somewhere. Since we all know that sex is the only thing that really sells.