Have you ever walked into Sephora?  I usually get about 4 steps into the store then I feel completely overhwelmed and leave without buying anything to make me look less wrinkly, with longer eye lashes, and pouty lips.  It is a place that has every kind of makeup known to womankind and all the "tools" to go along with it. 

I had to find the perfect shade of lipgloss (or so said my friend Amy) for my TV interview (more on that later).  She said something about what shade of pink makes your teeth look white.  Knowing if it were left up to me wandering around in that store all alone I would SURELY come out with the shade that would make my teeth look yellow.  Having a television interview is nerve wracking enough with out worrying about yellow teeth!

So, in Amy and I go.  Amy approaches the first employee she sees and says, "This is my friend Kelly, she is being interviewed today on TV and she needs some lipgloss to go with her sweater."  I pipe in that we also need my teeth to look white.  (ok, not like I have really yellow teeth...I don't even drink coffee!)  She gets on her microphone, headset, GI Joe, secret service thingy and in no less than 2 seconds we have our escort.  She is all business.  She wants to see the sweater, she wants to know if I feel more comfortable in lipstick or lipgloss, she glances as my complection and she is off like a racehorse.  She zigs, she zags she pulls lipgloss and applies it to her hand.  She looks at me, the sweater and her hand one more time, eliminates 3 of the choices and plops me in the chair for the application.  I kid you not when I tell you this whole process took MAYBE 5 minutes.  She gives me a mini lesson on lipliner.  I assume she took a wild guess just by looking at me and figured I would need this lesson.  She guessed right.  The first one was OK, nothing to get too excited about, but it did match that melon sweater almost exactly.  The next one...ding, ding, ding hit the nail on the head!  I loved it, she loved it and Amy, my super duper cheerleader loved it!  Next purchase, mascara.  "What kind of look do you want, long, curled, thick, heavy?"  I said, "I want long."  She said, "Do you want to be able to feel that it is on?"  "No."  Out of the gate that girl is off again!  Straight to this drawer, "Brown-black or Black?"  "Black"...and that's it, I'm done I'm in line at the register and it all took about 10-15 minutes, if that!

So, to the point of this hellishly long story.  This woman, Nastasha, I believe was her name.  She was the kind of expert we all need to be about our products.  She helped guide me through what normally would be a very overwhelming experience.  She took control after FIRST asking me some questions.  She did not shoot off to her most expensive lip gloss, she did not try to sell me eye serum or perfume.  She took an interest in me and my situation, asked clarifying questions and then pulled out the products and gave me a choice.  As a consutant you need to know your products backward and forward.  You need to ask the right questions.  You need to listen to the answers and you need to give the client a choice.  Some items require another item to make them work properly.  Did I ask for a lipliner?  No.  Was I offended that she offered one, showed me how to use it and explained why it was necessary?  No.  Would I have been upset if I had gotten home without the lipliner and realized that I needed one once it was too late?  You betcha Betty!

So, think about this story, your products and your clients.  Many times they are looking to you to have the knowledge necessary to guide them in the right direction, offer them choices and be sure to show them the other products needed to make their purchase complete.  Don't go crazy on the upsell, cross sell, over sell.  Don't be afraid to show them other choices though.  If you are doing so in the vein of being helpful instead of trying to emtpy their wallet it will come across and you'll be the hero like Nastasha was to me on the day of my big interview!

If you are interested in seeing what all the hype is about go here and check out Julie and my Empowerment System for Mom-Entrepreneurs, our segment will aire in February and I will post a link to it when it happens...let's hope my teeth look white!