Some believe luxury is fancy clothes, first class hotels and fast cars. Others see luxury as time to follow a passion or the chance to sit with friends and share a dab.
Smoke shops aren’t in the business of selling Bentley’s. There are some baller-worthy vapes out there made from white gold and encrusted with diamonds, but it’s likely those aren’t aimed at your customers. In most smoke shops, the fanciest smoking devices bring a few hundred dollars. And for the customers who are buying those top-shelf products, it feels like making an investment.
The reality is that luxury is a perception — each person’s view of luxury is different from the next. If it feels like luxury to them, then it is. One of the most valuable lessons you can learn from people selling luxury goods is to make a connection with the buyer and ensure that for them it’s a personal experience.
Connect with the Customer. This is where the entire experience begins. Your salespeople need to engage the customer in a genuine, meaningful way. That means seeing things from their point of view, listening to their wants and needs, and deriving genuine joy in selling them quality products. Your salespeople need to be counselors and psychologists, sometimes all at once, which makes them trusted advisors.
Connect the Customer to the Product. A big part of the experience for the customer is having someone relate the product to their specific wants and needs. Your goal is to make the buying decision an emotional response instead of a logical cost calculation. Not every customer is the same, so you’ll need to shape your pitch to their individual personality styles. That means cut it down so “Drivers” quickly see why it’s the best, stretch it out with reams of information so “Analyticals” know how it’s the best. “Expressives” want you to explain its uniqueness, and “Amiables” want to know how popular it is and which celebrities have endorsed it.
Connect the Product to Additional Value. Selling a single product is, by and large, a waste of much of the effort that goes into turning a shopper into a buyer. It takes so much effort, don’t squander the opportunity by only selling one item. Look for ways to suggestively sell additional items that can add value to the original purchase. These complementary items help increase your per-ticket sale, but more importantly, it gives your customers a more useful product — and turns a luxury into a necessity.
