View Of The World

I peeped round the corner of the curtain and was absolutely delighted that I could, for the first morning out of 3, see to the bottom of my garden. My delight was due to the fact that I was driving all the way to Ipswich that morning.

When I crossed the A1 onto the A14 it was as if that same curtain had been pulled down instantly. I hit a wall of dense, thick, freezing fog. A little further on and it cleared, by the time it got daylight I experienced periods of dazzling beautiful sunshine followed by periods of seeing nothing, apart from swirling mist and fog.

The result was that I spent most of my journey alternating between glasses and sunglasses as I bobbed my way along to my destination.

Disaster struck when I got out of the car in Ipswich – in my ease to swop over glasses so often I decided to leave them on my lap. I had left them on my lap and they promptly fell to the floor – one of the lenses came out and the clear wire holding the lens had snapped. I fumbled around and found the lens.

My delegates thought it highly amusing, I thought myself highly resourceful to stick the lens back in with Blue tak. I was nicknamed Jack D for the remainder of the day!

Each day I kept trying to get to get to the opticians but it didn’t happen. Yet Monday gave me a perfect solution to my glasses situation. A learning event had been organised with some fellow image consultants to allow us to do some personal shopping for each other. The aim was to get some feedback on our own skills as well as to put ourself in our clients shoes and experience what they may feel when someone shops for you.

And so the bemused sales assistant in the opticians watched as four image consultants wandered along the racks picking out glasses and passing them to me to try on. When they had nailed it down to the final four, I rotated them all on and off my nose quickly so they could gauge and judge the best pair.

The good news was that it was a unanimous decision as to which ones to purchase. The bad news is that I have parted with over £200 but can’t really remember what they looked like. Oh well a surprise awaits me when they arrive in the post.

My colleagues followed a rigorous process of analysing - face shape, colours, tones, textures and styles. They gave me their reasons for rejecting some of the glasses. Yet it was all done at such a break neck speed I was left whirling.

We all, I think, experienced trying things on that we would not normally of looked at or chosen, one colleague was very adamant that she was not going to try a gold dress on that we all agreed (except her) was perfect for her.

So the learning from the day – we have a tendency to stick with the things that we know and we like, it’s good to have the boundaries pushed a bit. It’s also very easy for us to work at a pace, yet if we slow down a little we may help ourselves. So a day of good learning for all of us.

Can you put yourself in your client’s shoes - what are they experiencing – what’s their view of the world?