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Blogs by Cynthia A. Buhain-Baello
The Book Cover 4/23/2009 4:23:41 AM
Celebrities, media, and society in general have conditioned our minds to view a person by his outward appearance, or his "book cover". The contents are rarely assessed correctly and the person is accepted if he/she has good looks, wealth, fantastic figure, or magnetic appeal. The phenomenon of Susan Boyle is hinged on the surprise she pulled on everybody that behind her ordinary looks was a fantastic voice. It brought house down, because initially people did not think she had anything in her they could consider "celebrity material".
I remember an experience I had, similar to this, when I was an assistant floor manager at Rustan's Department Store, a ritzy rich, classy specialty store that catered to wealthy tourists and the upper echelon of our moneyed society in the Philippines. This store carried the original brands of Europe's most expensive perfumes, jewelry, clothing lines, and expensive Swiss-made watches known all over the world.
Name the high class brand, the store has it. All original.
Our textile merchandise came from Italy and Switzerland, and the best selling ones were the Swiss embroidered organza
used for evening gowns.
Our customers usually came opulently dressed, getting off from their Mercedes Benz or Ferrari, and have security escorts as they toured the store. We know the VIP's and always gave them meticulous attention in their shopping. That's part of good selling and effective marketing, you see.
Well, one day an old lady came in. She was dressed ordinarily and had on old lady's slippers, the ones that are padded and embroidered with tiny beads, like those from China. She had no make-up, just a pair of gold earrings, and a purse. And she had no security escorts.
Because my staff were negatively inclined to attend to her,
I did. She silently viewed our textile merchandise, asking for the price, the kind of material, and the place where it came from. It took about an hour to attend to her, and I was wondering if she will indeed buy anything at all. To my surprise, she did buy, a lot! She bought several yards of the most expensive gown materials and she paid in cash!
No check to endorse or guarantee, plain solid cold cash!
I had the biggest sale of my life from that lady, and later,
my fellow manager told me she was the mother of the biggest landowner in one of our provinces, an owner of vast tracks
of land, sugarcane land, and she was Mrs.(XYZ). The name alone made my knees buckle down, because she was rich beyond the wealth of our ordinarily "rich" customers!!!
And she dressed up so simply, one felt humbled by it all.
I never again judged a person by the looks, and the event
with Susan Boyle tells me it is always the opposite of what we think. The "book cover" does not tell the whole story.
