Smile Often

What distinguishes a flirtatious leer from a gracious smile might differ among cultures, but across cultures, a gracious smile helps you achieve your retail business goals. Since today is Nelson Mandela’s 92nd birthday, I’ll first illustrate that point by recalling a snippet of dialogue from the Academy Award-nominated 2009 movie “Invictus.”
     The movie’s story line is of South African president Mandela guiding his nation’s citizens toward reconciliation after the long pain of apartheid. In one scene, President Mandela’s aide is giving instructions to the security detail who will guard the president’s safety at a rugby match where many white participants are likely to hate the new president. The aide instructs the security detail to maintain smiles, saying it is important to smile at the people you are asking to move.
     Retailer, you’re asking people to move in their thinking and their behavior. So smile often when greeting customers. And smile often when building teamwork with your employees. Yes, there are retailing situations in which a smile is all wrong: When a customer is distraught, and a smile would make you look uncaring. When you’re delivering corrective discipline to a staff member, and a smile would make what you’re saying seem unimportant. Or when a prolonged smile threatens to make you look simply dopey.
     Researchers at University of California-San Diego, University of Michigan, and University of Wisconsin-Madison offered thirsty study participants a serving of a beverage. Along with this, some of the participants were exposed to a brief image of a frowning face and some to a brief image of a smiling face. The exposure was so brief that any notice of the emotion would almost surely be subconscious. In addition, the exposure of the emotion-laden face occurred along with the person being shown an emotionally neutral face for a long enough time to be consciously perceived.
     The thirsty people shown the smiling face didn’t report feeling much different from those shown the frowning face. However, those shown the smiling face poured more beverage from the pitcher into their cup, drank more from their cup, and were willing to pay about twice as much for the beverage. A smile—even one so brief as to have no conscious effect—made for more motivated consumers.

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