Enlightened

Dear Caravaners,

This week I had a fire lit under my ass, and I now have all the motivation I need to carry me through the rest of the year I feel.

There is a customer that resurfaces every so often in our store. He is a regular but an every 6 months or so kind of customer. He is a flight attendant (which I already knew) and stylist to the Elite and the stars (I guess) and we have never really engaged in any kind of long term conversation, other than his trips, until one of our newer artists probed him on his occupation.

We stood and spoke for almost two hours on the counter while he let us in on his real job and how he has worked for the most amazing people in the world.

It was the most inspirational and motivating conversation I had ever had with someone ever and it literally awoke the little dormant day dreamer inside of me again.

I won’t bore you with all the details but there were certain things that stood out for me while we were talking.

"BE YOUR OWN, AUTHENTIC SELF!"

The first thing I learnt was: TO BE YOURSELF. Be your authentic self. No one will appreciate you if you are a carbon copy of someone else. If you stay true to your style, your taste and just plain you (whatever that may be) you will attract the right people. It is literally true when they say “Your Vibe Will Attract Your Tribe”. This quote came to mind at the time and it screams truth. This particular customer is a very androgynous, gay man who loves to wear leather and the colour black. His style is clean, minimal and structured but super trendy – you would swear he works for MAC himself. The point is, is that he is super confident in himself and his style, but when he styles his customers he is super attentive to their personality and dresses and styles them accordingly. The one thing he did say was that, most of his clients always say or ask, how is it that someone dressed like this – styles someone like that and makes them beautiful? His clapback is that THIS is for him and this is HIS style, he is dressing them in what he feels suits THEM best. Remain true to yourself and be confident in in because no one does a better you than YOU.

"DON'T SELL YOURSELF SHORT"

The second thing I learnt was: DON’T SELL YOURSELF SHORT. Be proud and own whatever it is. The minute you lower yourself it sends a message out to everyone that you a walk over or a door mat essentially and that you can be easily persuaded and that’s not the kind of message you want to be sending out. He said it plain and simply “this is my price, this is what I charge and if you can afford me then I can’t help you”. At first it sounded super harsh but the most time I had to take it in, the more I realized that that you are only trying to establish yourself as the best in the business. He said exactly that too by the way. Sell yourself as the best in the business and if you can’t afford me then you must go somewhere else. This is brilliant advice in my mind because not only are you establishing your grounds, you are also suggesting and subliminally dictating to the universe what kind of clientele you want for yourself and that to me is just pure genius.

'"BRANDED" BY THE COWBOY HIMSELF'

The last thing I learnt was: BRANDING. This does sort of tie in with being yourself but this also speaks about your company image. Everyone has a brand image and a certain standard they hold themselves up to. The example he gave us or the point he made rather was this: he is a stylist and personally shops items for his customers. If his customer wants a R7 million Chanel pearl necklace, he then goes and purchases the real deal honey – he doesn’t have time to play games here.

Let’s say now another customer sees this lady wearing that Chanel pearl necklace, and would now like to make use of his services – but can’t afford the R7 million price tag that comes with it, what would be the natural instinct here? To purchase a fake replica right? Let’s say now he does purchase a rip off of the necklace – that’s his image flawed! Word gets out that he only shops fakes and ultimately ruins his reputation as a stylist. If he says “no I only shop for the real deal” and again if you can’t afford that then someone else, who doesn’t care for their reputation, must dress you.

This is just so true and speaks volumes because essentially you are not only selling your brand but you are selling your credibility and if you skimp on that – it can seriously damage your reputation. Something that you have worked so long and hard for can be lost in a split second and then you are going to have to spend extra time rebuilding yourself. All of this comes together to give your customers the ultimate package and if you are selling them anything less than what you are advertising, then you are a fraud essentially and that’s not cool.

I learnt some much from this man and he is so humble, you can sense how hard he has worked to get to where he is today. He is knowledgeable and so interesting to listen to. I have read a lot of articles about this topic, I have seen motivational videos about this but absolutely nothing came close to just having a conversation with this customer and all it took was a two hour conversation.

He gave us each a dollar bill – a real one dollar bill – and said a man told him this when he got his first tip as a flight attendant:

“I want you to keep this and remember this day when you each become successful, remember me when you look at it and remember what I told you when you make your first R100 000, R1 million whatever your bench mark is, this dollar bill is your good luck charm.”

I walked away feeling a million times better about myself, my skill as a makeup artist and also just feeling more motivated to really build and create a brand that is just amazing and awesome and something that will leave a love mark on people. I want The Gypsy Caravan to be a household name, and one day it will be.

The Gypsy was here...