Opinion: Passion sells
Recently I was out to dinner with some good friends. We’d happened upon a rather well regarded restaurant in Sydney, Red Lantern, and were lucky enough to get a table, just walking in off the street (places like this, that never happens). Settling down to order, the general consensus is none of us were that hungry, and we’d simply order a few entrees to share, a few mains to share, and that’d be that.
Then something happened - our waiter introduced herself.
She was one of those people in the service industry that you wish there was more of. She was smart, friendly, helpful and knew her stuff back to front. She quickly told us her recommendation was to ignore this whole idea of sharing dishes and go the banquet option. This option was way above what we had anticipated spending and at first the idea was dismissed.
She persisted. She told us about how great all the dishes were. She explained the particular way they are cooked, the influence of one region of Thailand on a dish, the influence of another. She knew her product, and she loved it, she told us which are her favorites, and based upon our preferences, which ones we’d like best. She convinced us. Soon we’d ordered the banquet option and a conveyor belt of delicious food in rather perfectly sized portions ran past us for the next 3 hours.
We ended up being the last to leave the restaurant, thanking the waiter profusely, and leaving a rather stupidly large tip. But we were happy. Very happy.
It reminded me of another essential lesson for people in our industry. It’s not simply a job. It isn’t even a career. To truly do well in design, of any persuasion (perhaps any industry, but I can’t comment), it needs to be more than just a pay check. Not only will being passionate get you to work each day ready and willing to push yourself to do better, the importance of your passion in the all important task of selling you work, can’t be under-estimated.
I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve heard someone say ‘I was a bit unsure but he/she seemed so passionate and really believed in it’. It’s remarkable what getting a little bit fired up over something can help you to achieve.
Thanks must go to Belinda for suggesting the experience would make a good blog post.
