The Sales Associate | Maria Nikolova
It is an early Monday morning, and Maria Nikolova is working with customers on the cash register. The pandemic has led to lots of restrictions in retail operations. So, Maria’s store does not allow customers inside, and instead, they are served at the entrance.
Maria is a sales associate at a big sports retail store. She is a part of the mountain team that specializes in sports like climbing, hiking, winter sports, fishing, and cycling. As part of her training, Maria was educated on each item of equipment and which customer the item is suitable for. “For us, it is not the most important to sell the most expensive product, it is important to sell the product that best suits the needs of the specific customer.”
A customer comes, and he is looking for equipment as he will be climbing a peak. Maria greets him energetically with what seems like a big smile under her mask. “My work is with different questions to find what is the most suitable equipment for him,” says Maria. She asks multiple questions such as which peak he will be climbing, what is his experience, how long will he spend on the mountain, and many others as she tries to understand her customer better.
Maria makes a list of the necessary equipment such as shoes, thermal underwear, a jacket, and trousers. She also writes down the customer’s price range and the level of intensity of the task. She goes inside the store and begins to pull out goods. She brings 3 jackets to her customer — a black, a gray, and a red one. “As you will be climbing Musala (Bulgaria’s highest peak) I recommend you the red one as in case of an accident, the red jacket will improve your chances of being found.” After about 40 minutes the customer now has all of his equipment.
“I feel good doing it because I work with people. I am a very communicative person, and every day I speak with many different people. This helps me to understand myself better but also to understand different people better,” says Maria. “I think this can help me a lot in the future with my work with people because what I have learned is that every person needs an individual approach. This is also something that I have learned during my studies.”
Maria is a recent graduate with a major in Geography and Pedagogy. As the pandemic made it difficult for her to find a job as a geography teacher she began her job in retail. Still, she currently also gives private lessons to a girl preparing for state exams. “Here again the individual approach is very important for teaching as well because every person perceives things differently.”
Even though Maria did not expect to end up in retail she still highly values her current job. “When I was little, I lived in a neighborhood which didn’t have any children with whom I could play with, so I loved to play at home. I used to hang up my mother’s clothes in different places around the house, and I would play being a seller. This was one of my favorite childhood games, and after I started working at this position, I realized that something that I used to play as when I was a child and I took as something so wow, now I am actually doing that.”
Maria shares that another reason why she loves the job is that she has always loved to be active. In the last few years, she has developed a passion for sports like snowboarding and hiking and has climbed 3 peaks so far. She thinks that this job has helped her to further gain knowledge of the sports that she loves.
“As a person who loves the mountains and in the last 3 years, I have spent even more time in the mountains, I personally didn’t know that there could be so much more to know about the equipment… There is always something new, and things are always changing, so at the job, we need to also be constantly learning.”
