Ep 4 - The Shopping Mistake That's Costing Women Thousands

In this episode, I'm tackling a mistake I see women make over and over again: relying on sales assistants to tell them what they should wear.

I spent 10 years working in retail, so I understand exactly how the industry works. This isn't about criticising sales assistants. It's about understanding the difference between being sold a product and being styled with intention.

Because the truth is, if you don't know who you are style-wise, someone else will decide for you.

And that's how wardrobes become expensive collections of mistakes.

This episode is for you if...
You've ever bought something because the sales assistant said it looked good, only to get home and wonder what you were thinking. If you're tired of wasting money on clothes that don't quite work, or you're ready to shop with more confidence and intention, this episode is for you.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Why sales assistants and personal stylists have completely different roles

• The DM that sparked this entire episode

• Why "everyone is wearing it" is never a good enough reason to buy something

• What sales assistants are actually trained to do

• The difference between selling products and styling people

• Why most women end up with clothes they never wear

• The questions a personal stylist asks that a sales assistant never will

• Why shopping without clarity is costing you money

• The importance of knowing your personal style before entering a store

• How to stop being sold to and start shopping intentionally

• Why your style should evolve as you evolve

• The real secret to creating a wardrobe that actually works

Episode Chapters

00:00 The Barrel Jeans DM That Sparked This Episode

02:00 Why Sales Assistants Are Not Personal Stylists

03:45 My Retail Background & Why This Isn't a Criticism

05:15 The Difference Between Selling and Styling

06:30 Why Sales Assistants Don't Know You

08:15 Why Most Women End Up Disappointed With Their Purchases

09:30 What Sales Assistants Are Actually Trained To Do

11:30 The Barrel Jeans Example Explained

13:00 Fast Fashion vs Premium Retail Experiences

15:00 Why You Should Be Leading The Shopping Conversation

16:15 Stop Letting Other People Decide Who You Are

17:15 The Client Who Still Uses Her Style Book

18:00 Why Clarity Changes Everything

18:45 The Bigger Question: Who Are You Now?

19:30 Final Thoughts

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Free Resource
If you've ever looked at your wardrobe and felt like something isn't quite working - but you can't put your finger on what it is - I've created a free guide to help.

Download my free guide:

The 6 Style Mistakes That Are Diluting Your Personal Brand and Keeping You From Being Seen at Your Next Level.

👉 www.janemow.com/mistakes

Connect with Jane
Instagram: @janemowstylist 

LinkedIn: Jane Mow

Website: www.janemow.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every day, women hand over hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars based on the opinion of someone who's never met them before, actually physically met them, doesn't know them from a bar of soap. By the way, that's an Aussie slang, doesn't know their goals, doesn't know their personal brand, and has a sales target to hit. Today we're talking about why that needs to stop. Aloha! Welcome to the Jane Mo Show, the go-to podcast for women who are ready to feel good in what they wear and show up confident, powerful, and ready to dominate. I'm Jane Mo, personal brain stylist, style coach, and trusted image consultant for ambitious women worldwide. With nearly two decades of experience styling women across Australia, the US, and Europe, I help my clients translate their identity into their wardrobe so that they show up with credibility, confidence, and commanding presence. What you wear is more than just clothes. What you wear is your business card. It's how you make your mark, command attention, and leave an unforgettable impression. Each week I'll be bringing real-life insights and practical advice to help you elevate the way you show up. And if you're feeling disconnected from how you're showing up and can't quite articulate exactly what's not working, be sure to grab my free guide, the six style mistakes that are diluting your personal brand and keeping you from being seen at your next level. Head over to the link in the show notes below or visit janemo.com forward slash mistakes to grab your copy. Let's get started with today's episode. So I uh literally just recorded this episode as a voice note to myself. I had to go on a bit of a uh a Jane Mo rant, which previously we've had to do on Instagram stories, but now it's going to live on this podcast. Yes. So anyway, I uh received an Instagram DM from one of my past clients and uh a follower. So she follows me on Instagram and um and has worked with me before. Anyway, she went into a shop and she bought herself a pair of barrel jeans and wanted my opinion. Now, if you know the trend, you know that beryl jeans are in at the moment. Anyway, she messaged me and this is what she said. She said, Hey Jane, I have a question regarding beryl jeans and boots. The lady at the shop told me most people, she said in quotation marks, she said most people wear their beryl jeans with ankle boots, but I don't trust her. What are your thoughts? Now, I looked at the photo in the DM and I was very, very clear that this client, this past client, was sold to. First of all, the pants with the ankle boots on this particular client didn't quite work. The proportions were all off. And the statement that was made by the sales assistant was very general. People are doing this, so you should too. She might as well have said, people are jumping off a bridge, so you should too. Then I thought, you know what? This is exactly why so many women end up with stuff in their wardrobe they don't wear. And if that's you right now, I want you to know we fix this, exactly this, inside the unforgettable style experience. The link is in the show notes. But first, let me explain why this keeps happening. So today I want to talk about the fact that sales assistants are not personal stylists. And I want to go a step further. Sales assistants are not personal brand stylists. Okay, I work in the niche of personal branding when it comes to style. So I'm gonna say sales assistants are not personal brand stylists. And before anybody comes for me, I used to work in retail. I worked for Hugo Boss for 10 years. So this isn't me attacking sales assistants, okay? I was one. I understand how retail works. I understand sales targets, KPIs, weekly budgets, daily sales goals. I understand what happens behind the scenes because I lived it. And because I lived it, I can tell you this. Sales assistants are not personal brand stylists. Okay? They were never designed to be. Now, don't get me wrong, there are some incredible sales assistants out there. Some are absolutely phenomenal, some genuinely care. Some have amazing product knowledge, and some build incredible relationships with their customers, like genuinely build amazing relationships with their customers. But their primary role is to sell the product inside the store. Hence the job title, sales assistant, sales. That's their job. At the end of the day, they have targets. The store has targets, management has targets, the business has targets, and those targets need to be hit. That's how our business stays alive. Now I'm not saying they're trying to manipulate you, I'm not saying they're bad people. I'm saying the lens they're looking through is completely different from the lens of a personal stylist or a personal brain stylist. Okay, it's a different lens from what we're looking through because a stylist is looking at you, a sales assistant is looking at the product. They're thinking, what do I have available? Okay, when you're walking to a shop and they're sizing you up, they're going, hmm, what just arrived? What needs to move? What stock do we have? What what can I show this customer? A personal brand stylist is thinking, who is this woman? What does she stand for? What's her personality? What's already in a wardrobe? What's her body shape? What's her lifestyle? What's her personal brand? What's her goals? They're two completely different conversations. So let me break down why this keeps happening and why it keeps costing you. Point one. The sales assistant doesn't know you. They don't know your life. They don't know your goals. They don't know your personality. Or if you go in from time to time, they're only getting snippets of you. They don't know your personal brand. They don't know whether you're trying to become CEO or you're in the midst of building a business, or you're speaking on stages, or you're wanting to speak on stages, you're aiming for a promotion, or you're stepping into leadership. They don't know any of that. They don't know what's already sitting in your wardrobe. They don't know what you've bought in the past, what hasn't worked, what's worked. They don't know what you've worn to death. They don't know what you've bought and never worn. And yet every day, women walk into stores expecting somebody they've never met, does not know them, to somehow magically know exactly what they should wear. And that's a lot of pressure to put on someone who you've known for five minutes. And it's why so many women end up disappointed. Because they buy something, get home, they put it on again, get in front of the mirror, and think, oh my God, this doesn't feel like me. And that's exactly what I said to this past client. When she sent me that DM, I said, forget what the sales assistant told you. The real question is, would you wear barrel jeans with ankle boots? Is that your style? Because someone can say people are doing this all day long, but are you those people? No, you are you. And that's a question only you can answer, not the sales assistant, not the influencer you follow on Instagram, not the trend report, you, okay? Now, point two, most sales assistants are not trained to ask the right questions. Now, before somebody from Hugo Boss messages me, this was my experience, okay? And if things have changed since I left, fantastic. But when I worked there, I spent most of my time in menswear. I went in between menswear and women's wear, but majority of my time I spent in menswear. I'm very passionate about menswear. Hence why you see my female clients always with beautiful suits and incredible tailoring, because I learned all that in menswear. Anyway, I spent most of my time at Hugo Boss in menswear, and the training in menswear was completely different from women's wear. Now, in menswear, we learned body shapes. We learned about fit, we learned about tailoring, how different cuts worked on different men. Because men's tailoring is very technical. You had to know your stuff. You couldn't just go and bring out any suit for any guy. You had to understand proportions, shoulders, thighs, chest measurements, body structure, muscle distribution. You had to understand how garments were designed to fit. But when it came to woman's wear, I honestly don't remember being trained on body shape in the same way. We were trained on product, we were trained on fabric, care instructions, we were trained on the collection itself, the season, the story behind the range, showing beautiful pictures coming off the runway. So not only were we not trained on body shapes, but nobody was teaching us on how to deeply understand a woman's personal style or her goals or how she wanted to be perceived. Nobody was teaching us to ask the customer, how do you want to feel? How do you want to show up? What's your personal brand? What image are you trying to create? Okay. No one was teaching us to ask the question, what's your signature style? Those questions weren't being asked. And that's because sales assistants are not trained to be stylists, they're trained to sell products. And here's a perfect example of what I mean. When I replied to that DM to my past client, I didn't just say yes or no to the ankle boots. I looked at the photo she sent me and I thought about her height from what I could remember. Now we were together, I think, four years ago, maybe yeah, four or five years ago, I want to say. I could remember her being a petite size. So I thought about her height, the hem of the jeans and where it was ending on her leg, the block colour at the bottom of the outfit that she was showing me, the navy jeans, the dark boots, it was all merging together. And what she actually needed was to show a little bit of ankle, a little bit of skin to break up the proportion. Or try an ankle boot with a different heel to elongate the leg. That's what a stylist thinks about. Not just, do people wear barrel jeans with ankle boots? Right? That's very general. What we think about is does this work on this woman's body with this proportion for this person's style? That level of thinking is not what happens on a shop floor. It's not meant to. And it's exactly why you cannot rely on a sales assistant to make these decisions for you. Point three, every brand is different. Now, I'm not talking about sizing here. I'm talking about the level of customer service. Okay, the level of service you receive is going to vary massively depending on where you're shopping. If you walk into a fast fashion store, a mass market store, look around. There are racks everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of products, customers everywhere, sales assistants running around trying to help multiple people at once. There is no time to build a personal relationship with the customer. There isn't time to sit down and deeply understand who you are, right? Now we can all relate to this because we've been in one of these stores, right? And we get really annoyed when no one pays attention to us. Now, compare that experience to when you walk into a premium or luxury store. Now, at Pigo Boss, I had a little black book. I would write everything down, what clients bought, what they liked, what they didn't like. If I remembered a story they told me about a promotion that they were going for, or, you know, something that was very specific to them, I would write all that down. You know, I would write down what colors they wore, what cuts suited them, if they fitted something that season, I would know exactly it and sort of kind of work out what their body shape was telling me. And if something arrived that I knew would suit them, I'd call them. I'd put sizes aside. I'd let them know it was in the store. And that's a completely different experience. So the higher you move up the chain when it comes to brands, the more personalized the service often becomes. Not because the people are better, but because the business model of that brand allows more time for relationship building. Hence why the price tag is premium. You're not only paying for the premium product, you're also paying for a premium experience. But here's the thing, and this is the most important point of the entire episode. Whether you're shopping at Zara, Aritzia, N Taylor, Country Road if you're in Australia, Hugo Boss, Dior, or anywhere in between, you, my friend, you should be leading the conversation, not them. Not the sales assistant. You should be walking into the store saying, This is my style, this is how I want to be perceived. This is my personal brand. This is what suits me. This is my mood board. This is what I'm looking for. Have you got anything that aligns with this? That's how shopping should work. You shouldn't be walking in hoping someone else tells you who you are. Because if you don't know who you are style-wise, someone else will decide that for you. And that's how wardrobes and closets become expensive collections of mistakes. That's how clothes end up sitting in your wardrobe with tags on them. That's how women waste thousands of dollars because they're constantly being sold to instead of shopping intentionally. One of my clients said something to me recently that made me smile. She had come through the unforgettable style experience last year, and she said, Jane, I still use my brand style book every time I go shopping. Every single time. Because she now has a filter. She knows what belongs in her wardrobe, right? And what doesn't. She knows what aligns and what doesn't. She knows what feels like her and what doesn't feel like her. And that's the work we do inside the unforgettable style experience. Because the goal is not to create a wardrobe full of random clothes. The goal is to create clarity. The goal is to create confidence. The goal is to help you become the woman who walks into a store, knows exactly what she's looking for. Instead of being convinced into buying something because somebody was really nice to you. Honestly, the amount of women who say, Oh my god, the sales assistant was so lovely, I just had to buy something. Are you serious? You mean your bank account is now being controlled by somebody smiling at you? Like, what the hell? No! We need to stop doing that. We need to stop wasting money. We need to stop buying things because somebody else thinks we should. And start buying things because we know what belong in our wardrobe. Because at the end of the day, the sales assistant doesn't know who you are. You do. The sales assistant doesn't know your goals. You do. The sales assistant doesn't know your personality. You do. The sales assistant doesn't know your personal brand. You do. So stop handing over the responsibility. Start owning it, my friend. Okay? And here's the deeper question underneath all of this. It's not just do these genes work? It's who are you now? What does the 2026 version of you look like? What is she stepping into? What does she stand for? How does she want to show up? Because your style needs to evolve as you evolve. And if you're still shopping like you did three years ago, you're dressing a version of yourself that no longer exists. That's the real work. Not just finding the right outfit, but understanding who you are right now in this season and making sure the way you show up actually reflects that. Because when you know exactly who you are and how you want to show up, shopping becomes easier, faster, more intentional, and a whole lot cheaper. And that, my friend, is the difference between having a wardrobe full of clothes and having a wardrobe that actually works. If you're ready to get that level of clarity, check out the Unforgettable Style Experience. The link is in the show notes. Or you can head over to janemo.com forward slash workshop. I'll see you in the next episode.