ColumnistsFeb 04, 2026
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Peter Smith: Happiness, Cavemen, and Jewelry Sales
Smith encourages salespeople to ask customers questions that elicit the release of oxytocin, the brain’s “feel-good” chemical.
Peter Smith is an industry consultant, speaker, sales trainer, and author. He can be reached via email at TheRetailSmiths@gmail.com.
When everyone prattles on about how retail is going online, or how brick stores are yesterday’s news, they’re missing some important information that doesn’t always lend itself to bumper stickers or lazy one-liners.
In fact, it might even require the doomsday merchants to a pick up a book every once in a while and read it.
I do that a lot—read books, that is—as a lifelong commitment to over-compensating for poor decision-making in my youth. But that’s another story for another day.
In any case, while the psychology of human connection is rich with evidence about why people meeting people—even strangers—is good for our mental and physical health, something I read in a book last week put an exclamation point on things, and I wanted to share it with you.
The book, written by Ben Rein, a neuroscientist and lecturer at Stanford, is called “Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection,” and the comment seems innocuous enough until it is put it into the context of our business and what we do.
Rein writes, “People in happy, loving relationships have higher oxytocin levels. When they think about their partner, brain areas that express oxytocin receptors light up.”
Think about that for a minute. The science is saying that just thinking about a loved one literally changes the chemical make-up of our brains.
That information may intuitively feel right, but we now have scientific proof that it is true.
Related stories will be right here …
In fact, it might even require the doomsday merchants to a pick up a book every once in a while and read it.
I do that a lot—read books, that is—as a lifelong commitment to over-compensating for poor decision-making in my youth. But that’s another story for another day.
In any case, while the psychology of human connection is rich with evidence about why people meeting people—even strangers—is good for our mental and physical health, something I read in a book last week put an exclamation point on things, and I wanted to share it with you.
The book, written by Ben Rein, a neuroscientist and lecturer at Stanford, is called “Why Brains Need Friends: The Neuroscience of Social Connection,” and the comment seems innocuous enough until it is put it into the context of our business and what we do.
Rein writes, “People in happy, loving relationships have higher oxytocin levels. When they think about their partner, brain areas that express oxytocin receptors light up.”
Think about that for a minute. The science is saying that just thinking about a loved one literally changes the chemical make-up of our brains.
That information may intuitively feel right, but we now have scientific proof that it is true.
So, tell me again how throwing product information and well-meaning platitudes at customers makes sense when we engage them in retail stores?
We so often see salespeople equip themselves with more product knowledge than you can shake a stick at.
Able and ready to wax poetic about crown angles, refractive index, and culets, telling customers where a piece was made, and what the alloy composition is.
Product information is nice to have, but it should be viewed like alcohol and ice cream—best consumed in small doses and with extreme caution (Sauvignon Blanc and mint chocolate chip, if you must know).
If you want to fundamentally change the nature of a conversation and ensure your customer’s brain chemistry works for them and with you, ask them to tell you about their loved one.
Ask him how they met. Ask her what she loves most about her partner.
Our brains were evolutionarily wired to respond to engagement and storytelling. It’s literally how we survived.
“Hey Thog (an AI-verified classic caveman name), have you noticed the mastodons hanging around the river lately?”
“I have not, Drokk, (AI-verified, again) thanks for the heads up!”
Now imagine if Thog and Drokk had decided instead to chat about alluvial diamond deposits or the nature (pun intended) of lab-grown diamonds. “Hey Drokk, what’s a lab?”
Exactly. Mastodon eats Drokk and Thog, while the former is preaching about stuff nobody cares about, and there’s no you today.
Ask your customer about things that matter to them. There’s nothing that matters more to a customer than the person they love.
Just thinking about them ignites a rush of oxytocin, the feel good chemical, in our brains.
For now, I’ve got to take myself off to Starbucks for a peppermint mocha latte, no whipped cream, for my love, lest she wakes up and goes all mastodon on me for slacking.
Happy retailing!
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