Former Walmart Merchant Meets Two Centuries of Sales Experience in Morocco: A Masterclass in CX

“Come! Come up upstairs, Abdul. I will show you!”

The Berber man with glasses grabbed me gently by the arm and walked beside me, as is the custom in his culture. He led me up a flight of stairs with my family and our local guide trailing behind. We found ourselves in a giant stone warehouse, inexplicably nestled in the ancient urban medina.

I was walking shoulder to shoulder into the lair of a person who held one of the oldest and most experienced sales pedigrees in the world, the seller of Middle Eastern carpets in the trading capital of antiquity, Tangier.

Mohammed was an older gentleman with light-colored eyes and a well-kempt white beard. His long flowing djellaba swished across the floor, making him look as though he levitated, like the nun from The Blues Brothers. Untold multitudes of rugs of “unlimited” size were displayed on the walls and folded in every nook of the cavernous warehouse, which predated my home country by at least a millennium.

Now, you may have noted that my name is not Abdul, but for some reason, both our tour guide and Mohammed thought the name fitting and comical for me. “Look at your skin! It is darker than mine.” That was just the opening salvo. “Look at this nose, he comes from the hills!” our guide agreed.

As we walked upstairs, Mohammed casually discussed matrimonial options for my 15-year-old daughter with his 17-year-old son, who was in London. We were then escorted to two comfortable couches. My daughter looked a bit alarmed, but I whispered he was only kidding. I was unsure.

We were offered hot mint tea with honey, and Mohammed ordered one of his staff to fetch us the refreshment. It was delicious. Mohammed, having gained some intelligence, then started his pitch.

While many think the art of selling belongs to another era, the same principles still apply today. At its core, modern shopper marketing is about influencing decisions in the moment, getting products off the shelf and into the cart. Mohammed, a 50-year veteran of this craft, wasn’t just selling rugs; he was delivering one of the most immersive sales experiences I’ve ever encountered.

Step 1: Find the Mark

The first tactical decision in pitching is to find your mark. In marketing, we call it a “target audience,” which I always thought to be a bit militaristic, but so be it. The mark, or the “target audience,” is the person you are trying to influence. Mind you, it is not always the buyer, but often the person with the most influence over the decision. While I am generally a gregarious person, he sensed my reticence about the situation. He tried to disarm me with the Abdul schtick and relating to me, but he saw what he thought was a much better target: my wife.

Now, normally, Mohammed would have been spot on in his targeting. After all, many moms on vacation are in the mood to relax and maybe spend a bit on an indulgence. In many American households, women are usually the head of domestic affairs, including such things as décor and flooring decisions. Husbands of said wives are usually, rightfully, deferential to their spouses on these decisions.

What Mohammed didn’t know was that my wife was a former Merchandising Director at Walmart, trained extensively in negotiation. While not cutthroat or unfair, Walmart merchants are renowned for being expert negotiators. My wife was no exception.

My youngest daughter and I sipped our mint tea like it was buttered popcorn at an exciting movie. What would happen? I didn’t want a rug and told my wife this, but you never know. Mohammed was talking to all of us, but he was most squarely talking to my wife. She smiled pleasantly but said little, lulling Mohammed into a sense of false confidence.

This is the first takeaway for customer experience design in a sales context: always try to understand as much as possible about your customer before concocting your sales approach. Consumer research will always give you an advantage.

Step 2: Create Reasons for Reciprocation

We walked in at a disadvantage as we were already in Mohammed’s debt for the delicious mint tea he graciously provided. While normally mint tea is served in a small cup, these cups were monstrous crystal chalices compared to normal Moroccan proportions. Quid pro quo is a very powerful force in persuasion. If you do favors for people for nothing in return, according to social exchange theory, it creates a social imbalance that people try to reset into parity. The more favors one party does for another, the more indebted the other party feels, and to relieve that indebtedness, they may make repayment of the social indebtedness in something else, like buying an expensive carpet.

Shortly into Mohammed’s pitch, a half dozen men dressed plainly in work clothes appeared from the back room. They began rolling out rugs one after another at Mohammed’s command, as he described each in intimate detail, the quality and longevity of materials. They rolled them out in procession, sometimes two at a time, as he stood like a conductor in a Moroccan orchestra, almost dancing around the beautiful carpets, pointing out details rug neophytes would miss.

The half dozen men labored behind him, rolling out one after another in all shapes and sizes. Some were square, some were rectangular, some were long, and some were round.

“Oval,” he said, suddenly very seriously, “Oval is not possible.” Mohammed wagged his finger at us, as if the whole idea was haram.

As Mohammed continued to talk, the men struggled to move the heavy rugs across the floor. While his assistants didn’t complain, it was obviously hard work. Mohammed directed them in a stern but professional way that suggested he was a strict manager who didn’t tolerate mistakes.

My wife looked at me for support as I snapped a photo of the demonstration and smiled back at her.

“Don’t crack!” I advised.

She looked back at me and shook her head slightly as Mohammed continued the cavalcade of rugs. We were not only indebted to Mohammed now, but to Mohammed’s toiling workers as well. Will they be punished for us not buying a rug? Did they just waste their time on us?

“But I feel so bad,” she whispered.

This feeling of indebtedness is the core of Robert Cialdini’s principle of reciprocity. Things like trials, demonstrations, and free samples all help activate this psychological trigger in humans, something seemingly in short supply in high velocity, high volume, low touch e-commerce today.

Step 3: The Turn

Now, at some point, you must move from the exposition phase to the close, sometimes known as the turn. Mohammed was watching her reactions closely during his rug blitzkrieg earlier to determine the short list. Did she lean forward? Did she smile? Any seasoned poker player knows nonverbals can give you away, especially the ones you might not even be aware of.

“So, tell me. Which ones do you like?”

She knew that this was the beginning of the foot-in-the-door technique, also known as successive approximations. That is, you ask for a small favor that then can be leveraged repetitively into larger favors, eventually leading to a sale. This approach is extremely powerful in personal selling. “Gamification” is the most modern form of this approach to the path to purchase, such as putting an insignificant down payment on a product or something as small as sharing an email address or phone number.

“Well, they are all so nice, I liked all of them!” my wife tried politely but evasively.

Mohammed was having none of it.

“Ok, I will teach you two words in Arabic. The first is ‘uħibb,’ which means you like it, and ‘ya’khudh,’ which means discard it or get rid of it. He motioned in a flourish. I am going to show you some rugs, and you tell me ‘uħibb’ or ‘ya’khudh,’ okay? Okay!”

Mohammed didn’t wait for an answer and snapped his fingers at one of his men, who rolled out another carpet he thought was on my wife’s short list, again carefully studying her eyes.

My wife acquiesced a bit and started, very briefly, to play along. Mohammed showed her a rug.

“uħibb, I guess. That one is very beautiful.”

This motivated Mohammed, and he smiled broadly as if he had just seen a small nugget of gold among what was, until then, just rocks in his pan. He converted her, ever so slightly, to providing some small form of preference; he now held a small string from which he could pull further.

“You like this style better! I knew it! Such good taste! I knew you were an artist!” he exclaimed in delight as he came over to touch my arm and smile at my daughter.

Step 4: Compliments and Commonality

As a species, we are suckers for compliments. We seek validation and affirmation. When someone says you are pretty or smart, you like it even if you know it is not genuine. Self enhancement bias is our tendency to naturally like information that confirms we are competitive, attractive, or smart. Not only that, but we also tend to like the person who provides that information. Robert Cialdini calls this the “liking principle.” Mohammed was a grand master at conveying seemingly genuine and believable compliments.

Another tactic Mohammed was adept at was leveraging similar-to-me bias. Now you wouldn’t think that a 70-something-year-old Berber carpet salesman from Tangier would hold much in common with my 40-something, highly educated, latte-loving wife who lives in Arkansas, but Mohammed did his best to reduce this social distance. He related his experience raising his young son as a parent, the same son he tried to matchmake with my daughter.

Later, he found out that my wife was also in sales. This was his in. Upon finding this out, he winked at her Kris Kringle style, like they were in some secret society of which they both were privileged and elite members.

“Abdul, you are blessed, you have been given a gift,” he exclaimed, pointing to my spouse. My daughter smirked at me.

Step 5: You are not selling a product

Much social media attention was given to McDonald’s CEO, Chris Kempczinski, calling the Big Arch hamburger he seemed reluctant to eat “the product.” Mohammed would never refer to his rugs as “the product.”

He waxed on about the quality of the rugs, at one point showing me a video of a cat impotently clawing the carpet, which suffered no damage. He repeatedly pointed out how they would last for decades or longer. Mohammed, however, was not just selling rugs.

“80% of this work is done by women. They are hardworking village women trying to support their families and spend weeks and months creating these works of art, their sole source of income. They are heirlooms handed down from generation to generation for you, your children, and your children’s children to enjoy,” he said, punctuating it with an impish wink directed at my daughter.

The bottom line for creating an effective environment for sales is that you should never sell a “product.” Believe in what you do and sell. Tell the story behind it, why it is important to you, but also why it is important to others. Mohammed’s storytelling wove carpets into socially and culturally iconic artifacts. General Motors did something similar in the 80s with their “hot dogs, baseball, apple pie, and Chevrolet” campaign in reaction to the rise in Japanese imports in the United States.

Marketers who can conjure up the depth and stories of products and services can create added value out of thin air by just telling a better emotional story. If Mohammed can make rugs emotional, you can make what you are selling emotional, too.

Step 6: Social Proof

Five-star ratings provide evidence of the quality of a product. While ratings are mild forms of social proof, a personal testimonial from people Mohammed believed were similar to us, can be much more powerful than a few stars on a website.

“Look!” the bespectacled Berber produced his iPhone from somewhere in his robe and navigated to the email sent to him from Texan customers as testimony. He showed a digital photo of a plump Texan couple standing in front of one of Mohammed’s rugs, very similar to the one that my wife subtly judged uħibb.

“You see, they are from Texas, and they love it!” he read the email word-for-word to us. The Texas bit was offered extemporaneously when Mohammed realized the proximity of our home, Arkansas, to Texas. To Mohammed, it was just another hook to up the ante.

Step 7: The Cool Down

He had made his pitch. He showcased the rugs, providing example after example of the fine craftsmanship that would be a family heirloom created by mystical but impoverished women somewhere in the Rif Mountains. He had turned the heat up, and he was likely sensing what psychologists call reactance in us. When people feel their freedoms are being taken away, they often react to liberate themselves. This is no good in sales.

This cool down period, sometimes known as the step-away-close or couple-close, is designed to let the couple discuss, and more importantly, for them to convince one another of the wisdom of buying the product or service in question. Groups tend to make riskier decisions than individuals, a group dynamic that Mohammed was counting on.

He excused himself briefly as his helpers pulled all but the four rugs that Mohammed sensed were most liked. A few minutes later, he reappeared. His helpers were now gone, and the sweet mint tea was nearly exhausted from our crystal chalices.

Step 8: The Close

Up to this point, we had all held out from what Mohammed desperately wanted us to ask. As a seasoned buyer, my wife knew that you never ask that question, and as a seasoned seller, he knew that voluntarily providing that information was also haram. Mohammed went as far as he could without bringing it up.

“How much do you think something like this is worth?”

Silence.

Resisting this request takes discipline. If you guess a price, this sets a baseline from which to negotiate. It now sets in motion the next step in the process. The buyer has now established that you want the product. Now you just need to agree on the price. My wife knew this, and she really did not want to buy a rug, so she let him answer.

Mohammed never did.

Step 9: Eradicate Objections and Never Give an Off Ramp

“I love everything here; can I have a card?” my wife asked after the impasse.

Without pause, Mohammed responded, his smile disappearing, “You cannot judge fine works of art like this online; you must touch them, smell them, see them in person with your eyes, it does not work online.”

He added helpfully, “We ship via DHL all around the world, you do not have to worry about anything, it arrives door to door!”

I recall passing by a wrapped rug on the way upstairs that was strategically left in the hallway, being shipped to a customer in Pacific Palisades, California.

By now, Mohammed was running out of tactics, but he continued moving in closer to speak with my wife, pouring it on thick. My wife just sat there and smiled. Our guide suddenly made a quiet proclamation without looking at Mohammed.

“We are done.”

As if our guide pulled some invisible switch, Mohammed’s body language relaxed and immediately relented and smiled as if the boxing bell had just rung for the last round.

We shook hands, and Mohammed handed us his business card as we walked out. He was not angry; he was not frustrated. This was his game, and we were in his house. Leaving the carpet cavern, my wife expressed her concern about the time Mohammed and his team invested, though she knew it was part of the game. That social imbalance, however, continued to gnaw at her. Our guide provided absolution.

“That is what he does, that is the tradition of his people. You should not feel bad,” our guide explained. We never did walk away with a rug, nor did we learn a price.

Lessons for Customer Experience Design

What Mohammed demonstrated was not just selling rugs; he was orchestrating an experience. Every touchpoint was intentional: the welcome, the tea, the theater of the rugs, the storytelling, the social cues, even the graceful exit. He did not rely on price or urgency; he relied on emotion, connection, and immersion. That is the essence of great customer experience design.

It is not about removing friction alone, it is about creating meaning. Modern brands, especially in a world of frictionless clicks and faceless transactions, often strip away the very elements that make buying memorable. Mohammed reminds us that when you deeply understand your customer, engage their senses, respect their psychology, and tell a story worth believing in, you do not just sell, you create something people remember long after they have decided whether to buy.

Even though we never bought a rug, someone might write a blog post about it that a few others might read, and perhaps those people might buy a rug from Mohammed instead. Perhaps I am an unsuspecting pawn in Mohammed’s scheme.

You never know.

Postscript:

If you are interested in fine rugs, you can reach Mohammed at Bazar Boucha in 8, Rue Tiajnyénes 9000, Tanger, Morocco. Bouch.bazar@gmail.com

My wife, Erin Fish, is the former Merchant Director for Toys for Walmart stores. She is now a principal at CuriosityCX, a customer experience consultancy, creative, and research agency in Bentonville, Arkansas.