Jumping Off the Bandwagon

Phew! Boy, are things getting pricey. If we don't feel it, at least we've noticed it. Food is more expensive because delivering the food has become really expensive because gas prices are insanely inflated because we're heading into summer so that fear of scarcity is being amped up and . . . well, it's pretty darn complicated, isn't it? My point, things are expensive.

Somehow, no one's asking us to tighten our belts and conserve, instead it's our duty to engage in the economy by continuing to spend, spend, spend. But the kind of spending people are doing is more conservative. People are comparing prices, looking for internet deals, using coupons whenever possible. This, in turn, is pinching sales professionals. However, this is not so for sales people who sell to the affluent. The affluent are not pinching pennies, necessarily, and our message needn't be geared towards the bargain hunters and discount shoppers.

As we persuade an affluent clientle, we are not at all involved in the 'discount' or 'value shopper' mentality. Our intention, as it always must be, is to set the frame immediately with our prospects and clients and instill in them the idea that these concepts are inferior, disappointing, substandard and beneath them.

As persuaders and sales professionals who work with the affluent, we must frame our products and services as elite and practical, luxurious and patriotic. Our products and services are of a higher level and therefore we must market the experience of luxury along with what they can do to meet the criteria and values of our clientle. We can also appeal to the notion of like causes like. My preference is not to operate within a framework of scarcity because I know in my life, that like attracts like.

So how do we do this? We first of all maintain our premium prices while everyone else is slashing theirs. Do not engage in undermining yourself. We also must maintain the individuality of what we have to offer. As persuaders, we are incredibly unique in that we know exactly what our clients' hot buttons are and how to marry those triggers with our services.

We must focus on developing a word of mouth and/or referral system in the marketing of our products and services. The experience of working with us is special and this necessarily leads to an emotional experience with our clientle. People crave this emotionality and we know exactly how to do this (i.e. storytelling, criteria elicitation). When we have stories at the ready that are pointedly geared toward what we do and how we do it and why we do it, we can give the emotional experiences to our clients. Keep this foremost in your mind: everyone, rich or poor or in between, everyone wants to feel special and understood.

So it is my fervent hope that you will begin to understand that you are worth what you charge and once you believe it, your affluent clients will have no choice but to also fall in line.

About the Author

Kenrick Cleveland teaches strategies to earn the business of affluent prospects using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion strategies.

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