Ask HN: Selling to the wealthy

2 points·sogen··5 comments

Hi, recommendations to resources for selling and/or marketing to the wealthy?

Books, Tips, Videos, anything that helps.

Kind of the opposite of The Innovator's Dilemma book by Christensen. (In that book he talks about introducing LOW priced items.)

thx

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Look into the art of selling luxury goods and services.

Luxury is never about price—it's about aesthetics, authenticity, brand, and experience.

In fact, price is an outdated concept that's only relevant in a socialist model of thinking (i.e. where the sole criterion for production is use-value).

Price and value are incompatible with laissez-faire capitalism.

Luxury transcends the value equation.

As someone who indeed sells (tax services) to the wealthy, my suggestions are to think long term. Build trust by doing what you say. Tell the truth. Be helpful. Provide value beyond the price you charge. (Value is in the person's brain. Price is money.)

Everyone wants this. Don't treat sales to the wealthy as any different than sales to nonwealthy.

It's sort of like advice for public speaking. Remember the three "B's": be honest, be brief, be seated.

My (possibly contentious) experience: assume they are smart, like facts and can smell BS from a mile away.

Most wealthy people have loads of experience with sleazy people trying to take money from them. So if they're still wealthy it probably means they're good at detecting BS and ignoring "sales tricks". So be genuine, be informed and be brief.

In my limited experience wealthy people don't make many purchasing decisions based on research or marketing - they go very much by recommendations from their peers. As such, networking is the key to success in the luxury market.

thanks, like a small club! thanks for all the responses!

BTW I'm listening to the SPIN Selling audiobook, so far so good on tips.

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