A client of mine came to me shortly before launching a major, new product and wanted to be sure her branding was spot on.  I asked her a really simple question: “Who are your ideal affluent clients and what are their needs and desires that this product will fulfill?” I knew we were in trouble when she looked back at me with a blank face. It quickly became obvious that she was unclear as to who her market was and what they really wanted.

Suffice is to say, most entrepreneurs I work with have a similarly difficult time answering the same question and often rely on a method of “throwing” products into the market place and waiting to see which “stick” so to speak.  Let me tell you this, without truly understanding your market, you will waste an astonishing amount of time and money on marketing and creating services that won’t sell no matter how well executed.  Take the time to conduct market research and learn everything you don’t know before getting started.

Let’s examine a number of defenses you can use to establish yourself as the TRUE Market Leader in Pricing – the company with the wherewithal to LEAD with your price and watch the competition scramble to find their place in the leftover space….

The first is COMMITMENT. People are much more committed to applying and doing what’s necessary to achieve a result if they’ve invested significantly. So you’re always going to get a much better result if your clients invest at the top end of the pricing scale.

Second, COMMUNICATION. One of the most demanding requirements of any business, and a true value of their clients’ satisfaction levels is the money that they’ve invested in communication. If you perfect the art of the post-sale followup you will have raving fans, no matter what they paid. If your follow up after the sale isn’t consistent with their buying experience, your satisfaction level will suffer. Charge fees that allow you to invest the BEST in follow up systems.

Finally, CONTINUITY. Who wants to invest and begin a program that isn’t available for as long as you want to be a part of it? Or one who isn’t able to consistently innovate and remain at the cutting edge. You OWE it to your clients to continue to offer products that allow them to grow along with you…

If you’re ready to begin charging 200% – 1,000% more than your currently billing AND having more satisfied clients, implement the above strategies and watch your profits grow accordingly.

What are some of the immediate advantages to pricing your services at a premium? Doesn’t the market really want to be served at the lowest possible cost? NOT AT ALL! What they want is to be continuously educated as to WHY they are paying the premium and the specific benefit that they receive for choosing to pay additional fees for your service.

If you plan to be in business for the long haul (and you’d BETTER be or you’ll be devoured by hungrier competition), you owe it to yourself to raise your fees to the highest level possible! Then EARN those fees. Build your fees based on the cost of your clients NOT doing business with you, not from the efforts you put into the process. The net difference in those two numbers is your Value Leverage.

What’s your favorite part of the holidays?  Maybe it’s the act of giving to express your love for family and friends.  Maybe it’s reaching out and helping the less fortunate.  Or, let’s be honest, maybe it’s all the holiday celebrations and good cheer.  Whatever the case may be, the affluent are just like you when it comes to sharing in the joy of the season but, they just do it a little differently.

Volunteering for a charity organization is an excellent way to meet the affluent during the holidays. I’m a member of the Junior League in my local chapter. During this time of year we’ll often host a fundraiser or make a push for one of our important causes.  I like to participate because it keeps me grounded and offers the chance to give to those in need.  Many of your affluent clients will be doing the same. Take the time to volunteer for a good cause important to you and the resulting benefits will be two-fold.  Not only will you be giving of yourself, you’ll also have the chance to rub elbows with wealthy prospects and build a relationship over a shared interest. 

There are hundreds of things you can do to demonstrate you care about and value your affluent clients, especially during the holiday season. Big statements will have big impact! Here are a few high-ticket ideas you can use to express some big cheer and gratefulness in your own business:

• Custom Labeled Bottle of Champagne – This is a great way to ring in the New Year. Your clients can toast with bubbly that includes your company name and/or logo right on the label.  A provider like, www.mylittlewinebusiness.com, can help you.
• In-Home Masseuse or Personal Trainer Visit (for January) – Work with your own masseuse or personal trainer to provide visits to your top clients’ homes. Initiate this experience with a holiday card and then follow-up with a call to schedule the appointment to occur AFTER the holidays are over.  Your trainer or masseuse will likely discount his/her rates since this offers many new client opportunities.
• VIP Party – An ultra high-end, client appreciation holiday event helps your retention efforts and furthers repeat business.  This is the opportune time to create an experience your affluent clients will want to be a part of and will not forget any time soon.  Don’t overlook any detail:  catering, staffing, valet parking and a photographer to capture every memorable moment.

Now is the time to leverage the spirit of the season.  In return for your efforts, your affluent clients will express their appreciation in loyalty and referrals all through the coming year!

Thanks and let us know your thoughts. I encourage you to leave your comments or questions below.

To learn more about how to market your services to people who will pay premium prices, value your expertise and build your business FOR YOU by raving to all their friends? Get your Free CD: www.marketingtomillionairesgift.com

Article by Kelly K. O’Neil, Million Dollar Marketing to the Affluent Coach and Creator of the Marketing to Millionaires™ Programs

Small businesses and entrepreneurs are able to deliver exemplary service with ease because they can focus more individually. When you get right down to it, providing the unexpected is a matter of knowing your customers, caring about your customers, and showing them they are valued.

Following are 3 more ideas for providing the unexpected and ‘Wow-ing’ your VIPs this season:

• Information Product – Send your VIPs a complete info product to say ‘thanks’ for a great year.  This high-value, medium investment represents only a fraction of their yearly spend on your services.
• Designer Cupcakes or Chocolates – What could be better than a sweet treat for the holidays?  One that’s branded—with your company! Be sure to include a personalized card or box when you hand deliver a holiday dessert to your affluent clients.
• Coffee Table Book – I LOVE to give a good book to my most important clients…especially one that aligns with my business philosophy.  A good way to individualize it is with a hand-written note on the inside front cover.

Extra bonuses or the little something above and beyond are customary and NECESSARY. It is the perfect time of year to deliver!!!

Thanks and let us know your thoughts. I encourage you to leave your comments or questions below.

To learn more about how to market your services to people who will pay premium prices, value your expertise and build your business FOR YOU by raving to all their friends? Get your Free CD: www.marketingtomillionairesgift.com

Article by Kelly K. O’Neil, Million Dollar Marketing to the Affluent Coach and Creator of the Marketing to Millionaires™ Programs

What are your plans for showing gratitude to your clients this month?  Yep, it’s that time of year again.  With seasonal gifts appearing at the mall and decorations in the neighborhood popping up everywhere, the holidays are upon us. This is the ideal time to express your appreciation to your most important customers.  Have you thought about the standout holiday VIP experiences or gifts you can give to surprise and delight your affluent clients?

Here are 3 ideas that will provide big impact on a limited budget:

• Holiday Cards – At a minimum, send out holiday cards to show your thanks. It’s easy to just pick-up a run-of-the-mill boxed set from the stationery store, but something individualized can make a big statement. Three years after I sent a card with my puppies dressed as Santa and his elves, I still get comments about it.  A unique holiday greeting helps you stand out from the competition and expresses your specialness in a way that reminds your customers why they chose you.
• Complimentary Teleseminar – This is an excellent way to offer added-value to your best customers at little or no cost to you. As your clients think about the year-end and the impending New Year, providing usable and relevant content specific to the time period keeps your services top-of-mind.
• Audio CD or Download – Repackage what you already have (a well-received, previously recorded call or new content you haven’t shared yet but recorded specifically for this effort) and gift it to your clients as “a something special” for the season.

The affluent expect what is unexpected.  This holiday season create just that and make your affluent customers say, “Wow!”

Thanks and let us know your thoughts. I encourage you to leave your comments or questions below.

To learn more about how to market your services to people who will pay premium prices, value your expertise and build your business FOR YOU by raving to all their friends? Get your Free CD: www.marketingtomillionairesgift.com

Article by Kelly K. O’Neil, Million Dollar Marketing to the Affluent Coach and Creator of the Marketing to Millionaires™ Programs

According to David Neagle, Million Dollar Income Acceleration Coach and President of Life is Now, Inc. (www.davidneagle.com), a multimillion-dollar global corporation dedicated to teaching entrepreneurs how to use the power of their minds to rapidly create quantum leaps in both business and personal arenas, most people don’t realize that success is not about “getting” or “achieving” anything. True success is about who you must BE in order to attract everything you require to live the life you have always dreamed of living and the impact we’re creating (in terms of service to humanity) in the world.  Honestly, you can learn all the business strategies in the world, but you’ll get nowhere if you don’t have your mind and heart in the right place.

I’m so appreciative of David’s contribution to our Business Mastery Success System for Marketing to Millionaires™. It is a part of our amazing suite of virtual learning products for learning marketing to the affluent. To learn more about Marketing to Millionaires™ Mastery University, click here.

One of the greatest quotes I have ever seen is by Donald Trump.  He says:  “I like thinking big. I always have,” says Trump. “If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

Trump considers his ability to think in larger than life terms one of his greatest strengths and a major reason for his significant success. “Most people think small because most people are afraid of success, afraid of making decisions, afraid of winning,” he says. “And that gives people like me a great advantage.” Trump is not afraid to go after what he wants, nor is he afraid of the consequences of his decisions.

He is not the only leader who believes this.  If you read any book on success or achievement, the leaders credit their ability to think big, make decisions quickly and take strategic action as the primary reason for their success.

Thinking That Big Takes Courage

The reason it is so scary to people is because it is about risking your ‘identity’ – your sense of who you are and who those around you think you are. Being prepared to change the received ‘definition’ of who you are and what you are capable of, overcoming the fear of “what if I fall on my face.” You need courage in a very real sense to take such a leap.

And where do you get courage to carry you through?

Well, it’s like everything else in life. You practice.

Successful People Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Eleanor Roosevelt had this to say about it: We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face… we must do that which we think we cannot. (Emphasis added)

And that brave lady (she’s the one who also said: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent) stands in a long line which stretches all the way back to the Greek philosophers. Aristotle himself said: Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. (Emphasis added)

I have personally faced this challenge.  But this year, I had a good friend of mine say to me…”How much longer are you going to play small?”  And when she said that, my stomach landed in my throat.   Now for many of you out there who have followed my career, you might be thinking “Kelly doesn’t play small”.  Well, it is all relative.

And she reminded me of the famous quote by Marianne Williamson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I had a profound shift of consciousness in that moment because I realized something.  With the world in the state that it is in and our economy in the place that it is in…”Who am I to deny people my light?”

My playing small doesn’t just affect my life and my bank account, my playing small affects every entrepreneur out there and every one of their families.  Because I have a gift to share and if I don’t do everything in my power to share that gift, I am not being of service in the way it was intended.

It no longer mattered how afraid I was.  It no longer mattered what the little gremlins in my head said “Who do you think you are?  What if you fail?  What if you embarrass yourself?  What will your family think?’

I made a decision at that point that the only thing worse than stepping out in a big way and risking failing was not attempting to step out at all.

Do you have a gift to share?  Are you playing smaller that you could be?

Now is your time to shine your light on the world.

Thanks and let us know your thoughts. I encourage you to leave your comments or questions below.

Be Sure to sign up for the Marketing to Millionaires Retreat this October, to learn more on Marketing to the Affluent

Article by Kelly K. O’Neil, Million Dollar Marketing to the Affluent Coach and Creator of the Marketing to Millionaires™ Programs

From the instant the starting gate opens, a modern jockey is working really hard to ensure that its horse is at its performance peak.  Keeping it from distractions and helping it to focus on the task at hand.

I believe every entrepreneur needs a good “jockey” to ensure they are keeping on track, operating in peak productivity and keeping their eye on the prize.

That jockey can look like a great coach, a mastermind group or a business manager.

Watch as Kelly shares her theory.

Thanks and let us know your thoughts. I encourage you to leave your comments or questions below.

Be Sure to sign up for the Marketing to Millionaires Retreat this October, to learn more on Marketing to the Affluent

Article by Kelly K. O’Neil, Million Dollar Marketing to the Affluent Coach and Creator of the Marketing to Millionaires™ Programs