Luxury Selling

Book excerpt: Srun shows how the psychology of luxury brands truly plays into high value customer motivations and unlocks the potential to understand their decision processes which are unlike that of any other customer. Selling to very wealthy, demanding customers – whether you’re selling luxury products or high value bespoke professional services – is a very different process to selling anything else to anyone else. Francis Srun has twenty years experience in the luxury industry, based in France, Switzerland, China and Hong Kong, most recently with Maison Boucheron. The first step is learning how to physically embody “Luxury”. You need to look, speak, and move “Luxury”. The true luxury attitude is not submissive nor is it hauteur – it is gentle, generous and simply, truly human. Success comes from not just being professional but from building a genuinely luxury relationship with clients. To do that you need to truly understand your client. High value customers today are younger, international in outlook and residence, and increasingly from Asia. Their buying motivation is always about self-affirmation and pleasure and never about money. The luxury customer’s decision process is unlike that of other customers. While emotion is important when selling anything to anyone – with luxury selling it is paramount. Srun shows how the psychology of Brand, Product, Place, Price and Time all play a role in customer’s motivations. Finally this book guides you step by step with concrete examples and useful techniques through the seven steps of luxury selling: be prepared to sell, welcome appropriately, listen genuinely, propose and present with style, meet objections with persuasion rather than refutation, conclude sharply and finally gain loyalty for a long term relationship.