Are We Still Fascinated by the Rich?

0:01Hello, this is Mark Satterfield, and welcome to the Velvet Rope Playbook. Tonight's chapter, Are We Still Fascinated by the Rich? At dinner the other night, an interesting question came up. Are people as fascinated with the rich as they were in the 1980s? My answer was yes, absolutely. I think we're every bit as fascinated by wealth and successful people as we were 40 years ago. We're just fascinated by different things. If you remember the 1980s, wealth was very visible. If you wanted to signal that you made it, you bought the biggest house, the fastest car, the boat, the designer clothes, or the watch everybody across the room could recognize.

0:44Success was something you displayed, and popular culture reinforced it. Think about the television shows of the era, the magazines, the advertising. There was a tremendous fascination with what wealthy people owned and how extravagantly they lived. But there was almost a scoreboard quality to wealth. Bigger meant better. More expensive meant more successful. And if other people couldn't see it, what was the point? That's changed. Obviously, there are still people who enjoy displaying their wealth, and social media has certainly given us new versions of conspicuous consumption. There are plenty of private jets, exotic cars, enormous homes, and$50 ,000 watches showing up on Instagram every day.

1:30But particularly among established wealth, there's another movement going in almost the opposite direction. Some of the wealthiest people today intentionally avoid obvious signals of wealth. They don't necessarily want the biggest logo on their shirt. They may want a shirt that is only a handful of people recognize. They don't necessarily want to stay at the hotel everyone has heard of. They prefer the tiny property that almost nobody can get into. The signal hasn't disappeared. It's become more subtle. And I think something even more interesting has happened. Our curiosity about successful people has increasingly moved from what they own to how they think.

2:14Look at the enormous popularity of biographies. Look at business podcasts. Look at the fascination with founders, investors, athletes, artists, and other high performers. People want to know, what does this person do differently? How do they spend their time? How do they evaluate opportunities? How do they decide whom to trust? What do they say no to? What did they see that everybody else missed? Forty years ago, you might have picked up a magazine because you wanted to see inside a billionaire's house. Today, you're just as likely to spend an hour listening to that billionaire explain how he makes decisions.

2:54And that's a very different kind of fascination. And I think that's an important lesson. If you're a professional trying to attract affluent clients, because the same shift is taking place in the way that people evaluate expertise. For years, professional marketing was largely credential marketing. You told people how long you'd been in business. You listed your degrees. You showed them your awards. You talked about your accomplishments. You put testimonials on your website. and there's nothing wrong with any of those things. They still have value. But there's a limit to what they tell me. If you tell me you've been doing something for 20 years, I know you've been around for 20 years.

3:32I don't necessarily know whether you have good judgment. If you tell me you won an award, I know somebody gave you an award. I still don't know how you would think about my particular situation. And that's particularly important when you're dealing with affluent clients because in many cases they're not simply hiring you to perform a task, they're hiring you to help them make an important decision. That's true whether you're a wealth advisor, a physician, an architect, an interior designer, or almost anybody selling a high-value service. At a certain level, technical competence is assumed. Of course, you need to know what you're doing, but your prospective client is trying to determine something beyond that.

4:13Do I trust the way this person thinks? And that's why I believe one of the most powerful forms of marketing today is demonstrating your judgment. Don't simply tell me what you know. Show me how you arrived at the conclusion. For example, an architect might say, one of the first things I tell clients building a custom home is not to begin by thinking about square footage. I ask them to describe how they actually live on a Saturday morning. Where do they have coffee? Where are the children? Where do guests naturally gather? Because if we understand how you live, we can design a house around your life instead of forcing your life into a house.

4:52That's interesting. And notice what happened. The architect didn't say, I'm an expert. He demonstrated expertise by allowing us to hear how he thinks. A wealth advisor could do exactly the same thing. Instead of another post about market performance, she might say, when a new client comes to me with a portfolio, the first thing I look at isn't the investment. I want to know what this money is supposed to be making possible. Until I understand that, I don't know whether any particular investment is appropriate. Again, she's showing judgment rather than merely claiming expertise. Or take someone selling luxury real estate.

5:32Instead of posting another photograph of a beautiful house and saying just listed. Imagine explaining when I'm evaluating a property for a client, here's one thing I look for that most buyers overlook. Then explain it. Now you've given me something much more valuable than a sales pitch. You've given me a small sample of what it's like to have you advising me. This is especially powerful because affluent people often have plenty of choices. They can find another financial advisor, another physician, another architect, another consultant. Your challenge isn't simply to prove that you're qualified.

6:06Many of your competitors are qualified. Your challenge is giving someone a reason to believe that your judgment is different. And there's a very simple way you can start doing this. Think about three decisions you've made in your business during the past year. They don't have to be enormous decisions. In fact, smaller ones are often more interesting. Maybe you advised a client not to do something that would have made them more money. Maybe you changed part of your process because you realized there was a better way. Maybe you turned down an opportunity. Maybe you spotted a problem before it became expensive.

6:39Pick one of those decisions and tell the story. Explain what you saw. Explain the options you considered. Explain why you chose the path you did. And then explain what somebody watching or listening can learn from. That's content. And it's content that has another enormous advantage. It's very difficult for a competitor to copy. Anybody can ask AI to give them five tips for choosing a financial advisor. Anybody can create another list of seven things to consider before renovating your home. That kind of information is becoming a commodity. Your judgment isn't. Your experience isn't. The way you interpret that experience isn't.

7:16And your willingness to say, here's what I believe and here's why I believe it, is increasingly valuable in a world where generic information is virtually unlimited. In fact, I think we're moving into a period where information itself is becoming less valuable and interpretation is becoming more invaluable. And that's ultimately what people are buying. They're not simply buying your information. They're buying your ability to interpret it. Not simply buying your expertise. They're buying what you learned from the experience. The question that you want to ask is, what does this person know that I don't know?

7:50How does this person see the world? How do they make decisions? And if you're trying to attract affluent clients, I think that's a tremendously important distinction. Don't spend all your time trying to look successful. Show people how you think. Because if you become known for the quality of your thinking instead of simply the size of your success, you're going to attract people who value exactly what you should want them to value, your judgment. And if you're fascinated by how affluent people think, then make sure you pick up a copy of my Amazon number one bestseller, The Gilded Revival. It's not a book about becoming wealthy.

8:25It's about understanding the mindset of today's affluent consumer. What has changed, what they value, what gets their attention, and why many of the old assumptions about marketing to wealthy people simply don't work anymore. If you want to build a business that naturally attracts today's affluent consumer, understanding how they think is a very good place to start. This is Mark Satterfield. Thanks for listening to this chapter of the Velvet Rope Playbook. I'll be back at you with something soon, but until then, bye for now.