The Secret Room: How to Make Selling to Affluent Clients Feel Like an Experience

0:01Hello, this is Mark Satterfield and welcome to the Velvet Rope Playbook. Tonight's chapter, The Secret Room, how to make selling to affluent clients feel like an experience. We were sailing on the Silver Muse, and before we arrived in Qatar, Montenegro, one of the lecturers on the ship mentioned a leather store inside the old walled city called Magellan. He said it was owned by two cousins and worth finding. That's usually all it takes with me. Give me a recommendation and a little bit of a story, and I'm curious. So when Marian and I got into Qatar, we wandered through the narrow streets of the old city until we found Magellan.

0:42We walked in and found ourselves in the first room, which was mostly leather coats. They were perfectly nice, but we weren't particularly interested. One of the cousins was helping us, and I got the impression he'd been doing this long enough so that he could size up a customer in about 30 seconds. He looked at us, realized the coats weren't going to go anywhere, and said something along the lines of, perhaps you'd like to see the other room. Well, of course we would. So he took us into room number two. This one had purses. And without accusing anyone of anything, let's just say that some of the merchandise appeared to have been enthusiastically inspired by certain well-known luxury brands.

1:22We looked around politely. He watched us looking around politely, and it became obvious that we weren't particularly impressed. That's when things got interesting. He lowered his voice slightly and told us there was actually one more room. But this room wasn't for everybody. This was the special room for special customers. Now, I've been in marketing for more than 30 years. I knew perfectly well this wasn't the first time he'd given this speech. He probably didn't go home that evening and tell his cousin, You won't believe what happened today. I met two Americans so extraordinary I had no choice but to show them the room.

2:01It was a sales pitch. I knew it was a sales pitch. He probably knew that I knew it was a sales pitch, and I still wanted to see the special third room. So through another door we went, and this is where he kept the good stuff. Chanel, Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton, and suddenly what had started out as casually walking into a leather store had become a little adventure. First room, second room, then the secret room. And here's the most important part. He made the whole process fun. He wasn't hovering over us trying to close the sale. He wasn't giving us a lecture about the quality of the leather.

2:39He wasn't reciting features and benefits. He was creating an experience. And he made us feel just a little bit special in the process. Did I know that the special customer routine was probably well rehearsed? Absolutely. Did that ruin it? Not at all. Because good selling doesn't always require the customer to believe there isn't any selling going on. Sometimes the customer knows exactly what's happening and enjoys the experience anyway. And I think that's particularly important when you're selling to affluent clients. Too many people assume that because the product or service is expensive, the sales process needs to become more serious, more credentials, more explanations, more justifications, more pressure.

3:23But affluent people don't necessarily want more intensity simply because they're spending more money. Quite often, they want the opposite. They want to feel recognized. They want to feel that you've paid attention to them. They like special access. They like discovery. And yes, sometimes they enjoy feeling as though the door has been open for them that isn't open for everybody else. Our salesman in Qatar understood that beautifully. He didn't try to convince us to become interested in what was sitting in front of us. When he realized we weren't interested, he changed the experience. And every time our interest began to fade, there was another door.

4:01There's an important lesson in that. If you sell an expensive service, ask yourself what the experience of buying from you actually feels like. Suppose you're an architect and someone is considering spending several million dollars building a home. Does the initial meeting feel like every other meeting they've had with an architect? Or do you show them something they weren't expecting? Perhaps after hearing how they live, you pull out examples from your private file and say, Dear, here are three things I've learned from designing homes for people who entertain the way you do. Let me show you. Now there's discovery.

4:36Or suppose you're a consultant. Instead of spending the entire meeting explaining your methodology, you listen to their situation and then say, there's something I don't normally get into on an initial conversation, but based on what you just told me, I think you should see this. Again, you've opened another door. You don't need a literal secret room, but you can create the feeling that the conversation is unfolding specifically for the person sitting across from you. That's very different from taking every prospect through the exact same 27-slide presentation. And there's one more thing that the experience at Magellan reminded me of.

5:14People don't necessarily dislike being sold. They dislike being pressured, and they really dislike feeling as though they're simply the next prospect being pushed through a process. But a good sales presentation can be enjoyable. It can create anticipation. It can make someone curious about what comes next. And it can make the customer feel important without becoming ridiculous about it. In other words, the sales process itself can become part of the value. That's something I get into in one of my most popular self-study programs, The Irresistible Pitch. And in the spirit of our friend in Montenegro, I'm going to try to sell it to you without making the selling part miserable.

5:54The Irresistible Pitch is about how to make a sales conversation feel less like a pitch and more like something the prospect actually wants to participate in. How do you build interest without pushing? How do you talk about what you do without sounding like every other person in your business? How do you make an expensive purchase feel desirable rather than intimidating? And how do you move someone towards saying yes without making them feel as though they're being maneuvered into it. That's what the program is designed to help you do. Now, here's my version of the secret room. You can buy the Irresistible Pitch as a self-study program.

6:29Perfectly good option. But there's another door. If you subscribe to Whales Not Minnows, my private affluent marketing intelligence briefing, I'll give you the Irresistible Pitch program for free. If you'd like to see what's behind my door number three, comment, Pitch, and I'll send you the information. And the next time you're selling something expensive, remember the little leather store in the walled city of Qatar. Your prospect may already know you're selling them, but that's okay. Make them feel special. Give them something to discover. And for God's sakes, make the process a little bit more fun.

7:04This is Mark Satterfield. Thanks for listening to this chapter of the Velvet Rope Playbook. I'll be back at you soon with something new. But until then, bye for now.