311 | The Biggest Lie About Selling to Wealthy Clients with Jeffrey Shaw

Speaker A: Everyone seems to want premium clients, but very few are willing to think, act, and show up at that level. And in a market where everyone's chasing volume, very few understand the psychology of wealth and how wealthy people behave. In this episode, I sit down with Jeffrey Shaw. Now, Jeffrey Shaw is the author of Sell to the Rich and a photographer who spent 40 years serving some of the wealthiest families in the United States. Not from the outside, but from inside their homes and inside their lives. He didn't study luxury in theory, he built a career inside of it. And in our chat today, we dive into why wealthy buyers are far more intuitive and less materialistic than most people assume. How pricing becomes positioning and why charging more can earn more respect. The subtle cues and quiet signals that separate premium brands from expensive ones. And why embodying the life of your ideal client changes everything about how you sell. This isn't about chasing rich clients. It's about understanding value at a deeper level and building a brand that those people respect. So if you want to learn how to position and sell to premium clients, then don't miss this episode of the Brandmaster podcast. We're just about to dive in. Talk talking about luxury buyers and sellers. Without that, without that area of expertise. I'm glad we don't have to do that because, uh, because I apologize, I

Speaker B: had a link from a previous scheduled podcast.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: So, okay, no worries. My assistant just picked up on the error, so I'm glad to be here with you all.

Speaker A: No problem at all. Um, where. Whereabouts are you, Jeffrey?

Speaker B: Uh, currently in Jacksonville, Florida.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Which I split my time between here and Paris. Um, so, ah, uh, here in Florida for the time being.

Speaker A: Very, very good. I, I live in France, actually. I'm in, in the south of France at the moment. We're baking. Ah, I was just telling the guys it's 37 degrees at the moment. Um, so. And I think it's hotter in Paris, actually. So, uh, you, you probably picked a good time not to be there.

Speaker B: It's, it's. That's saying a lot when it's hotter in Paris than Florida.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And funny, uh, that you live in Paris because when it comes to luxury buyers, uh, I think they're are a lot to be had in Paris. And yeah, we're, we're really excited to jump into this topic with you because, um, as I, as I explained, uh, early on in our chats, all of our community here are professional brand builders. We build brands for our clients. And it's, it's not just for our clients. Also we build our own brands as well. And luxury pricing, luxury buyers, premium pricing. It's something that we all have, uh, a really kind of vested interest in. So why don't you just give everybody here a little bit of a background as to why you specifically are so well up on the rich, how they buy and how we can pander to that.

Speaker B: Yeah, so a little bit of my background. So, um, I spent uh, for 40 years, uh, I was the go to photographer, family, ah, portrait photographer for many of the wealthiest families in the United States. So very unusual business. I didn't grow up this way. I'm always very careful to explain that, that my journey should be an example that anyone can, can reach any market they choose to. I grew up in a small country town a couple hours north of New York City. Um, lower middle class by economic standards. And by the age of 20, um, well, at the age of 20 I went into business as a photographer. My first attempt was in my hometown. So failed miserably because I just was, I was thinking very differently. Like to me I look back and realize it was the business definition of barking up the wrong tree. Like I had big visions, I had big ideas, I held what I did for a very high value and charged what felt like a lot of money for a 20 year old. And it's, it was more money than the market would bear. Um, so I realized that I wasn't, you know, kind of a classic. And a big part of my work is that my first book was called Lingo. Uh, my third book is called Sell to the Rich. So sort of a journey in my books. But the very first book, Lingo, um, you know, you realize that, that sometimes we're saying the right things, the wrong people, sometimes we're saying the wrong things to the right people. You have to say the right things to the right people at the right time and in the right order. You know, there's a whole sequence to it. And what I realized is that I was saying the right things. Like I had, I was clear on my value, I was clear on what I had to offer the world, but I was talking to the wrong people. So at 23, I realized I had to shift to aligned with people that I felt shared my values, my values for long term thinking. My values from very high standards being very particular, detailed. And I realized those people were people with discretionary income. Right. Because a big part of affording family photography is that you have a mindset that you're willing to invest in the future, you're willing to invest in Photographs that your children are going to appreciate 20 years from now and that will be handed down. And you uh, know when you're working in it, when you, when you're trying to start that kind of a business in an area that's economically challenged, people can't plan for the Future. So at 23, I got the right idea who I needed to work with. The problem is I knew nothing about the mindset and lifestyle and behavior of wealthy people. So I set it upon myself to study them, study their behavior, understand their nuance, nuanced, uh, mindsets. And then of course once I broke into that market, um, which once and you know, you're showing up or branding, 90% of it was branding because I am. But we could talk about this specifically a moment. But I really embodied the lifestyle of the people I felt I was meant to serve and learn to look at the world from their perspective and look at what do I need to see, hear and feel in order to be drawn to this brand. I then recreated what I learned through branding, brand image, brand messaging, all the, everything that encompasses branding that led me into a clientele and a career that, that uh, I just retired from two years ago as a photographer because I'm more than busy enough as a speaker and author these days. But I officially retired from being a photographer just two years ago. So years, as I like to say when I'm pitching myself as a speaker, I don't just know this market. I was literally in their closets and it's a different, you know, as their family photographer, I had the most intimate exposure to this clientele than most people will ever have access to in their life. You can't go to school for what I learned by hanging out the closets of wealthy people and understanding what's really going on in their hearts, their minds and their lives. So that's what brings me to this space. I think in a very unique way. Um, a lot of people in the luxury space are very academic driven and my experience is very experiential.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I mean I'm sure throughout your experience and throughout your career you've seen some very, very interesting things when you think of uh, the ultra wealthy in their closets. And yeah, hopefully you didn't bump into too many skeletons while you were in there.

Speaker B: Well, here' you know, I'm glad you mentioned this. Let me tell you something, here's my biggest observation. It's not as nearly as interesting as it would seem. And that is, I think fundamentals to serving the luxury market is and I work with brands and individuals, business owners, all the time on this. Like you have to really look at the assumptions you're bringing to the table. And it's especially true when we didn't grow up this way. And 99.9% of people serving affluent people didn't grow up that way.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: You wouldn't be a sales associate. Exactly.

Speaker A: If you were, you'd be, you'd be living off the trust fund.

Speaker B: Absolutely. So you're bringing something to the table and that's, you know, I mean, I'm not saying that you made assumptions, but it's very easy now outside to think that it's so much more interesting and scandalous. And none of it was true. In my 40 years, there are two clients I chose to not work with. One was an existing client that I fired because she just never showed up for her appointments. The another person I refused to work for from day one because the attitude of entitlement was so glaring. Huge. I just was like, this is not for me.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Two people in 40 years presented themselves in a way that I felt was inappropriate. And you could attribute their financial success to their attitudes. Two out of 40 years, everybody else was far less interesting than you think. They're just normal people living normal lives. To them, that is just different than what. So I think step number one is you really have to check in with your own assumptions and clear yourself of those assumptions. Because as someone, someone asked me before my book Sell to the Rich came out, what was the biggest surprise of the book? And I said, the biggest surprise of the book, I think is the biggest surprise for people entering the luxury market. And that is this clientele that is often thought of being surface level, materialistic. Prepare yourself. Because they are actually the most intuitive, highly perceptive clientele you will ever face. They, um, are reading your energy, your integrity, your honesty. And they are reading it from afar. And if they smell that you want to serve them to gain their money, you will never break through. So this clientele and I, I have yet to figure out fully and it's probably a yes. And because I think they're highly intuitive and perceptive way of being, I think is partly an innate characteristic that has made them successful. If their money is self made, there's a really good chance that, I mean, a lot of my clientele were Wall street folks. M. You have to have a considerable amount of perceptive perception to succeed at that level in Wall Street. Right. So I think part of it was an innate quality of successful people. And once you achieve A level of success, it then becomes a matter of survival because everybody's out for your money. M. So in this world of luxury, the, this clientele, like I said, which is often typecast or assumed to be surface level, they are the deepest, most highly perceptive clientele you ever work. And you're not going to get away with anything.

Speaker A: Yeah, you said a few things there that, that I could, I could dive into. But you're 100% preaching to the choir in that, um, we're professional brand builders and we analyze markets and you know, we, when we speak to clients, we hear so many assumptions. What they believe, their, their market is, what they believe, uh, who they believe their clients are. And 100%, I've said it so many times to clients myself, you are not the market. And we can't make those types of assumptions. And you're right, it's very, very easy to. Based on your childhood, based on the fact that you've grown up in a certain way, everybody else has grown up in a different way. You, you form your own perception of the world and you apply that, that's the lens that you're given and it doesn't necessarily show you what the reality is. So 100% I'm, um, aligned with that in terms of the luxury buyer themselves. And of course everybody's different. But you know, there are some principles that, that you see time and again and certainly throughout your career you would have seen a lot. Tell us about the luxury buyer, what we really need to know about them when it comes to selling to them, because you, you've touched on a few things there. But to dive deeper a little bit into, into the core things we need to know to be able to apply that. Tell us, tell us what we need to know.

Speaker B: Yeah, so one thing, you just hit an important point. And I actually just wrote, I think it was last week I have a newsletter, a LinkedIn newsletter called Diamond Edge, which you're all welcome to, to subscribe to because it's free content.

Speaker A: I'll put, I'll put a link afterwards in the description.

Speaker B: And I'm pouring my thoughts into that newsletter every week. And I think it was just last week I did an article, um, because I get asked this all the time at speaking gigs. The question is, how do you, how do you. I, I've, as I've stated, you don't want to make assumptions, but how do you speak to, uh, to a larger scale of clientele? Right. So how do you, how do you scale? But you're also catering to the personalization. And my answer to that is think of it as language and an accent. So to your point, there are absolutely commonalities in the way of thinking for affluent buyers across the world. There's certain ways that they behave and attributes that are common worldwide in my experience. But then you have accents, right? You have, you have ways that people behave or think just geographically as well as different segments of their society. And the, an obvious example for you is as a photographer, my, my home base was the Northeast. Uh, New York, Connecticut, Hamptons. That was my base. They had homes all over the world and I traveled for them, but that was my base. I lived in New York City and in the Northeast. You photograph people in a very conservative way, right? You, you. I photographed people in a way where the details in the settings told a whole story. It was, you know, the subtlety of the columns in the background or even the, the recognizable fabrics that were in the furnishings. But then I'd go to LA or Miami and the client would be like, can you get my, my mansion, the yacht and my Lamborghini all in the same photograph? Right. So there's a mentality that's common in the way that they're, they're very interested in telling the story of their lives, but the way of going about that is very different. Mhm. So that's, I think, an important thing to understand. I think probably, gosh, there's so many things that. One of the things that stands out that I would share that you need to know about luxury buyers is that, and I often refer to the term as complex behavior. That behavior seems to be completely paradoxical, more so than any other market. Like, their behavior is all over the board. Um, and you have to get underneath understanding that. So there's a way in which their lives are really formal and they insist that you show up professional, a good leader really, even if even in sales. Like, they want you to lead and guide them to what you know to be best for them. And there's a side of them that is ridiculously casual and it's a, it's really a refreshing break for them. So you have to navigate all the time, how do you show up. And an, uh, example of how that is reflected in a more obvious way is they want the front row seats at a Broadway show and the backstage passes, right? They want the best experience and be seen in the front row. And they want to go backstage and trip over wire cables and wires and, you know, get things out of their way because they want that experience too. It's Also why Chef's Table are really demand high, uh, you know, top end restaurants is that they want the, they want the to be seen at the chef's table so that they're witnessing what's going on behind the scenes. So there's this weird paradoxical behavior that you just, you're constantly navigating. Um, so that I think is something unexpected that a lot of people and then, and I think this has a lot to do with branding, which is why my first book is called Lingo. And, and the work that I did to step into this market was to understand that they have their own secret language. You know, they have their. There are cues and that's what you want to, you want to, you want to learn the cues. That means something to them. And part of that are other brands. Like I, I mentioned a moment ago, like when I photographed families, particularly in the Northeast, there are very upscale fabrics. You know, we all know Air Maze. Air Maze has a, has a look. So if there's an, I could be photographing a family sitting in their home. But it's the Air Maze blanket draped over the edge of the sofa that's actually telling the story. Mhm. And it's recognizable to the clientele. Uh, I also in my book, sell to the rich. One of the things I mentioned is, uh, and I. More people know of it now than they used to. But there's a fragrance company called Joe Malone. Mhm. Joe, um, Malone is in the bathroom of every mansion in the United States I've ever been in. It's like the signature, the smell of, well, diffuser.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: It's like, it's like literally like the, the signature diffuser in every wealthy person's bathroom. So there are certain cues that you know. And, and I think a funny story I'll share is when I broke into this market, one thing I learned really quickly is that really upscale, gorgeous holiday cards were very important to this clientele. Maybe a little less so today, but even still, this clientele, this is how they engage with their people. Like they send a thousand holiday cards to their closest friends. Right. It's a big social thing. Um, particularly in the US a little less so in England, but in the US it's a. I would, I would produce 14, 000 holiday cards a year for, for this clientele because this is really a big deal to them. Now I come from, you know, my, what the holidays looked like in my middle class upbringing was very different than what their holidays look like. And one simple thing I noticed so I would, I Would hire artists, I would, I would have ideas and concepts for these holiday cards for which back in the day photographs would be mounted on and then later years digitally printed on. And I grew up in a world where we had um, pine roping on our fireplace mantels or a, uh, staircase, if we had enough stairs. I grew up in a one level house. Um, but you know, you had pine was the thing that you used that represented holidays, Christmas. Well, the wealthy people don't use pine. They use boxwood.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And boxwood's a whole other plant. It's a, it's a hardier plant with little leaves. It grows as a bush. So it's things like that that you realize like. So for me to design a holiday card with pine roping as an edging would be ridiculous for this clientele. But if I did it with, with boxwood. So a lot of what drives this clientele are cues. They're like these silent cues, these secret, secret language.

Speaker A: So speak. And uh, I wanted to, to really kind of dive into those cues, but taking it back a little bit because to step into the homes, I think that's a very, very unique experience. To, to get all of that. When you bring it back because you're a service provider, at the end of the day, how would you embed those cues into how you show up, um, on your digital presence? And when you say you broke into that market, there would have been some kind of transition there where you went from, I want these clients, I can't seem to get these clients. How, uh, what's the transition that I need to make to appeal to them and get those higher prices?

Speaker B: Yep. So here my, my, my strategy is embody their lives. Okay. I use the word embody. Very intentional. So to wind back at 23 years old, I have a failing photography business. I gave myself three months to figure it out. Uh, because I figured even, I mean Honestly, at 20, I was married at 20, so I had apartment, so I was married young. You, uh, know, I had even. I was only 23 years old. I had responsibilities. And, and I'll say, Stephen, even more importantly, this is the only thing I knew how to do was photography. I went from high school to photography school. I didn't grow up in an atmosphere that sent kids off to college. Like I didn't even know there was a choice. So this, the, my only ticket out of this middle class upbringing was this talent I had. So I felt all the pressure beyond what a 23 year old would feel to figure this out. I knew that I Had about three months of survival before I had to give up on this dream. So I gave myself three months to embody the lives of the people that I was going to serve that I knew nothing about. So growing up two hours outside of New York City, I would go into New York City's most exclusive stores and I would spend time in there. I would, if I had, if I had 20 bucks, I'd buy something just to have the experience. And I studied everything.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: I studied what was, if I were this buyer, what am I seeing, hearing and feeling. I'm um, watching the buyers to see what, how are they behaving. Here are some things that stood out to me which is part of the strategy of branding and how I changed. Step number one was I realized that at that level people are buying, whether you're a service or a product, they're buying the person. And as a photographer this was even more important. So my previously named photography business which was called Light Images quickly transitioned to Jeffrey Shaw. I be, I leveraged a designer like name like Ralph Lauren was doing in the 80s as well. So that was step number one. I realized that people needed to buy a brand and I needed to create a brand for myself. Um, I also noticed that none of the attention is on the transaction in a very high end store. And one of my favorite stores to go to is Bergdorf Goodman in New York City. And if, if you've never been, it's a one of a kind store on fifth Avenue and it literally there's only

Speaker A: one, I don't think I could afford it.

Speaker B: Jeffrey, at least go there to visit. Go there to visit. And I said I, I would get myself there and just to go in and, and I uh, was just there last weekend in fact and just I um, still this day I'm always studying what's going on, what are people thinking? So you go to a store like that, you're hard pressed to find a register. The registers are in back rooms or maybe hidden behind merchandise displays. Like you don't see the register now you go to Walmart or Target, the registers are lined up like cattle corral.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Right. It's, it's an interesting psychology on the high end. It's not about the transaction, it's, it's the thing that they're buying. It's the service they're engaging with. It's the experience, it's the emotion of the whole moment. The last thing you want to do is bring attention to the transaction. Mhm. So even in my own photography business As a service, my clients paid up front and our average sale was 10 to $12,000. And because this photographer is ridiculous, but it's a whole, you know, most photographers are trying to figure out how to make $500. And in 19, mid-80s, I'm making $10,000 a portrait session. And. But they paid up front because I never want to discuss the money again. Mhm. They place their order, they placed a large deposit even to engage my services. And then once they made their decisions, they paid for their order in full. And it's to remove the transactional experience. I never want to talk about money again. Uh, I don't want it to be a part of our experience. So there are things like that where you. Same thing with and how you establish, like how much do you charge? How do you, how do you hold to your value on that end? For one, you have to charge, uh, you have to charge enough to be respected.

Speaker A: Mhm. I love that. I love that.

Speaker B: Yeah. In the, in the three, I'll give you an ex, a very concrete example. In the three months that I was trying to figure this out, I was still, I was still running my failing business in my hometown and trying to get a business going in uh, my home base initially was going to be Greenwich, Connecticut, very wealthy town. I was going to open a storefront there. A single 8 by 10 in the town I grew up in was $50 which no one was willing to pay for because they could go to Sears and get a stack of photographs for 20 bucks. I had to charge 300 for the same 8 by 10 in the market I was heading towards. Otherwise I would flat out never have been respected. And that's just one single image. Right. But my average I was going for and how I established a $10,000 average is I did my homework and realized that back in the day before, before LAR photography was, was respected as an art form in a large scale way. People were having portraits of their kids painted. And I found, I did my research and found that most people were paying $20,000 to have a single portrait painted of their child. And I'm like, I can do that for half the price. And it's not a, it's not a likeness of your child, it's like a photograph of your child. And I could develop the craftsmanship and the artistry. And we had hand carved frames, 22 karat gold. Like I was making art pieces for 10,000.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: So it's completely arbitrary. Like the pricing becomes the positioning which is why everything is branding. It's all branding.

Speaker A: So. So, uh, at uh, what point did you have that conversation? I mean, you know, just simply putting ten grand for a photo on, on your website, that's not really going to cut it. And like, we'll get into the conversation about the buyer's journey in a little bit, but obviously there's like, with anything, there's a, uh, schmoozing, there's, uh, you know, there's a getting to know you phase. What did that look like to get to the point of the conversation about the transaction? Because as you've just said in different words, the transaction conversation is like this dirty little conversation that you have to get out of the way. How did you get to that point and then drop your figure as if they shouldn't bat an eyelid. They should be happy that you're working with them.

Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, there's a lot of layers to that question. So open them up. First, explain how I broke in. So I was saying earlier about there being a lingo in a secret language. So, um, through a random. So I had a fundamental belief and I, I hold this to be true in businesses of all, all kinds, is that the best thing you can do is let as many people in the world know that you exist. That's a big problem for a lot of businesses, luxury or not. Um, in fact, I did a podcast years ago, uh, one of one of the episodes of my own podcast. And m, I, I think it was called Fix this first. And the thing that I tell people to fix all the time are the numbers of eyes and earball eyes and ears that are even paying attention to you. Mhm. Because a lot of people are trying to convert the number of clients they need from too small of a number to begin with.

Speaker A: 100.

Speaker B: Right. So you have to, especially in today's digital world, like you have to scoop up a lot of fish in a net and then filter them down by your branding and how you're showing up in the world. So what ends up is actually a pretty small number from which you can convert to clients. The problem is most people aren't starting with a big enough number. Mhm. All right. So knowing that I had this fundamental belief that as me, I needed to make sure as many people knew that I existed as possible. So I would, I would walk around wealthy towns throughout New York and Connecticut with, uh, it's gonna seem really odd, but I used a black architectural tube. So back in the day when architects used to do actual blueprints and they'd get rolled up and they'd be put into this long black tube. I used to carry one around with my photographs rolled up in this tube. Mhm. Because it's such a weird thing to be walking around with. People would ask me what's in the tube? And I would, ah. Before they're finished asking, I'm already pulling them out and saying, oh, I'm a photographer. This is what I do. This is how I met owners of very high end children's clothing boutiques and high end restaurants. And so through one of these weird interactions, and by the way, a little sidebar, One of the, one of the women I met very early on, the owner of a child boutique in Greenwich, Connecticut. She had a very, uh, memorable name. Her name was Susie Hilfiger. M. Her husband was non existent. Yeah, her husband would just. He sold jeans out of the trunk of their car. Right, we know the story. What happened there? Like he took off. Um, but she was one of the most influential people in the early part of my career because she owned this really high end children's boutique and she loved what I did and she told everybody in town about me. Um, so in one of these other random visits, somebody told me about silent auctions. Now I grew up in the big boondocks. I had no idea what a silent auction was. And if you're not familiar, a silent auction is a fundraiser where people bid on your products or services. So I donated. I started donating to these high end fundraisers and that's what got me in the door. So what got me in the door is that people saw my work at these events. More most importantly, somebody won that bid. The person that won that bid was a client that I needed to blow away. And when I did, they told their friends. So that's literally how I got into the market. Um, how you have that conversation? It's the fight. It's so the transaction of it all is so non existent for me. I'm like, huh, how did we have those?

Speaker A: So you did all, you did all the work up front? All the work is done up front in perception and in, uh, you know, in creating that, uh, that image.

Speaker B: Uh, it's all branding. Like they knew what they were getting into. Like there was nothing about me that looked cheap. Not the website, not my fancy Jeffrey Shaw name, not my, my logo had a diamond shape at the end of it, which is a whole other cool story. But I mean, so my, my logo is Jeffrey Shaw with a diamond at the end as if it was a period. So, you know, and to this day, a diamond is an icon. I mean I wear a diamond necklace, which is a Dior necklace. Like the whole diamond motif has been in my life because of, there's a statement to it. Um, so there was nothing about my brand that looked affordable. And so therefore it's, you know, 80% of your work is done with effective branding. 80% of your work is done before you even get in front of somebody.

Speaker A: That's, that's a quote, that's a quote that we could pull out right there. Because that's, that's exactly what branding is.

Speaker B: It's, it's what it should do.

Speaker A: Perception before you get to that transaction and correct. I, I have to say that's probably the only time I've heard a story of guerrilla marketing in uh, for luxury brands by simply walking around the area where they are with blueprints under your arms and then donating into the, the, the, the silent auctions. That's.

Speaker B: I have a better one. I have a. I, I broke my way into an exclusive country club. Westchester Country Club.

Speaker A: It's like literally. You literally broke your way in.

Speaker B: I convinced the security guard to let me in with my jalopy car.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: Um, because I was, I lied and said I was going to somebody's house. So I detoured and went to the country club because I wanted to meet the country club. And I walked in and because I've. The woman at the front desk, I don't know why she let me meet you. I asked her, I said, you know, can I have a May m. I have a brief moment with the manager and she didn't even question me. She got up and got him. He came out. I quickly explained I had this photographs with me. I introduced myself. I said, look, I'm not asking you for anything. I said, but we, I'm a photographer. We serve a similar clientele. I just want you to know I exist. And he was kind and respectful, but clearly I was wearing on his patients.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: But he just gave me just enough time. I showed. I kept saying, I'm not asking anything of you. I just want you to know I exist. Two days later that man called me and said, young man, I don't know what you're up to, but keep doing it. He says, I've managed this club for 15 years and I don't recall anybody, any member ever coming to me asking me if I knew a family photographer. One of our members just walked out of my office and wanted to know if I knew a family photographer. Because they're having a family reunion at the Club. Now this club by the way was a residence. Like there's hundreds of gorgeous um, homes. So it's a community that people live in. Now I will tell you that. I guarantee you in the past 15 years that man has been asked multiple times if he knew a photographer but because he didn't, nothing came to mind. Yeah right. That's the benefit of just letting people weird things happen when people know you exist.

Speaker A: So, so the, the strategy that you use. So, so today's modern uh, what you touched on earlier is is brand awareness essentially being on the platforms where your audience is your version of awareness. Back then was, and I mean take me back was what, what year was this? And and were you just literally physically putting yourself in front of them or did you have any kind of digital presence doing that for you as well?

Speaker B: Mhm. So we're talking about 1987 or so.

Speaker A: Oh wow.

Speaker B: I think you're right. So I think that was pre digital, certainly pre email and all those things. But the principles hold true today. I mean one of the things we have. Right. I mean one of the things we have available to stay social media M like a really good image building process in social media. Whatever platform makes sense to you. Um, I'm actually I'm launching a new podcast in September called Selling Luxury and one of the guests I'm we're working on with his team to get him on the show that I'd be thrilled to is uh, the co founder of an online brand called Abask.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: A B A S K. They have, they've bunked all the theories about luxury because they are exclusively an online high end gift and home accessory website. They don't have a brick and mortar anywhere and they're killing it.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: Right? And it's. I love. That's why I want to have the monks I want, that's the conversation I want to have with somebody too. It's like to be able to sell luxury online is more challenging which is why most brands, most of your luxury brands have a presence like it's back and forth. They have a brick and mortar. Most of them I think need to improve the online experience but at least it exists. And so they the your top luxury brands, your Diors, Louis Vuitton.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: They're doing a pretty good job integrating digital into brick and mortar. I think there's still room to improve particularly for the upcoming market which is driven by digital. Um, but they're doing a pretty good job and they're leveraging social media. They're leveraging um, experiences. YouTube. Uh, I'm a big fashion show watcher because I like to see what's coming up and how designers put together their shows. And you know, the day after the show it's ending up on YouTube. So there's a lot of brand building.

Speaker A: I don't know why this is relevant, but I just watched Zoolander again with my wife a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker B: I've never seen it, so I, there's probably a good movie reference there that I'm not getting way over the top.

Speaker A: Anyway, anyway, continue.

Speaker B: Um, so I think, you know, it's. I'm always going to make lemonade out of lemons. And I think while it might seem that. I think there are components of digital that make it more challenging than the ability to just the guerrilla marketing you referred to. And yet the plus side is you can only walk so many steps in person. The reach you can have digitally is phenomenal. Um, so again that, which is why it plays into like, why do we need to scoop up. Even in the luxury market, why do we need to scoop up so many more people? M. Uh, an interesting. So an example of that, not quite in the digital realm, but just an example of how your best brands shift. Uh, air mace, fifty thousand dollar Birkin bags. Uh, you know, I mean, they're selling them at auction now for millions. I mean, it's crazy. So top, top of the line. In 2020, they introduced a $26 lipstick. Now why would a brand that high end introduce a $26 lipstick? Just to get people in the door, get um, them in the experience, give people the air maze experience even at a $26 lipstick. Right. Because they have confidence and I love this and it's all confidence. Uh, they have confidence that they're that good. That if they get somebody in their system of experience, their system, their whole brand experience. It's one of the things I've also written about extensively is respecting the loyalist and the aspirational buyer. And in today's world, both are needed. Yeah, your loyal clients are gold, right? They're going to be 50, 60% of your business. Like the loyal clients are golden. Um, you don't have to work as hard for them. They're cheaper to maintain. Uh, you just can't screw it up because you can't. It's really hard to regain the trust of a loyal client once lost compared to getting them the first time. But then you have your aspirational clients and in the luxury market, aspirational clients are sometimes a one time purchase. They're not as big of a purchase purchase, but they blast the hell out of their experience on social. They go and they, they buy something they have saved up for for the longest time. They go to Louis Vuitton, they buy that bag and they blast it all over social media, every selfie imaginable. And that is critically important.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: To a brand today.

Speaker A: So, so with, so to take it back to, because you broke into the market in a different era, completely different era to what we have now. Even, even the era that we're coming into, all of us feel like dinosaurs as we're moving into this AI era. Um, if you had to start again. And of course a photography business is a service based business, but it's a visual business as well. So there's, there's the difference there. If you had to break into the market today selling to the people who you know so well, even on a B2B level, because what you've done is, is B2C predominantly. How, how would you not being able to, to kind of use the, the, the visuals of your photography as the, the selling aspect? Because as you said, you do all the work up front anyway. What would you do now? What would you do today to get eyeballs on you, to, to make people aware of you and, and to do all that work up front. So the transaction is that conversation is just a, uh, you know, it doesn't even matter. What would you do today? What would you do differently?

Speaker B: Yeah. So one is you have to know where your clients are hanging out. Right. So the fact of the matter is a good percentage of luxury, uh, buyers are not online a lot. Their life is not involved being on social. And uh, actually when I was in my active years as a photographer and I was, I was considering a lot more paid advertising and digital looking at how that might expand the business. Uh, I did a survey to a lot of my clients, had sit down conversations with them and most of their behavior, you know, they, they were on the computer to help with their kids homework or to seek out donations for auctions for their kids private schools. Um, but the biggest surprise discovery was I was like, I really pushed it. I'm like, well look, seriously, if you have, if you are online shopping, what's a brand that you do buy online? Because I was thinking paid advertising. How can you get in front of them? The most common answer was J. Crew. Mhm. Not even an upscale brand, but it has the basics. And when I asked people, again it's all psychology. When I asked those very same clients why J. Crew, they and this is all the moms I'm having this con. Every one of them had the exact same reason. Size consistency. J. Crew makes sure a medium is a medium across the board. I actually contacted J. Crew because I was curious about this and they said yes, we know that of our customers. Although our clothes are manufactured around the world, they have really tight quality control on size consistency because it makes it easier for people to buy online. Mhm. So there are layers to these. Like would you think your wealthiest people are shopping on J. Crew? Probably not until you understand that J. Crew as a brand is smart enough to understand what's the most important thing on an online experience is consistency. If you're going to buy your khakis from J. Crew, you want the medium to be a medium every time. M. So what I would do differently today just I would leverage social. It's still, it's all brand, it's all image building. Four Seasons is a great example of this. So we all know Four Seasons, the hotel chain. Go to any one of their hotel websites and it'll be impressive. But do you also know that Four Seasons has their own fleet of yachts, they have their own fleet of private jets and they own a private island because for a quarter of a million dollars per person you can have an eight day experience on a Four Seasons jet which will take you to any one of the dozens of destinations they have. They have planes that ah, they, they usually do bookings ah, of ah, the football plane with 12 people. Mhm. A family of five or couples of six couples, what have you. Uh, and there's various itineraries and it is currently a quarter of a million dollars per person. Well, so there is a whole online presence of that. If you go, I think if you go on YouTube and if you actually go on YouTube, search for like Four Seasons Private Jet experiences, you'll see videos on this. Like it'll, it's out there. And I would do the same thing. The visual impression these videos make make you want to spend a quarter million dollars. If you had it, you, you'd want to spend it. Because how they. So that's what I would do. I wouldn't just. You have to capture all the emotions in the branding. And this, they have one video that's clearly a couple, uh, probably maybe a honeymoon, maybe an engagement. But it's, you know, it's pouring rain. It starts with them handing the couple rubber boots as they're getting out of a limousine and then it takes, flies them to an island. And on the island, uh, at some point you see all the four season staff members carrying a four coast four poster bed in the middle of a field. Because this couple clearly wants to have an intimate moment on a bed in a field. Like. And it's a true story. I mean it's, it's, it is, it is literally they say in the video. And I have validated that this is a true story. This was a true Four Seasons customer. It's probably reenacted with these actors, but it's a true story.

Speaker A: My, my wife just asked me what I wanted for my birthday. Now, now I know you've just put that, put that in front of me.

Speaker B: But it's all, but it's all leveraging digital. Like these are things that you can capture this mood and I mean they're really captivating videos. Like it, it's a whole mood. That's what I would do. And I would be pleased to know. I mean I could start a world. It took me decades to become a world. An international portrait photographer.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: It doesn't need to take that long anymore. I could put things like that out and people all over the world could hire me. I didn't have to. I wouldn't have to work from a base in the northeast and spring out from there.

Speaker A: How much of your success and, and I want to pass it over to uh, to the group now to answer, uh, to, to ask some questions. So guys, if you have any, any questions for, for Jeffrey, pop your hand up and we can, we can kind of get this, this engaging. Jeffrey. I also am uh, uh, conscious of your, your time as well. So, so we'll, we'll keep those two things in mind. But when you, when you have that kind of uh, that kind of upper end experience service and you always tend to find that your exact customer knows more and more and more of your exact customers. How much was brand loyalty and referrals worth to your business versus the, you know, the new business that comes in? How m. How much groundwork or how much strategy did you put into actually not just waiting for referrals, but proactively getting the ball rolling.

Speaker B: Yeah. Even more important than the referrals was keeping the clients I had. So we had a 65 to 70% retention rate. And as I always tell people, it was the first metric we studied at the end of the year. When we got to the end of the year, we calculated by volume and dollar amount. What quant. Because I only did 150 shoots a year. So what percentage of that were repeat clients. We also knew the base of that. So let's say 80 out of 150 clients were previously existing clients. Uh, about 30 of those are people we photographed every single year. And they had no intention of stopping until the kids aged out, which was many years away. The other 50 or so of the 80 clients were what we refer to as cycle clients. They had some kind of a cycle. They came to, they wanted photographs every other year, every three years, something like that. But there was big moments and stuff, right? There was a pattern that, that we developed that uh, by observation that we could reach out to them. So we also tracked the movement m of every client. Uh, we would reach out to clients all the time and say, you know, we photographed Susie when she was five. Johnny turns five this year, we should probably do portraits of him as well. Now again, one of the things with, I believe this to be true of all clients, but it's even more so true with affluent people is that if you get, if you were to break down, you know, we talk about aligning values with your clients, there can be, which was the case here, one significant one value that was so massive that if I played to that value, I had them hooked. And then with affluent people, the value that drives their decision making process is responsibility.

Speaker A: Hm.

Speaker B: The weight of their weight of responsibility they live under is massive. They have a responsibility to uphold their image. They have a responsibility to be perfect to their friends. That's why the holiday cards are so important. They were. And one of the biggest responsibilities they have is to their kids that their kids are treated fairly. Example. So my, you know, my world growing up middle or middle class, I was third of three boys. So I just got the hand me downs, right. And there were no photographs of my childhood because my kids, my parents got bored, ran out of money, were busy raising, you know, just. Well, when you're wealthy, you can't send two of your kids to an Ivy League school and the third one to community college. You just can't. Like, they're up. They have a level of responsibility. So I picked up on that value. It's like, man, what's disastrous these families is for one child to have more photographs of themselves than the other kids. The younger kids would be vocal to say, well, you didn't do my portrait when I was five, did you have

Speaker A: a CRM like you, you emailed your, your clients and said, hey, Johnny's turn. Um, yeah.

Speaker B: So a lot of it was pretty simple. But yeah, we did have a CRM back in those days. We use Salesforce back in those earlier days before Salesforce got so big, which only complicated it. But it used to be a more simple platform. Absolutely. And to this day, um, our system, you know, even in my business today, my daughter is my, my right hand and, and she and I, it's an ongoing conversation. Like we know everything going on in our. And everything gets tracked. Um, as a photographer, particularly this clientele, they would often have to postpone appointments. Not quite as often the photo shoots, but whether it was to see the proofs or some other decision making appointment, you know, they're busy lives, they would often have to reschedule it. And that was never done with me. It was either done via email and picked up by one of my team members or they called and spoke to one of my team members. We had a centralized system so anytime an appointment was changed, it was put into their file while the appointment, why the point was changed. So when I would uh, say that it was changed because their daughter uh, reached to the next level of, of tournament, uh, in the soccer or the husband had emergency dental service surgery or something, the next time I saw them I was like, oh, by the way, how did that dental surgery go? That sounded awful. They know, they didn't talk to me. They're like, how, how do you know that? Right? What I, the message. I first of all I wanted them to know I cared. But they also wanted them to know that my team is talking about their lives when they're not in front of us. Because that is sending a huge cue that they're important to us, that they're part of our lives.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. And, and there's so many lessons there for all of us because all of us have past clients and you know, the value of the small attention to detail. If you're able to record that and just kind of show, show that you care, show that you know your, your, the, the relationship that you have with them is beyond the transaction. There's genuine care there. And so much of what you said rings true with that. Where can people get a hold of your uh, book? Where's the best place for people to, to learn more about you, to get in touch with you, to connect with you?

Speaker B: Uh, so my website is jeffreyshaw.com uh and you can find your. There's a book page there and then you can have, gives you each, each book has a few options where you can buy it. Of course Amazon still is the number one place where people buy books. I've got three books. Um, lingo the Self Employed Life and then sell to The Rich, which just came out in April. Um, so Amazon, you can go to Amazon directly or you can go to jeffreyshaw.com and find your way. I just want to comment on. I'm so glad that style question came up. Not only because I could talk clothes all day long, um, but even more importantly, what I love about what you all are doing is to me, brand is everything and everything is branding. If you, if you really break down and look at your top end luxury brands, your Diors, uh, Louis Vuitton, there's. You can't point to one thing that says, oh, that's their brand. It's the whole vibe is the whole thing. It's the whole experience. It is how the people in the store are dressed and it's how the merchandising is laid out and it's the logo and it's the etc. Etc. Branding is so much bigger. Again, if it wasn't for really grasping the idea of branding, I never would have been able to transition from m this photographer in my hometown to being the photographer I became because I did it with branding. The whole thing was a brand. The name, the look, the vibe, the logo, how I dress, how I presented, how I spoke. Everything is branding, including how you're dressed to show up at an art event.

Speaker A: Beautiful. A very stylish way to finish the conversation. Jeffrey, one more time. Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Plenty of nuggets to take away. Thank you all for your time and uh, hopefully I'll see you all soon. We really hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thanks so much for listening. If you want to learn more brand strategy techniques to level up your skills, make sure you check out brandmaster academy.com there's plenty of free resources and premium content for you to download and get you going. If you enjoyed this content, please be sure to give us an honest review on itunes, stitcher, or wherever you listened. And make sure you tune in for the next episode of the Brandmaster podcast.