This morning before heading out for coffee, I thumbed through the pages of my Kindle and read a passage of Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent.
Dan was talking about those colorful patterned dress shirts, the ones with a second colorful print on the inside of the cuff. And he said:
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The shirts are very popular in the Southwest with the rodeo crowd, rich oil men — one of whom has “collected 130 different designs” and spent so much money, the 2014 “collection” includes a design named after that customer, and quite a few GKIC members. The shirts go for $225.00 to over $500.00, and are sold direct, in catalogs, at Nieman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, high-end country western shops, and in several Las Vegas stores.
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“I wanda,” I said to myself as I raised my nose in the air, “I wanda if this brand of shirts is the one that Parris Lampropoulos buys.”
As you might remember if you were reading my emails back this past May, I went to a copywriting conference. Multimillionaire A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos was the star there.
The first night, Parris worked the room. As he did, he kept showing off his colorful, patterned shirt. “It’s a Robert Graham,” Parris would say to anyone who expressed interest. “I put his kids through college.”
I brought my nose back down to the pages of Marketing to the Affluent. Sure enough, Dan Kennedy was talking about Robert Graham shirts. And he had this to say:
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The brand’s owner, Robert Stock, calls customers “connoisseurs.” He says he is in the business of selling “feeling good” — getting favorably noticed, getting compliments, getting bragging rights.
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My point is that old chestnut, that you are not in the business that you think you are in. At least, that is, if you want people bragging about how much money they spent on a collection of your stuff, instead of treating your offer like a commodity or at best a necessary occasional expense.
That’s all I got for you today. Except for an encouragement to read No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent if you haven’t done so.
It’s a valuable book, and I wish I had read it earlier.
If you wish to read it now, here’s where you can get it: