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    Selling Luxury: Connect with Affluent Customers, Create Unique Experiences Through Impeccable Service, and Close the Sale
    Selling Luxury: Connect with Affluent Customers, Create Unique Experiences Through Impeccable Service, and Close the Sale
    Selling Luxury: Connect with Affluent Customers, Create Unique Experiences Through Impeccable Service, and Close the Sale
    Ebook183 pages1 hour

    Selling Luxury: Connect with Affluent Customers, Create Unique Experiences Through Impeccable Service, and Close the Sale

    By Robin Lent, Genevieve Tour and Alain-Dominique Perrin

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Selling high-end luxury creations requires a different set of skills than does traditional selling. Clients have high expectations for the service they receive and base their purchasing decisions more on emotion and desire than practical need. Whether you are selling diamond bracelets or sports cars, the key to concluding the sale lies in how well you sell rather than what you sell.

    In Selling Luxury, Robin Lent and Geneviève Tour explore every component of luxury sales and offer proven, practical strategies for connecting with customers. Rather than sales associates, the luxury market calls for “Sales Ambassadors” who represent the brand with distinction. Sales Ambassadors understand how to connect with customers by discovering their unique motivational desires. This requires a multitude of specialized skills: passion, perseverance, empathy, daring, and curiosity. Through personalized service each and every time, Sales Ambassadors are able to build trust, brand loyalty, and lasting customer relationships.

    If you want to succeed in the luxury sales universe, Selling Luxury is for you. You’ll pick up the skills and approaches that work everyday in a multitude of situations. You’ll learn how to:

    • Connect emotionally with customers
    • Exceed your customers’ expectations
    • Turn every customer contact into a brand experience
    • Personalize your customer service
    • Learn about customers through observing and discovery
    • Create the desire to purchase
    • Deal positively with customer objections
    • Build a relationship of trust and brand loyalty

    The universe of luxury is no place for traditional hard-sell tactics. Instead, you have to subtly adapt to your customer in a deeper way. Doing so takes a truly personal touch. Selling Luxury shows you how to develop these skills and make them a key part of your own unique selling style.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWiley
    Release dateMay 27, 2009
    ISBN9780470498378

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    • 5/5
      The chapters are short, no-bullshit, full of wisdom, and contain many real life examples. All messages are straight to the point. Loved it.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    Selling Luxury - Robin Lent

    Introduction

    What happens in a luxury environment that makes it unique? How do you build customer loyalty that can last for decades or even a lifetime? What is the link between a luxury creation and the person dreaming of owning it? How can you give added value compared to the competition? How do you go about up-selling or cross-selling in a luxury environment? How can you take advantage of customer after-sales service situations? How can approaches such as using silence and observation play an active role in the sales process? What are customers really shopping for when they visit a luxury boutique?

    Selling Luxury answers these questions and many more using our combined 30 years of personal experience in selling and training in luxury as well as our contacts with top Sales Ambassadors throughout the world. These tips from the best offer pertinent keys to luxury selling.

    These 88 approaches are given in a clear and practical manner and are ready to use immediately. At first, some of the points, such as the importance of greeting, smiling, and listening may seem to be nonspecific for the luxury universe. We can assure you that based on our research these basics are essential and very much expected from customers shopping in a luxury universe.

    The importance of the role of Sales Ambassadors cannot be stated often enough. They are the brand for the customer. Each Sales Ambassador is responsible for creating the experience that customers will always remember. For those working in sales, applying Selling Luxury is an excellent way to improve performance.

    How do you define a luxury customer? It is very simple. We are all luxury customers. We all have our own personal luxury. It could be the park bench we like to sit on and read the paper, the place we go to on Saturday mornings for coffee, or the spot where we go to watch the sunset. We all have those little unique and special things that matter to us, a little luxury that makes us feel special.

    What about shopping? Are only the rich and superrich considered luxury customers? Absolutely not. People decide that they want something unique, either for someone they love or for themselves. Their incomes may be very modest. The cost of a creation is far less important than the desire to mark the event or special occasion between family and friends, whether it is a birth, an anniversary, a graduation, or a promotion. Life is a celebration, and to have something exceptional to remember those special moments adds to the pleasure.

    Luxury has been with us since the pharaohs in Egypt some 6,000 years ago and probably even much earlier. Luxury will continue to be here in one form or another in the future. Brands may disappear, but the notion of luxury is a part of us and will stay with us.

    In Selling Luxury, we have differentiated the Sales Ambassador from the Sales Associate in order to give clear examples in each situation about what should be done and what should be avoided. We have also alternated between he and she throughout the book, either to identify the Sales Ambassador or the customer. We have purposely not used brand names in our examples for two reasons. First of all, we wanted the brands to remain confidential. There is a discretion in luxury that we have respected. The second reason was to avoid having readers think that certain approaches were only valid in specific fields of luxury sales. We have found that Selling Luxury performs well across a variety of sales situations. Why 88 points? There are several reasons for our choice. In the same way that, during a sale, there is a symbolism or story behind each creation, there is also a symbolism behind the eights:

    • Eight is the symbol of balance and harmony, which is a constant challenge in building relationships between Sales Ambassadors and customers.

    • Eight, in mathematics, is the symbol of infinity. Here we thought of the notion of having lasting relationships with customers.

    • In numerology, 8 is the symbol of someone who has mastered knowledge. Selling Luxury will certainly improve the skills and competencies of Sales Ambassadors wishing to be virtuosos in the field of luxury.

    • Finally, in certain cultures, Chinese for instance, the number 8 symbolizes good luck and happiness. In Cantonese, the number eight is pronounced fa. This is the same pronunciation as the sound for to grow richer in the large sense of the word. Two eights double the possibilities.

    May Selling Luxury be an enrichment for those who read it!

    At the end of each chapter, you will find a story that gives a real-life customer and Sales Ambassador situation. Each story ends with a question for the reader to imagine the outcomes (impact and result). The outcomes of each of the eight examples are listed together at the end of the book.

    Part One:

    Initial Thoughts

    Luxury means paying tribute to

    customers seeking perfection from

    creations while being waited on by

    exceptional salespersons. Selling and

    service are at the forefront of every

    luxury brand. Selling is a professional

    art, and only excellence is acceptable

    from luxury sales staff. If you are seeking

    enjoyment and fulfillment, you should

    consider becoming a salesperson in the

    world of luxury.

    —Michel Guten

    President, Institut Supérieur de Marketing du Luxe;

    Vice-President Délégué du Comité des Champs-Elysées;

    Former CEO, Lancel;

    Former Vice-Président, Cartier France

    1

    The Vital Role of the Sales Ambassador

    The publicity photograph in the magazine shows a stunning, sensual, young woman with a top brand-name handbag on her shoulder. The handbag is chic and beautifully designed. While traveling into town, the potential buyer observes this image and makes a mental note of the name of the impressive creation.

    She takes time during her lunch break to go to the boutique located in an area where there are many other luxury brands. There, in the window, is the same handbag, looking even more appealing than in the

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