Why Aligning With Luxury Means You Can Charge More
Turning my real estate service offering into a luxury experience led to higher ticket clients who pay a premium to partner with me. THIS is how I did it…
I was 24 when I first stepped into a Christian Dior boutique, and so you can imagine how I felt almost twenty years later strutting through the flagship store in Paris (pictured above).
I’d always loved the brand but never imagined that one day I could actually afford one of those bags I’d had on my vision board as a teen. But here I was. Credit card ready to roll and brimming with anticipation of that delicious sugar hit rush of retail therapy that was about to wash over me.
I paid $1,300 for that cute little pink purse and I still have it today. The same one would cost more than double today but hey, I still go back for more.
The question is Why?
Why do people buy luxury?
Dior candy on display at the Dior Museum in Paris. (I visited in November 2024 and it was undoubtedly the highlight of my trip.)
Why do I pay thousands for an item that COULD cost me just a few hundred dollars if I shopped somewhere else?
Why does anyone buy luxury items when they’re typically the most expensive in the market?
Here’s the hint …
It’s not necessarily about the monetary value.
It’s how that handbag, that pair of heels or even that Service Offering makes you FEEL.
It’s also what it SIGNALS to others. Aligning with a certain brand tells an unwritten story about who you are as a person, your values and perhaps even who you want to be associated with. There’s a lot of unconscious stuff going on here but the reality is, it matters.
Aligning with Luxury leads to higher fees.
Want to charge more for your service?
Make it premium. Lead with luxury.
You see, Luxury is all in the experience and if you can align your service offering with an experience that leaves the client feeling like a million bucks, well, you might just open the doors to higher ticket clientele and the potential for a massive fee increase. Attracting clients who can afford (and are willing) to pay a premium for your service BECAUSE they value the experience (or the person delivering it) more than the price is your ticket to increased revenue and higher profits.
Here’s some examples of how I adopt a sense of luxury and exclusivity in my business.
GATEKEEPING
When you build a barrier to entry around your service offering and the access someone has to YOU, people subconsciously see your value as higher, simply because you’re not easily accessible.
Only a select few clients have access to you and that feeling of scarcity is what frames you in a highly esteemed light.
One of the ways I do this is by never openly displaying my phone number in public places such as on my website or social media links. It might go against everything we’ve been taught about being a real estate professional, but here’s the thing — doing this creates a subconscious barrier to You and your service in the minds of others. It communicates scarcity. Exclusivity. Anti-desperation.
It says, “I don’t need you. You need ME.”
It also means you skip all those telemarketing calls and have a lot less voicemails to reply to at the end of the day. The clients who CAN reach you and have access to you via your mobile feel special because not everyone can get you.
WORKING WITH FEWER CLIENTS
Having limits on the number of clients you take on at a time also communicates exclusivity.
You’re creating DESIRE by closing the door to the masses and opening it only a select few.
Trust me, when the clients who truly want to work with you see you as scarce and someone who is in high demand, they will do whatever it takes to lock you down! You won’t be having conversations around fee negotiation and you certainly won’t be chasing them down with a Form 6.
Yes! I want to get paid more to work with top tier clients.
It takes a certain mindset, not to mention skillset, to adopt these exclusivity measures (and we unpack more of them in the podcast episode below).
Essentially, if YOU want to be viewed as a high-value agent, you need to position your business and personal brand differently to everyone else. Your processes and the ways you go about doing business need to differ from the standard. They need to elevate.
If charging more for your service and partnering with top tier clientele is your ultimate goal — I teach the strategic positioning steps to take, along with the mindset shift you must embrace in my High Performance Career Coaching Program which is a 1:1 offering exclusive to members of the WENDYRUSSELL Institute.
If you’re curious to learn more of the steps to positioning yourself as a Luxury Brand, we share them in the episode below:
MEET THE WRITER
Hi, I’m Wendy.
I’m a storytelling writer, champagne lover and Luxury Buyer’s Agent based in Brisbane Australia. I share my journey as an independent real estate professional and self-made career woman. Curious about how I got here and what drives me? READ MY STORY
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Wendy Russell is a Luxury Buyer’s Agent, social introvert and self-made business woman on a mission to help career women step into their power as high-value professionals. It starts here.
Become the high-value agent you were destined to be.
Steal my systems and processes for running your own buyer’s advocacy business.
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