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Book Review: Selling to the Affluent
I bought the book "Selling to the Affluent" by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley a while ago and wanted to review it to help anyone else on this forum who might be considering purchasing it.
Overall I did not find it particularly useful for myself, for a couple of reasons.
I have a 10 year background in high-end corporate sales, so much of the advice was information I was already familiar with. (Focus on your customer's needs rather than your own, project an image of affluence for yourself so you fit in, project an image of success in your business, etc.) However, the tips in this book might be very useful to someone new to sales.
I would caution anyone from following some of his advice too closely, though. The sample dialogues between a sales person and a prospective client were not something I would ever emulate. I found the things the sales person said to be much too aggressive.
Most of the information in this book is aimed at people who want to sell to business men. For those portrait artists focusing on corporate commissions this might be just the right fit. However, for now, I plan on concentrating on family portraits so most of the advice didn't apply. In my limited experience getting family portrait commissions (I'm just getting started as a portrait artist) I seem to have found that the decsion-makers are upper income women whose husbands are the primary breadwinners in the family. This book didn't address how to sell to that market at all. There is one chapter on "Prospecting Affluent Women" but it concentrates on successful women business owners or selling financial services to affluent widows. A very small amount of this advice could be applied to getting family portrait commissions, but not much, I thought.
All in all, I would only buy this book if my primary market was selling to businessmen.
Hope that helps anyone who's considering buying this book.
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