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This Book Teaches You How to Get Rich People to Buy Your Stuff
Matt Karamazov
March 16, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes
Read on The Reading Life.com | Read Time: ~7 Minutes
📚 Hey, I’m back with more books!
Today’s book is all about how to get rich people to buy your stuff (and thus, become rich yourself).
But first, let me share this video about one of my favorite books of all time, and how it can help you end self-sabotage the EASY way.
I also drop several more book recommendations in there for people who are fans of Alan Watts and Eastern philosophy, but you don’t have to be interested in that to gain tremendous benefit from watching the video and applying the principle I lay out within.
It’ll basically help you to stop (metaphorically) bashing yourself in the head with a brick and get on with the REAL business of living.
And speaking of business, that brings us back to Dan Kennedy’s extraordinarily valuable book: No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent.
I took 12 pages of notes on this book, and of course, the full book is also available on Amazon. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend it.
Seriously, it seems like I enter a new tax bracket every time I finish and apply a new Dan Kennedy book.
Below, I share a short summary of No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent, as well as my best book notes, along with some additional recommended reading.
If you’re looking for a book that will teach you how to survive any economic environment by going upstream to higher-quality, more valuable, richer clientele, then I highly recommend reading…
Dan Kennedy is the legendary marketing genius standing behind virtually every future marketing superstar you and I follow today. He’s the guy they all learned it from, and before everyone had a copy of $100M Offers or $100M Leads sitting behind them as their Zoom background, people displayed Dan Kennedy’s books behind them.
His “No B.S.” series contains more than a dozen volumes (18 at last count) and I’m rapidly working my way through all of them. I’m inhaling them one after another, just ravenous for the principles, strategies, and tactics that are changing my financial future before my very eyes. It seems like I enter a new tax bracket every time I finish and apply a new Dan Kennedy book.
This book, unsurprisingly, is about how to get rich people to buy your stuff. There are, understandably, only a few books on this subject, partly because there are relatively few people who are qualified to write about it. Dan Kennedy is. His demonstrated competence and multimillion-dollar track record speak for themselves, and have helped establish him firmly among the top business professionals thinking, writing, and speaking today.
The fact is that we are living and working and selling in the New Economy, a time where consumers demand more: demand what is specifically for them, demand competence, demand politeness and excellent service, and know that they are the ones with the most power. “Low ticket” is becoming less and less sustainable as well, forcing the smart marketers and the people who like money to go where the money actually is. In other words, to market to the affluent.
This book covers the psychology and buying behaviors of the “Top 1%” of the consumer base, how to find them, sell to them, what they like and what they’re looking for. All the strategies and tactics are right here, and in an economic environment where blending in with the masses means poverty and death, this book will help you stand out, command attention and respect, and both protect and expand your bottom line in any economic environment.
“No matter what external conditions occur, you need a bastion of customers with both constant, uninterruptible ability and willingness to buy.
Such customers can only be found among people of affluence - not just in income, but in their net worth and emotional state. Organizing a business around any other population is, bluntly, self-sabotage.”
“There are two considerations that should govern your strategy, dictate where you sell and who you sell to. One is Comparative ABILITY to Buy. The other is Comparative WILLINGNESS to Buy. Nothing else matters more.”
“If you are going to choose your customers - as you can and should - why not choose ones with strong ability and willingness to buy, broadly, in diversified categories, with price-elastic decision-making, and imbued with optimism or, if need arises, resilience?”
“In the particular year I analyzed for this chapter, 2018, 241 of the 400 basically made their fortunes from scratch, and another 36 made a large portion of their money even if also inheriting some wealth.
Translation: 71% of the ultra-rich got there through ambition, initiative, drive, grit, ingenuity, hard work, and entrepreneurship. Their wealth has not separated them from those values.”
“In many respects, the ultra-rich have the very same concerns and buying motivations as the more ordinary affluent.
They are pressed for time and eager for efficiency, competence, and convenience to be provided to them - and they’re very willing to pay for it. Other than those intangibles, they have few if any needs.
As a matter of fact, even income is pretty much irrelevant to them; they have risen to the point of concern only with net worth.
They worry about loss - of money, power, status, or security. They seek approval, recognition, respect - some only from peers, others from the world at large, all from those they conduct business with.”
“When it is a question of money, everyone is of the same religion.”
“He’s living beyond his means, but he can afford it.”
“‘Buying healthy’ is also an emergent status symbol, and that, too, pairs with the affluent customer.”
“The self-made affluent are great admirers of the qualities that got them where they now are. Every one of them is doing business with someone who reminds them of themselves when they were starting out.”
“These people reward ingenuity, drive, persistence, and salesmanship. They have a spiritual reverence for these virtues.”
“If you seek to go where the money is, you will find yourself unwelcome if you lack and fail to express an attitude of optimism.
I have long told my clients, ‘Whatever else you are a merchant of, be sure that you are also a merchant of good news.’
There is a simple principle I teach about marketing relationships with customers of any and all kinds that applies trebly to affluent customers who nearly always have ample ability to spend, but are subject to mood swings affecting their willingness to spend:
After every encounter and communication, leave the customer feeling better about himself and the world around him than he was when you got there. Lift.”
“The affluent are insecure in many ways. They certainly worry about going backward, about losing their money, status, or privileges. If you’ve never been rich, you have no frame of reference, but if you’ve been rich then poor, you know what you’re missing!
They are acutely aware of the aggravations, inconveniences, and financial difficulties endured daily by ordinary mortals that they have left behind - and lose a few winks every night worrying about waking up back there again.”
“It is true that a lot of affluent customers’ purchasing is done as a means of showing themselves respect and giving themselves recognition for their hard work and accomplishment that they don’t feel they are getting from others. Being told, subtly, that ‘you deserve this (and most others don’t)’ and ‘owning this signifies accomplishment and status and commands respect’ is extremely persuasive to the affluent.”
“The most successful marketers learn not to question how the public or their customers get value - only to strive to find out about it, recognize it, and capitalize on it.
To be of service means offering and delivering what customers value; that’s the role of the businessperson. Should you feel a need instead to impose your value criteria on others, you ought to exit business and enter politics or ministry.”
Currently, I don’t have a complete breakdown of No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent published on the Stairway to Wisdom (my library of expert book breakdowns), but below I’ve listed some similar breakdowns that you may enjoy instead.
When you become a member of the Stairway to Wisdom, you’ll gain access to more than 120+ book breakdowns like these ones here, as well as a premium weekly newsletter that will help you build the kind of life for yourself that you’ll love living.
By wanting to become rich, you are also saying that you want to accept the challenge to be better at making money than 99 percent of the people on this planet. Just by attempting this, you are going to have to accept the fact that you must not just be good, you must be incredible. Are you ready?
37-Minute Read | 9,800 Words
Never before collected in one place, this book is a valuable repository of the transformative wisdom of investing icon Naval Ravikant. He shares everything he knows about wealth and happiness, as well as what he believes is one of the most important skills.
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Doing well in school has very little to do with how successful you become. In this new economy, the biggest factor in your success will not be abstract, academic learning but whether you develop the real-life success skills evinced by the people on these pages, and how early you do.
33-Minute Read | 8,600 Words
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I hope you found these book recommendations helpful, and I’ll be back with even more books for you very soon!
If you’re a CEO, entrepreneur, or executive yourself, I’d like to invite you to join my private business mastermind on Skool, The Competitive Advantage.
When you’re ready to win at all costs, that’s where you belong.
It’s a small group (35 members) all dead-set on expanding our profits, lifestyle, and freedom, and by joining you’ll gain access to my own professional network and receive my personal, individualized help in getting you to where you want to go - as fast as humanly possible.
Until next time…happy reading!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov
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