Anyone who has heard me talk about pricing knows that I put a huge emphasis on perceived value. That’s never more important than when you are selling to luxury clientele.

And since perception controls value, let me rephrase that last part. The term “luxury” carries some negative connotations relating to excessive or unnecessary expenditures. Let’s call these potential customers high net-worth individuals. They aren’t a luxury to you, and you don’t want to think of your products as a luxury to them. You want to sell high-quality products to high-net worth individuals who not only can afford the products, but also they actually appreciate the value of those products and what they contribute to their lives and lifestyle.

First impressions
Everything you do and say sets the tone for your relationship with potential customers. Meet with them on your terms. Require appointments just like the professionals they deal with, such as lawyers, accountants, and doctors. Before the appointment, be prepared. Have the potential client fill out a questionnaire in order to get the appointment, providing information about what kind of work they want and even the budget they have in mind.

These days, their first contact with you is likely to be your website or Facebook page. Make sure your online presence properly reflects the level of sophistication and quality you want to present to customers. One trick for teasing budget information out of the potential client is to put that question as a required drop-down menu in your appointment questionnaire online. You can send a not so subtle message by controlling the low and high ends of the drop-down menu.

The meeting
When you do meet with the client face to face, don’t show up in a beat-up truck with fast food wrappers falling out of the door. You don’t have to wear a 3-piece suit, but be clean, well-groomed, and professionally dressed. That could be as casual as a polo shirt with your company logo or maybe a casual blazer, too. If the meeting is in your office, make sure it is professional, organized, and tidy. Awards, certifications, and photos of your best work are all great things to display.

If the meeting is at their home or office, take in the surroundings to learn more about them, what they might value, and what they can afford. Are they working with a designer or architect? Are they relying on you for design expertise? What experience have they had with these kinds of projects in the past?

Design fees
One of the best tools for qualifying customers and establishing a value proposition at the start is charging a design fee. Estimates are NOT free, even if you don’t charge for them. They cost you valuable time. Charging a design fee up front helps emphasize the professionalism of your services. You can always offer to roll the fee into the cost of the project once they decide to go ahead with you, but the non-negotiable, non-returnable fee up front tells them immediately this is a high-quality, professional service that is worth paying for.

If you are not designing the project, and you are dealing with a designer or architect, make sure you are on the same page with the design team. Too many jobs lose profit in the engineering process, when the shop practically must redesign the job to accommodate the designer’s “vision” in the real world.

Presenting an estimate
When you’ve determined the scope of the job, matched it to your company’s skills, equipment, and schedule, it’s time to present it to the client. This is the crucial moment treated with fear and loathing by many custom woodworking operations. Maybe the number they have come up with is higher than the original budget suggested by the client.

In today’s world of constantly rising costs, that is often the case. What do you do when the potential client says your number is too high? If they say your price is too high, you need to stand your ground. A phrase I love is, “I’m not expensive. You just can’t afford me.”

If you use component pricing (as I have discussed before) and have presented a detailed, itemized listing supporting your price, the discussion can turn to what they want to eliminate from the job to meet their budget. This is a dynamic emphasis of the value of your product. Things cost what they cost. If you can’t afford them, we have to cut them out of the job.

Throughout the job
Even after initial meetings, there are important things to do to repeatedly add perceived value to the product and process along the way. Progress reports, maybe even with progress photos, are always welcome and help build excitement as the project nears completion.

If the project requires site work and installation, make sure the client has a clear understanding of what is involved in that process and what is required. Will other trades have completed prep work on time for you? What are the expectations for access and security? Then do your part to complete work on time, and have a professional crew do the delivery and installation in a professional manner, cleaning up afterwards.

Winning finish
All these things help to make final payment a pleasure for both the client and you. Don’t forget leave-behinds like a stack of business cards, instructions for care, maybe a parting gift like a cutting board. I recently have heard of shops that build up a small kit of minor replacement parts like shelf pins, hinges, screw plugs, and the like, as a final gift to the client.

Luxury car salesmen spend time with a full walkaround and presentation of the car at delivery. If you are delivering a custom kitchen, you should do no less, walking them through the whole job. This is your last opportunity to show them the high value they received from you.

One more tip: There’s a great YouTube channel that can build your confidence in dealing with high-net worth customers and mastering luxury sales. It’s called Luxury Academy.