Building a luxury brand can be daunting. You’re following the footsteps of Hermes, Louis Vuitton, and Ferrari. But you have all the power and wisdom to do it!
If you want your luxury brand to dominate your niche - and be the market leader - there's really only one thing holding you back.
It’s a fear… that resides in you!
I know that’s confronting, so please hear me out.
What’s that fear swimming through your heart and mind?
It’s that your market will reject what you’re offering… and therefore won’t accept YOU.
Again, I know this is confronting, so please stick with me.
And it’s this false idea of rejection that keeps you from sprinkling your magic over your customers. So you hold back, which means you hesitate to put the genuine luxury price tag on your brand.
I want you to know there’s no reason to hesitate even though it may seem that the market might reject your offer.
Why? Because there are 5 guidelines you can follow to compel your prospects to come to YOU for their dream solution.
These 5 guidelines are the key elements of a luxury brand. They define the magic that permeates your brand and liberates you to be an icon – the magician who can sell those $100K+ offers with conviction and certainty.
Element #1- Become the Icon of Your Brand
Here’s advice that I give to every one of our clients…
Get comfortable with putting yourself out there as the personality and face of your brand. This is the first step to becoming an icon.
What’s the secret to getting comfortable? Create a dream so big and so exciting, you can’t hold yourself back!
All of our most successful clients – with $100k offers plus – have audacious dreams!
There’s nothing arrogant about shaping yourself as an icon. As an icon, you’re making an impact and creating exceptional value.
This is the key common thread in ALL luxury brands, irrespective of industry.
The person at the helm of a luxury company is an icon.
I have one client who exclusively operates at this level and she’s absolutely an icon. She does a very good job of this intuitively.
The client works on the concept that she’s there as the creator, the innovator, and the pioneer.
She is constantly innovating and never looks backwards.
This manifests in the organizational structure within her brand. She’s capable of pulling all the threads to create almost a religion. And this spills over to the messaging around her as the brand’s icon.
There’s no reason you can’t do the same.
The secret to a world-class luxury brand is a captivating narrative that’s built around the legend and the history of that person. But it’s not just any story that showcases the brand concept.
The narrative goes much deeper.
The way you work at the luxury level is beyond the realm of run-of-the-mill entrepreneurship.
As the icon, you shouldn’t be delivering a lot to the vast majority of your clients or audience. You need to be so far up the sky that you’re inaccessible to most of your audience.
And that takes us to Element #2.
Element #2 - Gate Your Offer
The next step in developing a luxury brand is gating, so you’re genuinely rare and exclusive.
This is how you create magic.
But how do you design exclusivity and rarity? Specifically, how do you generate that magic?
To give you a better idea, I’d like to use me as an example.
I’ve set up my business model to shoot for the very highest end of the market.
That’s why I work with only a handful of clients at any given moment – a handful as in four or five private clients. My goal is to give such a deep level of service that I get to intimately understand the clients’ business.
In turn, I represent them at such a high level that I really can’t take on more clients. Nor am I interested in being intimately involved with more businesses than that.
I hand-pick those people and they’re my absolute ideal clients. I love them dearly and I get to really understand their business.
In a way, I become a partner, albeit not a legal one. So they share the most intimate feelings and ideas with me.
Hard to get more exclusive than that!
Element #3 - Be the Trendsetter
To develop a luxury business, one of the most important things is giving yourself space to innovate and become an artist.
There’s a tremendous freedom that comes with that!
After all, as a luxury brand, you’re the trendsetter. You’re the one who is changing paradigms, creating new ones, and moving mountains.
Which is why the focus is really on your artistry, rather than the daily organizational tasks.
Just think of CHANEL. They’re one of the most legendary and iconic luxury brands in the world. All of us know CHANEL No. 5 and yet, it’s constantly changing.
But not the scent itself – just the bottle!
Take the highly sought-after CHANEL jackets as another example. It’s iconic to the brand and they always manage to find new ways to design the jacket. Perhaps they’ll add new buttons. Or they’ll try new cuts.
But the heart and soul of the garment remain the same.
The artistry, the innovation, and the change. These create fertile grounds for the icon to continue to set new trends.
Element #4 - Advocate Your Beliefs
All successful luxury brands advocate their beliefs. They have real conviction in their position and they take a stand.
Now, I understand that this might be uncomfortable.
But remember, you’re a trendsetter!
So you MUST have absolute courage in your convictions. Be brave! Advocate those beliefs and become known for them!
Yes, people will disagree with you. And yes, you will ruffle feathers. But this is a good thing.
So, let me ask you…
What do you stand for? What are your core philosophical beliefs?
A truly successful luxury brand is very intimate. It’s all about your thoughts and belief patterns.
It’s about you expressing these beliefs clearly to the world. And it’s also about sharing with the world how those beliefs tie into what you’re creating and innovating.
When you serve at that very highest level, your broader audience will hook onto those beliefs. They’ll latch onto your more democratized offers and become your best followers. These are the A-listers that your brand attracts who become your strongest advocates and ambassadors.
Element #5 - Create Exclusivity
When you think about a luxury brand, what do you imagine?
You imagine exclusivity.
Rarity.
And white-glove service, right?
So to build such a brand, that’s what you need to do. It’s really that simple. You must create rarity and exclusivity.
You must set a really high price point. Plus, the service has to be so outstanding that the white gloves are a necessary part of the decor!
But you also have to think deeply about what this actually means for the people you’re trying to serve. What are the special and exquisite things you can do for your audience at the highest level?
This is what surprises your clients and leaves them in awe.
It reminds me of the time when Lexus entered the market.
As you may know, Toyota is behind Lexus, and they wanted to establish Lexus as a luxury brand. The marketers realized that established luxury cars were always found at sporting events, hotel chains, etc. But the most prized, exclusive, and rarest of them all were the most conspicuously parked.
The Japanese marketing experts were quick to connect the dots.
Displaying a Lexus next to Maserati, Rolls-Royce, and Lamborghini would indeed put the car in the same class. But the way the marketers positioned the original Lexus amongst its peers was even better than that. They paid hotel chains, restaurants, and golf clubs to arrange to have the car placed front and centre.
And… voila! The hype started to build up.
Becoming the Icon
The journey to creating a luxury brand starts with you.
You are the one who can tap into the magical fountain and share the experience with everybody else. But of course, you need the confidence and courage to do it.
Becoming the stuff of legends takes willpower and self-belief. This is what fuels your motivation to keep spreading the word and attracting a handful of the select few who share your vision.
Soon enough, you’ll be in a position to make your $100K, $200K… and, why not, $1 million offer.
Sure, you will encounter certain challenges along the way. I couldn’t have covered all aspects of building a luxury brand in one article, after all.
But Iconic Influencers is here to lead you every step of the way.
Watch our latest Masterclass and start building towards your dream.
