One time I sold $92k from the floor of a vacation rental closet while my family made sandwiches for an afternoon at the beach. (I dive into how I did that- tip #4 below) I don’t care about where you sell. I care about HOW you sell.

Luxury positioning gets you in the room - sales confidence gets the check signed.

To be clear… when I say luxury pricing, I don’t mean a little higher than market rate.

I mean the top 3%. I coach female founders to charge luxury rates… to be the call that everyone wants to work with.

The one they will pay top pricing for.

This is what it actually looks like in dollars with the women I consult privately and build lucrative brands for.

This is the pricing tier I’m talking about.

And… this is exactly where my clients (always female founders) start to get nervous and sweat.

Why?

Because they sure as hell wouldn’t drop $30k on a sofa in their own living room, or pay a photographer $30k to shoot their daughter’s wedding.

In many cases - these numbers feel foreign to their own checkbook. So they get uncomfortable. They walk into their Discovery Calls without complete and utter confidence that they are THE ONE.

I tell women I work with…

Luxury clients can smell your lack of confidence.

I want to be clear - I don’t expect the women I consult privately to pay $30k for a sofa. BUT what I don’t want is for their potential clients to get a sense that their incapable of the job. They don’t want to be your guinea pig…the first big client you’re testing your systems and processes on.

Who would want that? Especially in the big dollar market.

I could talk about luxury positioning and pricing for days…and days…My private clients (always women with a premium offering) hire me to reposition their entire brands and sales systems.

As a quick intro, I am Rachael Johanson, I build luxury personal brands. I have been a keynote speaker at Harvard Business School and my work has graced the pages of Architectural Digest and Vogue. I am OBSESSED with the intersection of psychology and strategy.

One of my client’s went from $700k to $12M in five years because of a SALES POSITIONING STRATEGY we built year one.

Damn, I wish I'd gotten equity….

More frequently though - my private clients double their project scopes two years after working with me. $200k projects to $400k. $500k to $1M+ Consulting at $10k to $20k for the same results they were previously driving…. fascinating right…?!

So… step one… let’s start with dissecting some universal truths for the dreaded sales call. Now naturally, the sales strategies I develop for private clients are 20+ pages and cover every possible pain point you can imagine - we script and workshop every word and build marketing packets. I don’t take someone from $1.5M to $3M in sales with copy and paste concepts…however, there are some universal truths that you can implement at a lower level.

The sales call is your make or break.

1. Ditch Calendly.

I know what you are about to say… “BUT, Rach, it makes my life so much easier.” Sorry. I still stand where I stand. The line in the sand has been drawn.

If you sell wholesale, move product in bulk, or book 100+ clients a year - go enjoy your Calendly. This isn’t for you, and you can stop reading now. I am not being rude but I am not speaking to you.

But… if you’re building LUXURY pricing, LUXURY clients - high-touch, bespoke, big pockets - please quit with the Calendly link.

Here’s why:

• If you’re trying to move to 12 luxury clients a year, you don’t need a booking system to book 12 calls. You say on your website you are high-touch, personalized - then hand them a Calendly link to book? Total disconnect.

• I deeply believe NO ONE should have access to your private calendar and be able to book before you’ve vetted them. You don’t even know if you like them yet.

• You can time-block all you want, but “11am–2pm every Tuesday for the next 4 weeks” reads as unbooked and un-busy - the opposite of high-touch, luxury and in-demand.

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2. The Founder Calls. Always.

If your ideal clients are C-suite execs, entrepreneurs, high-profile individuals, and you don’t have time to talk to them? You hand them off to an assistant?

Insulting.

Let’s be real - they have their own assistant. They showed up to your call. You should too.

I recently coached a luxury interior designer to take back all of her sales calls.

She has a firm with six employees and was having a junior team member take the calls (Noooooo!) because they were fielding 45+ inquiries a year. A lot was junk. Fair enough.

Once we reworked her positioning, her website, her social media, her biography she now gets 15 inquiries a year (completely vetted) and books 12 of them. Nice conversion! Happy Dance Time

Big projects. She takes every single call.

That’s the magic of brand positioning and getting it right.

credit - Josh Young

If you are currently getting 45 inquiries a year, repositioning for the luxury market is a whole separate conversation and something I save for private clients.

For now: let your junior person take the smaller-scope calls.

I want you to take the heavy hitters. If you don’t trust the junior person to vet (another problem & conversation) I want you to review every inquiry and tag which calls are yours.

3. Stop calling it a Consultation Call

From a psychology standpoint, naming your calls —> “Consultation Call,” “Sales Calls,” “Intro Call,” or “Discovery Call” hands your potential client all the power. They’re deciding if they want you. Naturally - they will shop you around, compare you and the call hasn’t even started.

We’re connecting on goals, scope, investment, and most importantly… whether we actually connect. I like many of my clients sell long-standing relationships, in-depth work. Many times our engagements are months and years.

If your business model is similar - RIGHT NOW… make the decision to change the name and call it a Connection Call.

Becoming a paid subscriber is access to my brain. It’s a seat behind the Velvet Rope™.

Free posts are a peek into the lesson. Paid is where I get into the mechanics - adapted from similar frameworks my private clients pay five and six figures for, without handing over their personal playbooks. Their strategies stay theirs.

For the price of a smoothie you will learn to sell your next $300k job…

In this post I am breaking down…

• One thing I make every potential client do before I'll even get on the phone with them - it tells me in five minutes if they're serious money or a waste of time.

• A word-for-word plan of what to say to a potential client who calls & catches you off guard.

• The psychology and mechanics on how to make a luxury client feel like she’s already in the best hands in the business.

• My full paid archive, unlocked instantly - I just wrote a great article on editing your Contact Form for luxury clients.

• A first look at what I’m developing, before it’s polished enough for client work.

To be transparent - I don’t teach everything I know here. That’s not a tease… that’s respect for the women who are paying me privately.

What you get instead are things I can teach without breaking that.

Which, frankly, is still more than most people ever get.

Read more

I was 25. It was a Thursday afternoon, and I felt like I was about to hit it big with my first large paid speaking event. Cha Ching!

A week earlier, the director of HR at Bank of America had filled out the “Book For Speaking” tab on my website - the one nobody had ever clicked. Except me writing “TEST 1” or my personal favorite “Iwillgetapaidspeakingig” - HA!

But - the form was filled out - head of HR! She wanted - Keynote. Female leadership. Budget: $5k+. She’d heard me speak at a free networking event and wanted to bring me in front of over a hundred women for a paid keynote. Cue the happy dance!

She just needed one thing first: my speaker reel.

Of course I did not have a speaker reel.

What I had instead was some shaky iPhone footage my roommate shot from the side of a hall (shout out to Allie), and a truly unnecessary $75 purchase - a fancy British accent from Upwork, to narrate over my own very unprofessional video footage.

Classy, I thought. It made me feel worth $6k and distract from the shaky footage. I spent an entire week watching Youtube videos on how to use I-Movie Googling things like “Explain How To Use I-Movie If I Am In My 80’s.”

I rewatched that speaker’s video 41 times then asked my boyfriend at the time to watch it on repeat during his lunch break. I remember the number because I didn’t want the view count to give away that this thing was assembled in a panic before a large paid speaking gig. (It was.)

By the time I hit send Thursday, I’d already called my best friend and told her to bring the champagne - a $13 bottle of André (HA!), because I was 25, two years into this business, and $6k for an hour felt like a fortune.

Then…

I got a reply 11 minutes later.

She thanked me for the video. Said she’d save it on file. The event was Tuesday.

It was over before I even started. Cue my sobs.

These days, I teach women to build a luxury personal brand and how to turn one hour on a stage into $300k in consulting sales, podcast bookings, and brand deals - using nothing but their voice and their personal brand story. Back then, I couldn’t even get my own story out the door on time.

It’s still the mistake that makes me wince the hardest.

Because here’s what actually killed it. Not the accent - RIP to that $75 (farewell old chap.) It was my completely unthoughtful autoresponder. The one that cheerfully said, “Thanks for inquiring! We will be in touch soon.”

It said soon. And then it took me a week to respond. There is nothing soon about that.

That’s the gap.

Not the timeline.

The disconnect is between what your form promises and what your actions deliver.

Clients don’t remember how long they waited.

They remember the moment they stopped believing you.

Picture this instead: you are a newly engaged bride and find a luxury wedding planner whose work actually looks like you. Gorgeous. Timeless. Editorial. She doesn’t feel like a cookie cutter Pinterest board. You have a $500k budget and she feels like someone up for the job. You spend twenty minutes on her intake form filling out your dream venue, the vision, your parents’ complicated blended-family seating situation. All of it.

You hit submit.

Her auto-reply pops up: “Thanks for reaching out! We will be in touch soon!”

Perfect, you think.

Monday passes. Nothing. Wednesday. Still nothing. You check spam. Nothing but some 30% off neck massager you stalked on Instagram. By Friday, you’re not excited anymore. You’re wondering if she’s overbooked, or checked out, or doesn’t check that inbox at all. Is she even professional? Now you’re wondering if she can pull off this type of event.

Then, Saturday night: “Hi! So sorry for the delay!”

Same planner. Same portfolio. Same talent. Or is it? Now you’re not sure. And those exclamation points aren’t helping - they read like she’s out of breath and all over the place.

Beautiful work gets someone to hit submit. What happens after submit is what gets you hired.

Here's exactly what to say instead for every stage of business- and the two lines you should never use, even if you think it sounds polished.

Becoming a paid subscriber is access to my brain. It’s a seat behind the Velvet Rope™.

Free posts are the lessons, minus the mechanics. Paid is where I get into the mechanics - adapted from similar frameworks my private clients pay five and six figures for, without handing over their personal playbooks. Their strategies stay theirs.

The price of a matcha latte gets you:

• A sampling of sales scripts, press pitches and email templates- built specifically for the luxury market

• Exclusive insights and strategies female founders need to charge high-end rates

• Frameworks distilled from my real client work, always anonymized - it’s the pattern, not the person

• My full paid archive, unlocked instantly

• A first look at what I’m developing, before it’s polished enough for client work

I don’t teach everything I know here. That’s not a tease… that’s respect for the women who are paying me privately. What you get instead are things I can teach without breaking that. Which, frankly, is still more than most people ever get.

Read more

I know. That sentence feels wrong. You were raised to be warm, generous, easy to work with. So was I. But “nice” and “desperate” have started to look identical on a luxury inquiry form. Nobody told you. Now you are leaving major money on the table.

If you want to market yourself to luxury clients, please - PLEASE - stop saying “We can’t wait to hear from you!” I am begging you. My husband is begging you.

Why him? Well. I am on the constant verge of a passionate Ted Talk. Give me a martini and I will go live on Instagram. I’m laughing, but seriously - I am READY. No prep. No speaking coach (I’ll media train myself - thank you.) No hair and makeup. I don’t even need a mic. I am ready at any given notice.

Why? Because all of you are doing it and it’s costing you money. Interior designers, event planners, photographers, consultants, speakers, therapists and for the love of god my micro-blading artist?! Come on Katherine!

I coach female founders to launch into the luxury market. I’m paid $34k for a training day and $92k for a training weekend for my brain - to hand over exclusive insights I spent 6 months developing, pricing services, pitching the press, writing sales scripts, and building a turnkey multi 7 and 8 figure business plan.

My work is private. Always off the record. I work with some of the most high-profile (and up-and-coming) female founders. Yes, you’d know their names. Sorry sister - I have NDAs.

I started this Substack so you get a tiny hint, a little sprinkle (oh la la!), of the things you can do ( like yesterday!) to reposition yourself for the luxury market. I’m obsessed with psychology and strategy. It turns me on and lights me up.

I trademarked the term Velvet Rope™ for a reason. Yes - I am nuts and I wanted to own this terminology. Most women apologize for having standards. I teach them to reposition their brand - and watch respect, and pricing, follow. That’s a whole post on its own. Coming soon. Buckle up!

Okay. So let’s move on to today… Easy win! If your website has any version of the following, delete it now. NOW!

“We can’t wait to hear from you!”
“Please let us know if you have any questions!”
“We would love to support you. Please fill out the form below.”

You’re begging. And you don’t even know it (but I do and so do your ideal clients!)

Desperate, you say? What’s desperate about being nice, hardworking, kind, and generous?

Let’s start with the exclamation point. (!!!!)

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

Here’s the tell: successful, luxury brands don’t beg to be picked.

Every exclamation point is you announcing how hard you’re trying, how available you are, how much you need this to work out. You are oozing “Pick me! Pick me!” energy. That’s not warmth.

Look at the difference. This is a luxury interior design client of mine. She dreams of homes 10,000+ square feet, professional families, clients with $600k furnishing budgets.

This was her contact form BEFORE we worked together. It looked desperate. Like she had nothing going on. Not busy. Would take any scope. Color consultation? Sure! Pick between wallpapers? Yeah! Furnish all 10,000 square feet for $200k? Not an issue! She was AVAILABLE.

Now pretend you’re her ideal client. Here’s the story you’re telling yourself: “She’s new. Green. Building her portfolio. Doesn’t have much experience. Isn’t booked. I’m taking a chance on her. My scope may be too big for her to handle.”

All of that is completely false. She’s owned her firm for a decade. Her portfolio is gorgeous. She’s booked out. Her website just never told you.

Version two. Still kind. Still generous. But professional. Credible. Now the story her ideal client tells themself is different: “This is not her first rodeo. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Better than that she gets ME. She understands high-profile professionals like me. We’re part of an interesting club, and she’s the expert who gets our lifestyle.”

She’s positioned as valuable AND desirable.

Not colder. Not less kind. Just less desperate to prove it.

Okay so now you’re probably wondering - well if I’m not being “nice” in my contact form, what am I saying instead?

Here's exactly what kind-with-a-backbone sounds like - the one-liners I build for female founders building multi 7 and 8 figure personal brands - industry by industry.

Becoming a paid subscriber here is access to my brain. It’s a seat behind the Velvet Rope™.

Free posts are the lessons, minus the mechanics. Paid is where I share the mechanics - adapted from similar frameworks my private clients pay five and six figures for, without handing over their personal playbooks. Their strategies stay theirs.

The price of a matcha latte gets you:

• A sampling of sales scripts, press pitches and email templates- built for the luxury market

• Exclusive insights and strategies you need to charge luxury rates

• Frameworks distilled from real client work, always anonymized - the pattern, not the person

• The full paid archive, unlocked instantly

• First look at what I’m developing, before it’s polished enough for client work

I don’t teach everything I know here. That’s not a tease - that’s respect for the women who are paying me privately. What you get instead is things I can teach without breaking that. Which, frankly, is still more than most people ever get.

Read more