The Art of Selling to the Affluent: How to Attract, Service, and Retain Wealthy Customers and Clients for Life, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7

Today’s Affluent Female

Today’s affluent women are far more educated than nonaffluent women: 44 percent of affluent females completed graduate school, compared with 7 percent of nonaffluent females.

—Factoid, 2013 APD Research

Since the Great Recession, subtle and not-so-subtle changes have affected how the affluent make major purchase decisions, and no change is more important than the growing influence of the female head of the household.

Remember the Elliots—the couple who bought the luxury beach home? A few years ago, Mr. Elliot was on a business trip when he happened upon a wholesale jewelry store that sold to the public. Once inside, he was magnetically drawn to a woman’s 18-karat-gold watch and its discounted price. After a brief internal debate, he bought the watch for his wife and had it shipped to his house to avoid the sales tax. (At $10,000, the tax would have been significant.)

Because he used a credit card to purchase this luxury item, however, Mr. Elliot unwittingly prompted his ever-vigilant credit card company to issue a potential-fraud alert—a warning that took the form of a call to his home, where Ms. Elliot answered the phone. She had no idea that her husband was planning to surprise her, and noted that the credit card wasn’t one Mr. Elliot normally used for business. She agreed with the customer service rep, therefore, that it would be prudent to suspend the card.

Ms. Elliot wondered what in the world her husband was doing. “Either he lost the card ...