MOJO # 4: LUXURY IS AN EXPERIENCE: How to make any brand more luxurious and easily 3-5x your prices

More importantly, how do you do it without upsetting people or ripping them off?

The answer is: Have a luxury brand.

“Great, Aleana. And how am I supposed to do that?!”

It's actually quite simple. It boils down to love.

Here's what I mean:

First, we have to know that people buy for two main motivations:

1) A pain or a problem to solve, i.e. need.

And/or

2) Something they simply want, i.e. desire.

"NEED" is based on avoidance of pain. It’s running away from something.

"WANT" is based on desire, pleasure, running towards something.

Each one triggers a completely different set of emotions in people.

When people spend a lot of money on things they "need", they can feel resentful.

But when they spend it on desires, there is no resentment.

In fact, it's done with pleasure, it feels like a treat.

Why? Because buying from desire feels like a choice.

Luxury doesn’t always mean more expensive.

But luxury is always based on wants and desires.

Nobody “needs” to spend a week at a lavish resort in the tropics.

Nobody “needs” to wake up to a view of The French Riviera.

Nobody “needs” Blue Lagoon Seawater in their body scrub.

Nobody “needs” art.

(Okay, the last one is arguable).

Luxury is the feeling of “I don’t really need this, and I can’t afford it right now, but heck I still want it, and someday I’ll get it. Maybe even right now.”

It’s the “#goals” that people pin on their boards to ogle and daydream about.

Luxury means that you are allowing your inner child to have her heart’s desires.

The point is this:

Most of us want to make more money so we can experience more of life, not to spend it all on our bills and "needs".

Especially when what we need is created by uninspired people who clearly don’t care about us, or their work.

We've all experienced those kinds of brands and their "service".

We all want to align with brands that share our values. 

We all want to spend our money on brands, businesses, and people who love what they do and who they do it for.

Creators of luxury brands know this consciously or unconsciously.

They turn everything into an experience, and every day things into art.

Because they understand that in business, as in life, everything is art if you make it with love.

You can make any brand luxurious, if you elevate the experience without profit motive, and purely because you love it.

Meaning, although you could get away with less, you go the extra mile.

You do it just because you want to make the consumer loved, understood, and cared for.

You get excited when you think about how good it will feel to be on the receiving end of what you make.

Ask yourself: What do I deeply care about? How do I want to enhance and elevate my client’s or customer’s life? How can I love them as a verb/an action through what I create?

Pricing is not only about how expensive it was to produce what you create.

It’s about how much of your energy and life force you have put into it.

It’s the care and attention given to every detail that makes for a luxurious experience.

When you create from that place, it is never a ripoff for those who see the value in what you create.

They know that they’re buying more than a product or service.

They’re buying an experience of their own divine, co-creating with itself.

I'm no poet, but I mean this with all my heart:

Nothing worthwhile has ever been created by someone who didn't give a sh*t.