Have any of you sold anything like this before (£199,995.00 boat)

Dan Kennedy's 'No BS guide to marketing to the Affluent'
may be helpful.

Your appeal will have to be different to the typical low ticket
sales letter. They have a feeling of "deserving" luxury items
and so status appeal would be important here.

Another book is Selling to the Affluent by Thomas Stanley.

-Ray Edwards

Nick,

When I was a student in Huntington Beach CA, I met with Joe Karbo several times and on one occasion we talked specifically about this.

Joe was a sailboat enthusiast and Gary Halbert liked speedboats, and a half a million dollars was NOT the high end of things.

Before I tell you what Joe told me, let me talk planes for a moment.

I'm writing this from a 200 acre ranch outside Carlsbad, NM and it has it's own runway and hangar. The guy I'm visiting is a former crop duster and pilot who has bought and sold a lot of planes. He gets a couple of magazines a month, now he wants to build a boat, so he subscribes to boat building magazines.

I asked him the same thing I asked Joe Karbo about selling these high ticket items...and his answer was the same as Joe told me. Ready?

They look at FEATURES and buy from EMOTION.

Sound familiar? I've sold some collector automobiles which were pretty high ticket and although I thought the SALES process might be different it isn't, except as Ray mentioned, perhaps...a sense of entitlement...

But, you'll help your guy actually SELL his boat, if, along with all the features and wonderful descriptions of the ivory inlaid custom made table to the this and to that...at the end of the day, the guy buying the boat...wants to fulfill his

fantasy
dream
or
upgrade, downsize situation.

Sure, he's buying a BOAT, with all the goodies, but...

he most likely isn't going to get in the one you mention and set sail around the world by himself...he wants to ENTERTAIN

and IMPRESS...

So, NO, you can't hype it...but, read over some Gary Halbert stuff, the guy flipped many boats (bought and sold) I often sometimes think they may have his been his hedge against the times he was getting low on funds...sell the boat, write some ads, buy another boat...rinse and repeat.

YOUR emotional appeals will be the same as all buyers have...go to the bookstore, or subscribe to magazines like Yacht, Planes, and or even those with luxury homes for sale...to pick up the LINGO.

Read Halbert's letter of how he quickly sold a cadillac.

Give REASONS for the sale that make sense to an affluent buyer...
Give great Joe Sugarman DESCRIPTIONS of the boat which hits all the features in a romantic way
Create the feeling of ownership through your wonderful prose of being on the high seas (even if the thing never leaves the harbor)...

Start reading what affluent people read. And hang out at the docks.

But, I'd bet you...at the end of the day, you'll sell the thing faster when you have put in all the ROMANTICIZED images of owning this boat.

I've heard more than one guy say the two happiest days of his life were

the day he bought his boat

and the day he sold it.

Good luck, keep in mind, these are PEOPLE, with the same preoccupations we all have, only THEY are higher on the Maslow Pyramid (see my thread on this)

gjabiz

PS. Good reasons for selling...he's retiring, upgrading, downsizing to go on a two year mission, he's buying an island, his grandkids no longer come with him...he was a Bernie Madoff client, he wants to go to outer space, and that costs like what his boat...he wants to invest in a gold mine in NV...

In other words, give the potential buyer a BELIEVABLE reason why a person wants to part with it...then you give them a good reason to buy NOW, before someone else gets it.

Wow, this is WONDERFUL! Three different viable strategies for selling a high-end boat. Makes me want to head over to Newport Beach and put flyers on all the docked boats saying "I can sell your boat! Call me!" - Rick Duris

Have you seen Joe Sugarman's Mail order mansion?
The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful ... - Joseph Sugarman - Google Books

There's only one way to approach this - with authority. You absolutely must know what you're talking about. As Captain Andrews says - If you try and write copy for this like you're selling used cars or something it aint gonna fly. Yachties will see right through it. If you don't know boats then you need someone in your corner who does.

Captain Copy Nazi
Master Mariner (Class V)
(I once delivered a yacht like this - from Sydney to The Whitsundays in The Barrier Reef)

I wouldn't sell the dream but in addition to the critical specs and details I would try to personalize it much as possible. Look at this boat review:

True, this is a TV segment and not a private party selling a boat. But I like the way he explains the features and benefits. He's not over-cooking it and seems credible.

Can you get the owner to do a similar walk-through on his Bavaria? Have him talk about specific features and how he personally benefited from them. Something like, "Right under this panel you can see that the Bavaria 47 has easy access to the engine. I found this to be a real advantage when we stalled out just off the southern reach of Chesapeake Bay last summer and a bad storm blew in--I was able to get us up and running quickly."

Surely it wouldn't sound that corny! You get the idea.

More than likely he will remember specific details and personal stories about the boat(s) as he does the walk-through. Let him go, edit to the good parts and post it on his site. The written copy could even use information from the video.

This way the pitch is more personal than a list of features and addresses questions that may be going on in the buyers mind. Even if they are experienced sailors/boat owners they'll have questions about the Bavaria that a video walk-through can help handle in advance. And his credibility, knowledge and enthusiasm for sailing should shine through.

Something like this but better .


And don't do any of this stuff:



And writing like this might be too much?:
http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy...f-clubs_b35338

Some fantastic responses folks, I appreciate
every last one of them.

I guess the underlying theme is that it depends
on your demographic... and your demographic
depends on your boat.

I can see how new rich crowd would cream
over the dream, and experienced yachties
would want to cut to the chase.

Some great ideas too, thank you.

Mark - the raffle idea is a nice
touch, m y only concern is the
monumental risk involved if
it flops.

You might want to check with local regulations on the legality of running a raffle.

Many jurisdictions view a raffle as a lottery and since most places now have national lotteries, you might be running afoul of some obscure regulation instantiated to ensure the government gets their "vig".

Don't stop you guys! You're on a roll! - Rick Duris

How could I possibly know what you would, or wouldn't do?

I wasn't referring specifically to you at all. Rather, I was merely suggesting the OP double check. I have experience in these matters.

There's nothing in his original post which suggests he's from Britain. There's nothing in your profile to suggest you're from Britain either.

But you know better, so there you have it.

The Bavaria 47 is a family boat. It is also a stylish sailing boat of respectful size that requires at least a modest amount of skill to operate. Your client is a somewhat affluent family man of middle age with a job that offers ample leisure time, preteen/teenage kids and a wife who knows how to handle docking and probably sailing.

The boat is not uncommon or very special so you need to highlight any particular characteristics for why the buyer should choose this specific boat. The buyer will already know if the Bavaria 47 is a good sailer, how it copes in rough weather and how many beds it might have. He has already been inside it, either on a boatshow or at a waterfront broker. So you will need to highlight something that you can't find in the brochures. For example, has it only been sailed in sweet water? Does it have a special engine? Special rigging? Famous previous owner? Allergic owner? (good because it will have been kept immaculately clean), etc etc

Price matters too. Second-hand high ticket items (that 99% of the time are financed) are often a harder sell than new ones, even though the price tag will be higher. Unless the boat is pristine, or has something that makes it very special, the price difference between new and second-hand has to be substantial. Status matters, and if you are buying this kind of boat, having it new out of the box does matter, socially.

As others have noted, dreams and impulse are vital - try to get images of the boat which differ from the standard type of boring tied-to-the-dock and internal shots... those already fill every webpage and the printed brochure he already has. Happy faces, sunshine and waterspray, or closeups of the extremely special oddities of this particular vessel.