“I used to have this girlfriend known as Elsie, with whom I shared 4 sordid rooms in Chelsea.

She wasn’t what you’d call a blushing flower, as a matter of fact she rented by the hour.”

Years ago a lovely lady moved in next door with her two children and we became friends, her name wasn’t Elsie lol. Over time as I got to know her better, I found out that she had once been married to a man who was high in the Underbelly (read mafia) culture in Sydney and as his wife she was in charge of 2/3 high class brothels.

I learned a lot I didn’t know about call girls, brothels and some of the people in the upper echelon of Australian society, but that’s a story for another time… The main point I want to talk about in this post is the fact that one thing I did learn is that a stripper or prostitute can earn upwards of $1000 a day when working, and this is not counting the high class ones who can earn $1000 per hour! They are not all drug addicted street walkers in fact some of them are paying their way through medical, veterinary and law school.

How could anyone earn this kind of money? These girls know what they are selling, they are selling happiness, joy, pleasure, and contentment… and they are master problem solvers, have amazing people skills and their work conditions are as they wish them to be.

Scalable Happiness

Think about your business, what do you provide your clients? Are you providing happiness, pleasure, contentment…are you a master problem solver with amazing people skills? Are you earning $1000+ a day??

When most people think of marketing and sales they think of anything but Happiness. We think of the most crass forms of sales people (used car salesmen) or the love of things – materialism. We think of bad jingles, loud TV commercials, intrusive telemarketers, junk mail, and those little cards that fall out of magazines. Try to find a little Happiness by escaping to the movies and what do we find? More ads. Before the movie, embedded in the movie, and after the movie. You want a coupon with that? No? Can we have your zip code then? NO!

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com for over nine years now, is immune to this criticism having built an online retail business that strives above all for customer loyalty and the sale of “happiness”.

In a wide-reaching talk at Startup2Startup in Palo Alto last night, Tony explained how Zappos doesn’t try to extract the most profit out of every transaction that’s made on its site. Instead, Zappos makes the experience of buying merchandise on Zappos as pleasurable as possible so that customers will refer the site to their friends. This word-of-mouth marketing strategy is bolstered by a well-funded call center (a so-called “customer loyalty center”) that uses the 10 minutes or so it has with each captive customer on the phone to make the best impression possible. In effect, Zappos takes a lot of the money it would have put into advertisements and channels this money into providing great customer support.

The idea is that the selling price of a product or service should be based on it’s value for providing happiness is something strippers and prostitutes seem to understand. Stop and chat to a call girl and you will find she has a different rate on her services depending on it’s happiness value to you. Now this is good marketing!

Have you scaled your product or service offering to allow happy customers to become even happier? Now please don’t just go out and change the prices on your products or services, think about them – do they actually provide happiness to your customer? HAPPINESS! Do your products have a way of lighting up your customers faces with smiles of joy or satisfaction? If not, then you will need to do a lot more than change the prices you will have to rethink your entire line of offerings, perhaps add value, perhaps find new ways to market what you do, perhaps bundle offers to ensure your clients/customers end up with smiles on their faces.

Remember also that your prices need to reflect the happiness value to your customers, not you! Do not price your products according to their value to you, price them according to their value to your customers. “What’s in it for me” is the customers catch cry and if you are not providing it, you will have no sales no matter how great you think your offers are.

How Can I Make You Even Happier (for a price)

Strippers regularly stop in front of happy watchers and ask them if there is something they can do to make that person even happier, a lap dance, a special private show, a move the watcher particularly likes… Do you do that for your clients or customers?

Imagine you have a happy client or customer, who has already bought a service or product and is extremely happy with it, what would happen if you sent him or her a message and asked them what more you could do to increase their happiness?

Strippers and great escorts ask open ended questions to get customers talking. Questions that will end with a customer saying yes or no are no good, strippers ask questions like ‘how has your day been today’ or something that will engage the customer and get them talking. It’s all about developing rapport with that particular customer and tailor your marketing to fit the individual customers wants and needs.

Do you know your customers well enough to know what more they want from you and how you can make them even happier?

This is where social media comes in, allowing you to connect and converse with your audience find out more about them and what is important to them. Once they feel you know them and they know you, you will have built up the trust, respect and friendship that leads to sales without even trying to sell.

Solving Problems and Then Keep Them Coming Back For More

As a master problems solver you already know what keeps your customers or clients up at night and spend every waking hour in your business solving those problems – or do you? Have you just started out with a product and are selling it? To whom? For what purpose?

If you answered to anyone who will buy it and to make me money – you have answered wrong!

Your mission should be to solve the challenges of your market in such a way, they not only keep coming back for more – they are screaming your name before you come out on stage and telling all their friends about you!

One key element to this is – to solve their problem and you cannot do this by listing how great your product or service is you have to prove via your marketing that it solves the problem for your market in such a way they will be blown away. A huge part of the WOW factor is your own passion and enthusiasm (not false) which should be heard in your voice every time you talk about what you do and why you do it. Your story is a huge part of the emotional connection that will bond your audience to you and your business as loyal customers.

Social Media makes it easier than ever to find out what you customers need and want, through the power of the questions you ask and the hints they give you as you connect and converse with them. It also allows you to showcase your passion for what you do, make recommendations that don’t sound salesy and chat with your audience just like friends over coffee.

Deliver what you promised in such a way your customers go WOW! and tell the world how wonderful and easy it was to do business with you.

Marketing Joy, Status and a Listening Ear

A great call girl, my friend used to tell me, can earn upwards of $1000 per hour because a girl in this category understands what her client really wants and gives it to them. What do these highly paid ladies know that you don’t?

Your client often doesn’t want what you think they do, and they will pay well to get it!

I know what you’re thinking – BUT the answer is not always better or more imaginative sex!

Highly paid escorts understand the extra’s their clients want from them, including:

  1. Having a beautifully dressed, intelligent person at their side for the evening gives them status they cannot get any other way. The client knows they want someone who can hold their own in top society, who keeps up with current affairs, who can dress and look the part, and who understands the etiquette involved in going to these high class social functions. Perhaps all she has to do is sit beside him at the casino as he plays, or dress his arm at a banquette the happiness she provides him is not based on the service we all associate with call girls and escorts is it, yet it is this service that commands the higher price – the added value.
  2. There is another service that is a part of a high priced call girls skills and that is a listening ear, and this service is worth it’s weight in gold. When you are able to listen, and really hear what your customers are saying, respond to those needs and wants your clients and customers will value you more than any other business. Are you selling a product? NO! you are selling happiness and sometimes we have to listen to our audience to find out just what it is they want from us. Think about it when was the last time you knew, really knew someone heard you? Totally understood what you were saying, your frustrations, your worries, your point of view in a way that settled something inside of you because you had truly been heard! Are you listening?
  3. High prices call girls and strippers also understand the value of joy, and the feeling that comes from being in that one happy moment, cares of the world gone for just an instant and knowing that this moment will hold such value for their audience or client that they will be able to hold to it no matter what comes their way between visits. When we are feeling joy, we forget about everything else around us, our problems and challenges for at least this moment are solved and we are just happy – how often does that happen to you? Wouldn’t you cut off your right arm to feel joy regularly? Perhaps pay anything? Your customers feel the same way and it is your job to find a way to give that to them.

Always Be Closing (A.B.C.)

My friend also told me that strippers who makes great money are always closing, a tip I was reminded of recently in another scenario entirely. To do this she uses a variety of closing techniques, like ‘come and have some private fun in the vip room where its more intimate’ or the ‘companion close’ which involves getting your buddies to encourage to take the lap dance. Online these actions are called ‘Calls to Action’ or C2A’s and they are easy to use, simply ask your audience to do the thing you want them to do: buy this, click here, optin for this, like, share or comment on this post, retweet this…

Hopefully if you have done this well, it will lead to the sales conversation you were after all along.

And as for this last image ? That’s to put a smile on your face right now and deliver a moment of happiness from me to you :)