Selling to the Affluent

by Thomas J. Stanley

Provides information on effective tactics for making a sale to professionals with seven-figure incomes, tips and strategies for targeting the affluent blue-collar market, components of sales letters that receive top responses, and more.

Genres: Business, Finance, Psychology, Entrepreneurship, Communication

496 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1990

About the author

Thomas J. Stanley was an American writer and business theorist. He was the author and co-author of several award-winning books on America's wealthy, including the New York Times’ best sellers The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. He served as chief advisor to Data Points, a company founded based on his research and data. He received a doctorate in business administration from the University of Georgia. He was on the faculty of the University at Albany, State University of New York. He taught marketing at the University of Tennessee, University of Georgia and Georgia State University (where he was named Omicron Delta Kappa's Outstanding Professor).
Thomas Stanley was born in the Bronx in 1944. His father worked as a subway car driver, while his mother was a homemaker and secretary. He attended college in Connecticut, doing graduate work at the University of Tennessee. He earned a doctorate at the University of Georgia, and eventually moved to the Atlanta area to teach at Georgia State University. Stanley spent most of his career studying how the financially successful Americans in a wide range of professions and with a varying level of income acquired their wealth on their own. In 2015 he was killed by a drunk driver at the age of 71. During his last days, he was working on a book with his daughter, an industrial psychologist, who later finished it. The book is called The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth, and attributes authorship to Thomas J. Stanley and his daughter, Sarah Stanley Fallaw.

Reviews

[Nick Woodall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dr. Stanley did an outstanding job on this book and it's companion Marketing to the Affluent.

[Brent Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm biased because I've met the author, heard him speak several times, and had dinner with him on one of many compliance junkets during my years in the securities business.

Dr. Stanley was a bona fide expert, he knew a LOT more about the affluent than Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman ever will. He's a literal giant, they are somewhere south of the height of a gnat, by comparison.

[GF · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are some good principles in the book, which could be summarized on a single page.
The examples are just so outdated and repetitive… I couldn’t finish it. I’ve read more than 150 books and finished every single one of them but this was just to dull… sry. Maybe someone should write a denser and updated version.

[Freya Inston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book often referred to for marketing and sales strategies. It’s a quick and easy read and didn’t disappoint. Nothing new, but a good reminder of what to focus on.