Wedding Business Solutions

Elizabeth Solaru - How to start and build a luxury brand!

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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Elizabeth Solaru - How to start and build a luxury brand!

Are you struggling to connect with luxury clients? Do you know how to position your offerings to make mid-range options more appealing? In this episode, Elizabeth Solaru and I dive deep into the art of targeting luxury clients, pricing strategies, and effective networking techniques. Learn how to use unusual marketing strategies to align your brand with top-tier clients, and find out why it's crucial to understand your target audience beyond generic customer avatars.

Listen to this new episode for insights on strategic product positioning, networking for high-end markets, and leveraging luxury branding to attract the right clients.

About Elizabeth: 

Elizabeth Solaru is a multi award-winning luxury business consultant, author, and world renowned cake artist. As the CEO and Founder of the Diversity in Luxury Awards, she is a pioneering voice advocating for inclusivity and representation in the luxury sector.

Her latest book, The Luxpreneur: How to Start and Build a Successful Luxury Brand has been described as  "the blueprint for a luxury business" and a "must read for those interested in working in the luxury industry"

Elizabeth has been named as one of the world's Masterful 100 and has been featured on the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky TV. She has spoken in business schools and on some of the most exclusive luxury business stages, including JP Morgan and The Inner Circle Experience.

In addition to her consulting work, Elizabeth is passionate about mentorship and is dedicated to empowering the next generation of luxury professionals.

 

Get Elizabeth’s book “The Luxpreneur” here: tinyurl.com/yeert22u

 

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

 

Instagram @elizabethscakeemporium

 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-solaru-1ba901/


If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 


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I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Want to know how to start and build the luxury brand? You're going to want to hear this episode. Hi, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I am so happy to have my friend Elizabeth Solaru on to talk about her new book, the Luxpreneur, how to start and build a Successful Luxury Brand, and to teach you how to do just that. Elizabeth, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me, Alan. I am absolutely thrilled to be doing.

This with you and congrats on the new book. We met at the Bride Lux conference in London. I like to say BC before COVID 2019, 2018, somewhere around there. And was this book even an idea then or did this come later?

Actually, it kind of was to a certain extent, but it wasn't fully formed at all. But then during COVID when a lot of people were saying that they the clients weren't coming to London as they used to, and a lot of people were wondering about luxury clients, that's when I decided to put together the book.

Great. And I always tell people, if anybody here is listening and thinking about writing a book, don't write a book, just write words. Words become a book through editing. You actually hinder yourself when you say I need to write a book. Just write words, write content. And then sometimes it gets thrown out, sometimes it gets fixed. And that's what we do there. So, so, so tell us about the book, the Luxpreneur.

Where does that title come from? And what, what do you want people to get out of this?

Again, Luxpreneur. It was kind of like a made up word, although it does exist. It was a made up word and I just wanted something that does exactly what it says on the tiny. A lot of academic books that talk about luxury are written by professors of luxury and not by people who've actually run a luxury brand.

Right.

And also there's nothing in the market really about luxury founders because that's what we are. A lot of the books talk about the big brands. So I thought, what, what if I wrote words to describe what I would have loved to learn when I started my business 20 years ago? And that's what I did. And the book in my mind is in three parts. So the first part talks about you as a person, because in setting up a luxury brand, mindset is absolutely important. And then I develop these archetypes of the different types of luxury brand founders. So you need to know who you are. So, for example, I'm an artisan, I make cakes.

Left to me All I will do all day is make cakes. I wouldn't market them, I wouldn't make any money and I wouldn't even think about. So I need that sort of people around me as a team. If you're a visionary, you need a certain amount of people around you to ground you and to put your ideas into practice. So I. So that's first part of the book. The second part I talk about the five non negotiable pillars of a luxury brand. Imagine a table with four legs and then you've got another leg running right through it.

So I talk about, for example, storytelling, which is the pillar that runs through it. I talk about perception, I talk about a couple of other things which are absolutely crucial for you to have when you set up a luxury brand. And then the last thing I talk about, which many, many people always ask me about a luxury client. Who are they? Where do we find them? And I break down the different types into eight different archetypes and I explain it by looking at somebody like King Charles, the King of England and Ozzy Osbourne. According to demographics, they're both white males. They've both been married twice. They both, they were born in the same year within a month of each other and they've both been married and divorced twice. So according to marketing demographics, that would tell you they're both the same, but they are not, as we know.

So I tell you what, what archetype belongs to which gentleman and how you can sell to them effectively.

So let's go back to the beginning, describe a luxury brand.

Okay, so a luxury brand in my mind, according to my definition, because the word luxury means different things, different people. Luxury to me it's about emotional resonance. So it's not just about oh my God, that's expensive, I can't afford it. It's about oh my God, how can I, how, what do I need to make happen so I can buy that? I must buy that. Even though it's not, it might not be completely, it's not a necessity, it's a want. So it's A luxury brand is something that drives your wants to such a point where you think to yourself, you need to buy a hundred thousand dollar handbag and put your name on a waiting list for two years just so you can get the opportunity to be offered a bag that you might not even like. So that to me is a luxury brand.

Okay, so let's go back to your journey because you're, when I first met you, you doing cakes for very high end events. That doesn't just happen, right? You, you don't. You don't go from making cakes in your kitchen and everybody telling you how wonderful the cakes are and how amazing you are. Like you said, you're an artis, right? And how beautiful your cakes are, which they absolutely are. But you don't just get there, right? You have. There's a journey. What do they say it takes 20 years to become an overnight success? Right, so let's go back to that. You're baking cakes and all of a sudden, how did you start doing this for other people?

Oh, that's. Honestly, that's a brilliant question. So I was a scientist, a microbiologist. Then I became a headhunter in the city. 2008, we know what happened then. The market tanked and I lost my job and I started making cakes. But the one thing I did do was fall back on my headhunting training. Picked up the Yellow Pages in those days because social media directories weren't a thing.

Picked up the yellow Pages and I ranked every wedding planner and event planner in the yellow Pages. And I got a lot of no's. In fact, I got about. I think I recorded about 100 and something no's. Some extremely rude, some very polite. And then I called this particular day, spoke to a young girl and she said, you make cupcakes. And I said to her, I'm going to be in your area in three days. I can drop some samples if you like.

I was so happy to finally get a yes. And I did exactly that. And by the time I was. I then dropped, left on my way home, and then I got a call back saying, lady Elizabeth Anson would like to speak with you. And I was like, in my head, I was like, lady who? Anyway, I went back and that happened to be the best wedding planner in the uk. She was the Queen's, the late Queen Elizabeth's cousin, the only one to call her by her name. And she organized events for the, you know, the elite. The elite.

And that was how I started working with. She was very impressed with the cakes, but the story would have been beautiful even if it just ended there. What she then did, after she placed the order, gave me a private bank check, the first one I'd ever seen in my life. I had to cash it because I was too poor. And she then wrote me the most amazing testimonial. And then she said, you can use this testimonial in your marketing. So having that start was amazing. But what I then did was use that testimonial to bang on other doors.

So I. It gave me the courage and the energy and it just inspired me to reach out to many people. So it was literally just reaching out and reaching out and reaching out and then carefully networking, making sure that I networked with everybody, especially gatekeepers, because people tend to overlook the gatekeepers and the gatekeepers could be. I mean, I remember getting a job because I was very nice to the security guard who happened to be the person who paid all the suppliers, so he was their security guard. But he. I happened, you know, again, it could be the receptionist, who truly wasn't a receptionist, but was a relative. So again, be really, really nice to the gatekeeper. So that was roughly how I got started in the luxury end of the market.

So you jumped into the luxury end of the market. But interestingly, if you had gotten a yes on the 72nd one, instead of the 150th, whatever, for these cupcakes, you might have been in a different end of the market. You might have been in the middle of the market because that planner's customers were at a different end of the market. You just happened to get the right yes after the no's. But persistence, if you're listening here. Persistence, persistence. And we always say, if I knew then what I knew now. No, you don't want to know then what you know now.

You wouldn't do what you did then if you know now. So, all right, great. And then you leverage that network, which is great. You go to them with gatekeepers. Very, very important. Like you said, in this case, this person, the gatekeeper with the cupcakes, introduce you to someone who was the gatekeeper to the Queen. It's a good gatekeeper to have there, the gatekeeper to the Queen. So.

So let's bring this back down for everybody else here. For people that are in, you know, in the wedding and event industry and are trying to move themselves into whatever they consider to be the luxury market, which, like you said, London, it's going to be different than, you know, out in Oxford. It's going to be different than, you know, up in Glasgow or whatever. Right. It's also going to be different here in Phoenix than it is in York City. What, what do you recommend to them? What. What do you talk about in the book? But what do you recommend to them in terms of wanting to move themselves up?

That's an amazing question. I would say that they need to take a step back and think about why they want to move up, if they are indeed ready to move up, because many people aren't okay, and wait.

Let's stop there and go back to that. What do you mean they're not ready to move up?

Because it could be. Now, I always say the product doesn't have to be the best, but it's going to be good. Sometimes the product is mediocre at best, and we don't want to hear that sometimes. Sometimes it's really mediocre. Anybody else can offer that service. So even if the product is. Is mediocre, do you have other things surrounding it that can elevate it? So it could be something as simple as you offering something completely exclusive or you being a specialist in a tiny aspect of what you do, for example. Also, you need to understand that the, the clients you're trying to target are a particular type.

I call it the niching within the niche in. You can't serve everybody. So if your client type is aspirational, you need to think and eat, drink, sleep. Aspirational. How do they think? Where do they go? Who do they consider to be their heroes, et cetera, et cetera. So you need to ask those hard questions. I know people talk about creating an ideal client avatar, but that is a bit too generic sometimes. Sometimes you need to go deeper.

So you've got that. Another thing that I would also suggest, apart from product, apart from client, is don't overwhelm. So in our industry, the wedding industry, for example, people overwhelm the planner. So they're trying to network with planners. They don't think outside of the planner. A Planner can't give 100 cake makers a job because they don't even get 100 jobs. So if you're trying to network with a particular planner, think about, what can I do for the planner? Can I get the planner clients? For example, I've got, I've gotten in the past a bunch of clients for planners, because people might come to me and I say, have you got a planner? And they go, no, I haven't. I'm like, okay, I know a couple of people.

Recommend, recommend. And then I also do another thing. I connect people. I might connect a particular planner with another planner. I might say, okay, I know you're doing this job, but from what you tell me, it's overwhelming for you. It's a bit too much. You will. Your personality type would work best with this person.

Or you are a creative type planner and you're not that great with admin stuff. This planner is incredible at it. So when you're bringing people together, you need to read them so well that when you bring them together, they complement each other. So there's something around how you network as well. I'll give an example what you did when you gave a talk the very, very first time I met you and you went to our websites, people in the audience, you went to our website and you gave examples of what we were doing, right, Et cetera. Now that has never ever, I've never forgotten that, that will never ever leave my consciousness. So when I'm thinking about, okay, a speaker that speaks about the wedding industry, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Any if I'm in that room, I will recommend you automatically.

So that is my point around how people network. Because you should network in such a way that even if you're not in the room, you are presence of mind and people recommend you. So those are some of the things that I would suggest.

So you talked about niching within the niching and I know a lot of people are afraid to niche because they think it limits them. My business is exactly that. It's niched within the niche and it actually expanded my business. You could think that it does it. So I remember speaking to a speakers group because I do that as well. I speak to other speakers and talking about my business and when they think they look at my niche and they say, oh, it's the wedding industry or the wedding and event industry and they, they call it an inch wide but a mile deep. And I say, okay, let me show you. You talk about getting in your lane, finding your lane.

So I put up a graphic of a two lane road and I said that's what people think my niche looks like. And then I expand it to 20 different lanes there. And I say the wedding and event industry has over 20 different possible categories of businesses. The average wedding has 12 to 14 different services. So you might think it's the wedding industry or the event industry. And I look at it and say, but look at all of this. And then I niche further and say, well, why did I write a book just for caterers and venues? Why did I write a book just for DJs and entertainers? I do a lot of business within that. And that's niching within the niching, which is what you said before.

So the product has to be good. I think everybody listening here, of course the product has to be good. But that's not your opinion, it has to be other people's opinion. Right? But then the other part of that is are you known for something? Are you the go to for something? And if you're the go to, then you're, you're that niche right there. That's where you can start charging more. Because if you're the one they go to, they have to pay your price to get your results. And another important thing you said, no Planner can give 100 cake bakers business. No planner can give 100 photographers business or whatever because they don't see that many clients, especially at the high end.

They're doing even fewer events at the higher end because there's so much more involved. So how many photographers are they hiring in a year? A dozen. And that would probably be a lot if it was a dozen there. Right? So if you're looking for that market, you're going to need to network with more than just that one planner. You're going to need to network also with the venues and other people. But it's strategic networking. And strategic networking for me is not what can I get out of this, it's what can I give.

Exactly.

Right. So when my son got married recently and the first thing I did is reached out to a planner and I said, you guys need a planner and I know somebody in their area. I knew the person and I said, you need to speak to this person. They spoke a few times and said, okay, we're definitely going with them. And then when they needed other things, they came to me and said, hey, we need rentals or we need entertainment. And I reached out to my network and I said, hey, network, I need this for myself. And we got people back in there. So it's that when you need it, you ask the right people, you know who to ask, and you're going to get those things there.

So talking about somebody who. Going back to why I want to touch on that again. Why do they want to move upscale? What are some of the downsides of moving up to a higher price point into that luxury market?

The immediate one is that you're not going to get a, you're not going to get a whole load of clients. And I liken it to when you're climbing, if you are mountain climbing, the higher you get the you go, the lower the oxygen. So you've got, you've got to go prepared, in my view, so you're going to get less clients. And depending on the client type, some of them will be fiercely loyal and some of them will not be loyal because they're looking for the next best thing. They're looking for the latest thing, the trendy thing, etc. Etc. And it's not true that they are more difficult the higher you go Some are, but some are not. Because again, so for me a main difficulty is around trust.

You've got to demonstrate that you are a high trustworth person. And depending on the client, depending on the cultures, that may even be tested. That may be tested.

So it could be a case in what way? In what way?

Okay, let me give an example. So you've been engaged to say plan a wedding or supply wedding cake or whatever. They might decide to ask somebody to engage you, maybe offer you more money and engage you around the same time. So they want to know are you gonna, you know, drop them? And the, and if you're not, and if you don't do your research or homework or whatever, or you're a person of no integrity, you would obviously say go after the money. So they just want to know is this person easily swayed? Because certain clients, they take their security really, really seriously and for really good reason. So there's going to be no leaks. NDAs, excess, you know, that tends to be the norm. So sometimes when I look at the NDAs which is just full of fluff half the time and 10 pages long and full of nonsense, and I would say, well, by the way, you've missed out xyz.

There's been clients where either had to say to them, based on the circumstances around the wedding, with a press sniffing and blah blah blah, you might need to engage a crisis management PR person, not just an audio and they go, oh my God. I'm like, yeah, because if something leaks and it looks wrong and blah blah blah. So I know a few crisis management PR people that I can call on and say, you need to do me a favor xyz. So it's also about one of the, you know, the cons is about you need to go the extra mile and demonstrate value. So it's not just you delivering an amazing cake, it's you thinking of every possible thing that can go wrong. And remember, some of these people, they don't hesitate to sue. We saw that with, I'm not going to mention their names, but where the father in law or the father of the bride is suing the planners. And when I read the, I read the court documents and right from the beginning, when a very highly esteemed planner walked away six weeks before the wedding, anyone can tell that was going to be troubled.

And then I read the court documents and I can tell you exactly what the wedding planners did wrong step by step. So there's a certain type of behavior that you need to, that a professional barrier needs to be there. Even if you end up being friends at the end, that's great. But you need to deliver the wedding first and then you. So don't be fooled by the over familiarity, et cetera, et cetera. You need to be the person with that barrier. So those are some of the cons you need to be aware of.

So you're talking there about celebrities and high powered people, whether you're having the NDAs and things like that. That's again, that's a certain end of the market. There's also an end of the market below that where it might not be there, but it's a higher dollar value than typical. So it might not be seven figures, eight figures into the wedding, but it's certainly, well, you know, into the six figures.

Right.

And that's, that's still a high end wedding certainly for most people, but it's not that crazy. But like you said, that mountain gets thinner at the top, not just the air where there's less people up at the top. So it might be nice to say, oh, I'm chasing that. But that's not where you're going to probably make your continuous living unless you can continue to do business with them. And like you said, if they're chasing the next best thing, you get dropped for the new shiny object over there. So let's talk about that gap there between what's considered a moderate nice wedding and then it jumps into that whatever six figures, which could start with a one or two or three or four into there. How would you suggest to people if they're going for there as opposed to the, you know, it's nice to be on, you know, the. What is that? The T, what is that? TMZ or whatever it is, Page six.

You know, I love, I love that because the middle market as I call it, although you know, it's slightly above middle, that's an interesting place to be because the people there often think that their money can buy a lot more than it can. So you need to manage those expectations. And I often say to people, and that comes around pricing sometimes in managing expectations and I say to people, sometimes you might need a, if you think like a luxury brand. So I use this example a lot. So if you take, I don't know, Gucci or Chanel or whatever they have, but it's a bit more complicated than this. But I'm going to summarize it roughly. They have a three tier pricing. The first tier, your lipsticks, perfumes, etc, beauty, makeup, creams, blah.

If I save up for, let's say A month, I might be able to afford that. Then you've got the next level up which is maybe the middle tier. You've got the handbags, the shoes off the peg, etc if I save up for a year I might be able to afford that. And then you've got the next level up which is the couture. So that's your minimum, minimum, minimum. Six, seven figures, blah, blah, blah. I'll probably have to sell a kidney or something like that to afford that. So if you're, if you then think of your business like that have you have, even if you're not serving the very, very high end, have a pricing around that very high end couture.

That's because the people in the middle when they see, when you say to them actually your pricing is X and they go oh my God. And then you can actually other, you know, this is another thing I offer if you're looking for that type of value. So that way they would think that the middle pricing is actually a bargain. So I often say to people, I coach set a price that's a million dollars, I don't care what it is. It could be water, it could be air. Air, you know, what would, what would need to be, what would that water need to be for it to be a million dollars? And then it kind of resets your brain and it resets your mindset as well. Because I, I trust me, if you have water for sale for a million dollars and you say by the way, I only have two bottles available and I'm going to create a waiting list, there will be people on that waiting list. That's human, that's human nature.

So the middle market, which I would say many of the high end weddings sometimes tend to fall, is an interesting one. So it's about letting them feel and see that you are creating value way beyond the money that they're spending. That has always been the trick for me. And getting into that middle area is an interesting one because you would find that they, a few of their friends would be higher and a few other friends would be at the lower end as well. So it's an interesting place to be and it's a very great place for you to prospect for future clients because obviously there's more of them.

So that's what they call the halo products in there. So when Hyundai was in the US when they first came in, they were not a good quality and anything they came back, they studied Toyota, they came back, they came out with Genesis, but they came out with a car called the Equus. And they didn't sell many of them. And it was like an $80,000 car, like $80,000 Hyundai. But the point was that was the Mercedes S class. It had. If you looked on paper at everything that it had, they basically copied the car. And so we're going to do all of this luxury stuff in here, not expecting to sell money.

Because when you went to the showroom, saw that one, the 30,000, $40,000 car, all of a sudden that you can afford was like, well, it's made by the people that make that.

Exactly right.

And that's the halo thing in there. That's why when we talk about pricing and when people do packages and I tell them, you need that kitchen sink, you need that top one that makes that middle one seem much more affordable and say, well, I don't need all of that, but, whoa, you're capable of that kind of work. And that's the point. Now, the other side of that is you can't only show that kind of work because you'll lose the people in the middle and below that because they just can't afford you with that. So you want to have that aspiration that I'm working with a company that's capable of that, which, if you've heard me talk about pricing, anybody listening, you know, I hate starting prices. And that's the reason if we say starts at. Like, if you. Elizabeth, if you said my cakes start at.

Well, that's. No, exactly. But that's also nowhere near what people typically pay. And now they go, well, no, I want somebody who can do better than that because they think you can't do that kind of work because you said, starts at what? And again, you're starting at. Is higher than someone with a little retail bakery shop who's saying, where my cake started, you know, 200 or 300. Right. But even so, if you say that to somebody, you could lose the higher end client, which is why. Price range.

Some of my clients put a price range and they said, yeah, but that top number is so high. I said, well, first of all, is it realistic? Has anybody ever paid that?

Yeah.

And if they have, great. Now you don't have to put the highest, highest, but you want to show I am capable of higher end work should you need it. But the people that don't need it are like, yes, but I'm using the company that is, that is capable of that. I'm. I'm able to do that. So, okay, we are. We can keep going on here forever. So give us you, you told me that your book can be read in any order, your chapters, just like my books, which I love that.

But you saved the, the one for the chapter you think most people are going to read first. You put last.

Yes.

What is what, what chapter is that?

That's the chapter on the different types of luxury clients. Because people want to know where can I find them? Who are they? So I've given loads of examples of who they are, how you can find them and how to, for some of them, if you want to make an approach, how to approach them and they are online and they are offline and how even to use Google in a different way to find them.

So of the different types there, what is the most common or is there a most common type of luxury client that are people listening would be targeting? Possibly, yes.

The aspirationals.

Which is what?

Which is, according to studies, they make up about 60% of the luxury market and they admire certain celebrities. So to get them you need to go to where those celebrities are. It could be online, it could be offline. And the aspirationals, they tend to be the most diverse group. The age range tends to be amongst the youngest sometimes so the right age to be getting married. And also they're very much brand aware. So if you associate your brand with certain brands that you know, they would know brilliant. And also to find them you might need to use unusual platforms.

So to give an example, there's a brand called Laura Piana and Loro Piana. They do the best cashmere in the world. They're top of the top of the top and discreet. They're known for the quiet luxury coded luxury trend. And they did a collaboration with a tick tocker which was totally unexpected. So that's the sort of thing you need to think about.

And one of the things with doing ads online is you can target people based upon different things. So I always talk about geographics, where are they demographics, you know, what are the measurable characteristics than the psychographics which we're talking about? So if people follow Laura Piano their page, if they follow Taylor Swift, if they follow a particular celebrity or artist or whatever, you can target people who follow those who are in these other demographics to put your ads in front of them. You're not going to get there with your free stuff on social, you're going to get there, you're going to get there with the targeting people who like these things. So if you know who they are. So that's wonderful. So how do people get a hold of your book? We'll put it into the show notes. But how do people find the Luxpreneur?

The Luxpreneur is on Amazon. Easy to find. Just type in the Luxprener. Get it, Let me know what you think to find me. I'm on LinkedIn. That's my home now. I love being on LinkedIn right now. So, yeah, that's the best way to get hold of my book on Amazon.

And we'll have the link in the show notes as well. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me. And again, congratulations on the book.

Thank you so much, Alan. It's been fun and chatting with you and can't wait for this episode to come out.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

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