What if everything you thought about luxury was wrong? Our guest, Leadership Strategist and Keynote Speaker Neen James, proves that true luxury isn’t about expense, it’s a mindset. Neen’s groundbreaking research in her new book, Exceptional Experiences, identifies four luxury mindsets that govern buying behavior. She also unveils a proprietary Experience Elevation Model that helps brands create unshakeable customer devotion.

Tune in as Neen reveals how you can apply these high-level corporate strategies to elevate your own personal brand and life. Learn why making people feel seen, heard, and valued is the ultimate luxury, regardless of your budget.

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How To Bring A Luxury Mindset To Your Corporate And Personal Brand With Neen James

Author Of Exceptional Experiences And Acclaimed Keynote Speaker

My guest is Neen James. Neen is a Leadership Strategist, dynamic Keynote Speaker and the Author of Folding Time, Attention Pays, and Exceptional Experiences. Her groundbreaking research has identified for luxury mindsets that influence buying behavior and a proprietary experience elevation model helps brands create systematic approaches to building customer devotion.

Many of the lessons that are in her book can be applied not just at a corporate level, but for you personally as well. In our discussion, we’re going to be covering the delivery of luxury experiences that explored in means new book, as well as some broader consumer trends, how to apply this in your own life and the life of a keynote speaker, which Neen is. All right, let’s get going.

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Neen, welcome and thanks so much for joining me on the show. It’s great to have you with us.

Good day. What a privilege it is to serve your readers. You have interviewed some people that we both admire, so it’s an absolute privilege to be here.

We’re going to talk, as I mentioned in the intro, a bit about your most recent book and also about some of the other things you do, particularly or speaking. Before we dive into that, why don’t you just give us the quick rundown on you, particularly your upbringing in Australia?

Origin Story: Luxury Rooted In Being ‘Seen & Heard’

I was raised by a single mom. I come from a tiny little town in Australia where there was one traffic light when I was growing up and I lived in a caravan. In America, they call that a trailer park. I remember my mom was one of the hardest working women. She would clean houses, she picked fruit, she sold lettuce on the side of the road.

No matter how tired my mom was, she would often walk through a community garden on her way home and she would pick a flower from a community garden. She would bring it home to our little caravan and she put it in a glass. We called it a bars because we felt so fancy. It was my mom who reminded me that everybody deserves beauty and luxury. She reminded us as little girls, it doesn’t matter about money or things, but everyone deserves to be seen and heard.

I think that example, that role modeling, and I’m so fortunate to still have my mom with me, which is who I dedicated the book to, Exceptional Experiences because in that role modeling, what my mom showed me was you could achieve anything you wanted. You could be anything that you wanted. It doesn’t really matter where you come from.

Now I have the privilege, as you know, of speaking around the world and being a confidant to CEOs of luxury and legacy brands. When I think about the origin, that had shaped me so much for the career that I have chosen, but when we look back on our career and the choices we’ve made and the stories that we tell, it’s fascinating sometimes how much that origin really impacts our careers now.

When you don’t grow up in a privileged environment, right? They’re wonderful stories for the people who have been able to take that upbringing as yours. Find the goodness in it and use it to fuel them as you’ve done over the years in terms of what you’ve then gone on to do professionally. Help us understand a little bit more. You now work in the world of luxury goods live in the United States. How did you get from the childhood that you were just describing to what you’re doing now?

I grew up in corporate business in Australia. I worked in retail, banking, telecommunications, and the oil industry. There were not a lot of chicks in oil when I was there. As a client experience expert, I’m obsessed with this whole idea of how do we get people to pay attention? I think when we pay attention, companies make more money. Our relationships are deeper. We take care of the planet on which we live.

I’m literally so obsessed with this. I’ve written multiple books in this whole area and I have had the privilege of working with some of the coolest brands on the planet across amazing industries, media, medical, manufacturing, and obviously luxury. A lot of the meeting planners that I work with as a keynote speaker, they call me the Energizer Bunny because I’m bringing my energy and my thought leadership to that stage.

I know you have people who tune into your show who love to be able to speak and use training and speaking as part of what they do. I think what’s unique about me is, yes, I am Australian, so I have a global perspective, but I also became an American citizen. I don’t know if you know that. I have a local perspective as well. I’m the oldest of five. I sound like I’m five. Add a zero and more and then you’ll get my real age.

I think what is also unique about me is that I have published in this area but I have the only research study of its kind in the world into luxury as a mindset. I think what happens is sometimes, and I wonder if this is true of some of your readers, your readers might be thinking, “I’m at this point in my career, but how do I get to that next level? How do I truly demonstrate my value, articulate my value?”

The ‘Stealth Message’ Of Exceptional Experiences

They might be thinking, “I want to have a seat at the table and have more influence, but what’s my experience and what is the experience others people have of me?” I love working with people in that regard. As the confidant to CEOs. I’m very privileged to be at those tables and part of those conversations.

All of these things that I’ve learned from working with luxury leaders of legacy and luxury brands, I was able to curate into my book, Exceptional Experiences. I think the reason I do what I do, I want us all to create these significant moments that matter for people. Don’t tell anyone that the stealth message of the book is really how do you make people feel seen, heard and valued. Luxury brands do that better than so many.

We’re going to talk about this maybe in the context of corporate brands, but it also, to your point, it applies to people in terms of their personal brand. The idea of personal brand has become pretty commonly noted that it goes back maybe 20, 25 years. I can’t remember who wrote the first book on it, but it’s a concept at this point that most people coming into the workforce and making up the core of the workforce understand.

If you think about it in the spirit of trying to create that right experience, like a luxury brand, corporate brands try to create that luxury experience, I think it probably takes the idea of personal branding a little bit further. Let’s dive into your book. Tell us about the book and I guess what sparked your belief that luxury isn’t about price tags, it is about how you make people feel.

I think it’s my mom as the role model for that. So often, I am sitting with executives and I’m helping them with strategies. Often, there’s two things most of my CEOs are measured on. One is mind share. How do they capture the attention of potential investors and clients. Think of that as capturing attention. Let’s say being top of mind. Let’s call that mind share. The other thing they’re measured on is market share. Can they drive revenue and be top of market?

I’m involved in so many conversations of how do you stay top of mind, top of market. What I realized was in the consulting process that I used, I was using what I call the experience elevation model, which is so many different systems of elevation on how you cannot just capture the attention of clients or even team members, but how do you create advocates of those same people.

What the experience elevation model does in the book is it outlines the five luxury leavers, is what I call them in the model, with all the systems that set behind them. Here’s why it’s really interesting to me. It’s because I’ve always believed luxury as a mindset because my mom role modeled it in our tiny little caravan. When I went to Google and said, “Give me the research studies on luxury as a mindset,” there was none. That was crazy to me. There’s plenty of studies on how luxury makes people feel.

I wanted to know how do we think about luxury. How does it affect our decisions? How long does it take to make a decision? Who influences a decision? How does it affect our confidence, professional development, leadership? I did a very deep dive, the only research study of its kind in the world into luxury as a mindset and delighted to share those resources with you. They’re in the book. People can download that. What was really important to me was being able to apply that luxury mindset to the executive strategy work I do to the audiences that I stand in service of. They could elevate their own experiences that they give to their clients or to their team in their personal and their professional lives.

The Four Luxury Mindsets

Let’s talk first about your research and then four types of luxury buyers. I thought that was quite interesting. As you say, unique in terms of what’s available out there in terms of how people think about luxury.

I thought that luxury is a mindset. I just thought there was one and I was wrong. There’s not one luxury mindset. There’s four. As people are reading this, I would encourage you to think, as I give the very high level description, think about which one resonates the most with you. Let’s talk about the first one. The first one is the reluctant and removed mindset. To them, luxury is hard. They feel guilty spending money on luxury. They think that brands don’t understand them and they are busy and they are overwhelmed. If you want to speak their luxury language, you need to share with them how your product or service will save them time and hassle. That’s what the reluctant and remove needs to hear.

Luxury Mindset: I used to think luxury was a single mindset—but I was wrong. There isn’t just one luxury mindset; there are four.

The second of the luxury mindset is the pro-prioritizer. We call them the pro because of professionalism and being that they are very focused on luxury as power. Here’s what I mean by that. The pro-prioritizer, they use luxury to advance their career or reputation. This is the person, and I’m assuming you have quite a few of your readers who fall into the pro-prioritizer category, they want to align themselves with brands who are authentic and long lasting.

They want to make sure that the brands that they’re associated with are in line with their values and their reputation. They’re looking for the societal and environmental impacts that those brands make. Think about speaking the luxury language of the pro-prioritizer by sharing about the longevity of your company and brand, the career path that you offer as an employer, the sustainability initiatives that you have that you outline on your website and your onboarding. That’s how we speak to our pro-prioritizers.

We then have the third of the luxury mindsets. This is called the confident and content. This is the person who says, “I got this, I don’t need luxury.” What they do is they use luxury to create memories of people that they love. If you want to speak the luxury language of the confident and content, share with them how whatever your product and service is, is how it’s going to advance or create memories of people who are important to them. That’s how you speak their luxury language.

This brings us to our fourth. The fourth of the luxury mindsets is called the luxury lover. This is the person who says, “Luxury for everyone every day because I’m worth it.” Now, a luxury lover you can often see and hear, and they’re not using luxury brands to show off. They’re using luxury brands because they believe in craftsmanship, they believe in quality. The luxury lover, if you want to speak their luxury language, you want to share things like exclusive behind the scenes access.

A luxury lover will love it if they get to meet the VP of marketing and understand the process that was designing that particular campaign. If you’re in a restaurant and they get to meet the chef, they love that. Here’s what’s really important for people reading this to consider. If you are in a business development role, if you are responsible for driving revenue, you want to start to look for the luxury lovers because the luxury lover has a big mouth.

They are the people who will talk about you on social media. They will write a client testimonial for you. They will tell their friends to buy from you. They will refer business. These are the advocates that you want. You can create advocates of luxury lovers. Interestingly, we also find that the luxury lover can influence the other three luxury mindsets. Each person reading this, you’ve possibly thought, “I’m this person.”

I’m going to give you a link for the self-assessment. People can easily fill out. It takes five minutes, it’s free. You can find your own luxury mindset. Here’s what’s also really interesting for your readers to know. Luxury is defined really differently by people. We also realize that every one of those mindsets agreed on two things.

The first, luxury is a reward for hard work. The second, luxury is about experiences, not things. We all get the opportunity to think about how people experience us in our conversations with our team, in our presentations on stage or to the board or in a boardroom, on camera. When I think about luxury as a mindset, we all think about luxury differently. It means different things to different people.

Even the word luxury is divisive. Some people think it’s expensive or elitist or unapproachable. I’m on a mission to change that. As you read this and you identify your own luxury mindset, I want you to think about the fact that we often communicate from the mindset we know the best and yet, we serve people who have a different luxury mindset to us.

I thought it was interesting. Pretty much it was like a quarter, a quarter, a quarter, a quarter in terms of the population

It was. The results were fascinating. It was pretty even across the twenties for each one. I know. Interesting.

I assume you’re a luxury lover.

Correct. I committed the research study. The only one of its kind in the world. Yes, absolutely. What’s really fascinating about that too is because I’ve always seen this lens of luxury. I remember in my corporate life, my bosses would write things on my job performance reviews like, “Everything she does has to be platinum lined.” I thought they were complimenting me, but they were actually not. That was a criticism.

If you track my career, I was always looking to see how do we elevate this experience for our clients, members, guests, students, whoever I was serving at the time and the role I had. This has been very much a through line in my career as well. I think we get insights into what’s important to us when we look back over our career choices.

As you were indicating, there’s a bit of criticism in saying that you want things to be platinum lined. Here in the UK, we have the word posh.

I love posh. It’s so fancy.

It’s generally used in a derogatory way. “He’s so posh.” Sometimes, it’s a compliment, but most of the time, it’s a criticism and a statement about the class differences.

It’s because we have such different classes in the way that it is. I would invite your readers to consider a different perspective. That is that I think luxury is both inclusive and exclusive. It’s inclusive because we all deserve it every day. It just might look different to each of us, but it’s exclusive because we can roll out the red-carpet experience to anyone that can also look really different. Think about what you could do as an employer, as a leader in a team to roll out the red carpet for your own team and make it a special moment for them. That’s luxury.

The idea of it being about experiences and not things, you’ve mentioned that explicitly and it certainly is carried through your comments more generally. It has felt to me in the course of my adult lifetime that we have gone from a focus on, I’ll say pure materialism to more of a balanced focus when people think about luxury on things or experiences. From your research, is this a broad societal shift or is this the Millennial, Gen Z population coming into adulthood with just a different philosophy about things versus experiences?

I think you can see some differences with the generations, but we did it more around what people’s attitudes were, regardless of how old they were. That’s something that I think is really important to consider. When you think about some of the older generations where it was duty before pleasure. It was about working hard. They lived through wars. They understood things very differently. You look at the

Boomer’s generation where they had some amazing things happen in the world, and then they became all about team experiences and professional development. Everyone gets copied on the email. You know a Boomer because they CC everybody and they invite everyone to a meeting. You look at Gen X and Gen X is like, “Leave me alone. I’m fiercely independent. I raised myself. I want to do the same thing with my communication. Just tell me what you need and get to the point.”

When you think about even the way we communicate and then you get to generations X and Y and Y says, “Let’s get everyone involved in this. Let’s have a conversation about it.” They’re much more altruistic. They started to think it wasn’t as much about what they were collecting, what they were gathering, what they were owning. They were thinking, “How do I share these experiences with others and make my impact on the world?”

To keep going through the generations, the way we communicate is really different. Our oldest generation love to communicate face to face, but so does our youngest, the differences we do with technology. What I want us to think about is, as we look at luxury or the luxury mindset, it’s not necessarily based on how old you are. It doesn’t matter how old you are. What it’s about is thinking differently about the experiences we bring every day.

The way we show up as a leader, the way we really are kind, the way we make an impact on the planet. We think about the role we have in our role at work, and then we think about the people’s lives that we challenge, the people’s lives that we change, the people we stand in service of. That’s just looking at the world different. It doesn’t matter how old you are.

We could get into probably a whole conversation about how the generations have played out things and experiences and the role of social media and other things. We will save that for another day, given that that’s not really focus of the conversation. You’ve talked a little bit about your research that you did in terms of the four luxury mindsets. You’ve mentioned the experience elevation model. Walk us through the five pieces of that and how they come together.

The Five-Part Experience Elevation Model (Framework)

I mentioned to you that so many of my CEOs are measured on mind share and market share. What I realized was I was applying the experience elevation model to all the clients that I was consulting with, whether it was one-on-one, whether it was speaking on a conference stage. What I realized is that if you really want to capture attention, you’ve got to be able to entice people to be part of paying attention to you.

The first of the luxury levers is entice. If you are looking for systems of elevation here, it’s really about the stories that you tell. I’m not going to get into storytelling. I’m sure you have experts who can do that for you. One thing I would like people to consider is thinking about sharing your origin story, why your company does what it does. Why as a leader, you’ve chosen the role you have.

The other thing that’s interesting at this luxury lever of entice is your clients or team members that you want to onboard or asking, “Why should I pay attention to you?” You have to be able to help explain that to them. Sometimes, that’s about creatively collaborating with other people. It’s about the visual content that you use.

The second of the luxury leavers, this is where we invite. We invite people so that they can feel like we’re giving them that red carpet experience. We can speak their luxury language. It’s at this point where we get to demonstrate our experience to them. They start to say, “I want access to what you’re doing. I’m intrigued.”

That then brings us to the third of the luxury levers, which is very much about excite. This is one of my favorites. This is where you are saying to people, “We want to do something with you. We want to be able to elevate the experience. We want to be able to do things that are shareworthy.” In our social media world that you mentioned, this is something to consider. It could even involve a system of elevation of leveraging all five senses. This is the place where people are saying, “You have my attention. What else will they do?”

We then move to the luxury lever of delight. It’s in delight where you show your clients you know them really well. It’s making them feel seen and heard and valued. It’s here where they’re saying, “Hold on a second. How did they anticipate I needed that? I didn’t even know that I needed that.” You have systems in place to do it.

That takes us to the fifth of the luxury levers, which is ignite. The goal of this luxury lever, the system is to create advocates. Create advocates so then they refer others to you through the systems that you use. Sometimes, that’s about exclusive events. Sometimes that is about educating them on how to refer business to you, but they’re asking themselves the question, “How do I tell other people about my experience?”

The experience elevation model, as you’re reading this, imagine it as a triangle. At the bottom, we’re trying to capture attention, mind share. At the top of the triangle, we’re trying to drive revenue, market share. The model will give you specific practical ideas of framework on how you can apply this regardless of what business you’re in. You don’t have to have a luxury product to provide a luxury level of service.

I know you do a lot of work with, I’ll say, true luxury brands. The luxury hotels and luxury travel firms and luxury handbags and fashion. I also know that you do some work with a media company that would not be considered a luxury brand. It’s one of the cable providers. How do you bring this five-part framework to bear with somebody like that?

Think about the fact that in media, they’re in the attention business. Think about what it is that they do, but because they’re also trying to compete for people’s attention, we have to be able to not just entice people to work with them, but we have to be able to collaborate in really creative ways. Sometimes it’s about finding interesting ways to have stories to tell that are going to capture the attention of people that they want, in their case viewers or maybe even team members if they want to recruit them into their company.

Luxury Mindset: We need to do more than just entice people to work with us—we have to collaborate in truly creative ways. Sometimes it’s about finding unique stories to tell that capture the attention of the audiences we want to reach.

It’s also about making sure that they invite them in by speaking the luxury language that those viewers or those team members need to hear. When I think about that, it’s about finding unique ways to make those viewers or team members feel really special. Take for example one of my clients in Philadelphia. Comcast’s head office there. They have the first in the world, a sensory room because what they’ve realized is, especially we have, think about our neurodivergent environment that we’re in right now. They’ve created the first of its kind sensory room where people can go in and they can relax and they can enjoy things in their technology center. They’ve incorporated all of what we’re talking about in just the sensory experience they create.

The other things that I like about working with a brand like Comcast is they have systemized thoughtfulness. They make sure, and we’ve had conversations at very senior levels, about how do you truly make people feel seen and heard and valued? How do you scale that? That’s also the key. When I think about the ways that they make their team members feel seen and heard, I’m privileged to work with the Comcast experience group led by Ebony.

Ebony has done a phenomenal job of creating, they have an internal amphitheater that is just for their team events to help develop them and showcase them, expose them to thought leaders. They have a whole team committed to employee engagement and events. They’re igniting in their team, these advocates who makes it very easy for them to recruit people to join the brand of Comcast because not only are they one of the largest employers of the Philadelphia area, but globally, they’re making a massive impact because their team members are out there doing the recruiting for them, they’re advocates because they feel so seen and heard in the company.

That’s a real privilege to work with a brand like that because at every level, even if I just look at what the Comcast experience group does in the work that I’ve done with them for many years, they touch all five of the luxury levers in so many different ways. Here’s the key. They’ve empowered their team to do it on behalf of the internal and external clients they serve. They’re such a corporate citizen. They’re very focused on their community, and they’re always exploring opportunities to give back.

Let’s talk as well about the airline industry is another example that you use. You talk in particular about Delta, but it could be another airline as well. They all have their frequent flyer programs. It’s top of those programs. They’re high-end experiences. All of those businesses also have a tale. How do you think about delivering these five levers, your framework, to not just the top tier clients, but also to the tale? Think about the Delta Silver. I understand it’s for people who don’t even have status in their frequent flyer program.

Scaling Luxury: Applying The Model To All Customers (BDA)

For sure. Delta’s such a brilliant example, and they are the case study we use to demonstrate the experience elevation model in the book because what Ed and the team are doing there is really quite transformational. Regardless of your status, what they do well is what many luxury brands do well. That is personalization, customization, and they also have fascination. Let me explain what that means.

Personalization is about information. Delta is absolutely pedantic about the information that they capture for you. You might start a movie on one plane, and then in the seat back, then you might jump on another plane. They’ll say, “Neen, welcome back. You’re sitting in 21D. Here’s the movie you started. Would you like to continue that movie?” That’s because they’ve personalized my experience regardless of my status. They know, and I love that feature. It’s so simple, but it says, “I see you.” If you are traveling, that’s something that’s really important.

They also have done a great job of customization because that customization is about connection. What they’re giving to people who fly Delta is ease. They’re looking to see how do we help you not only connect physically around the world through using our flights, but also, if, for example, they see a family and they’re not seated together, they’re going to do whatever they can to change it so that that family can be sat together, especially if it’s a last-minute booking, or you’ve had some standby situation. They’re looking to customize your experience with them as well. If you have status, even better, because they have all the different things that you know you have benefit for.

Here’s what I love about Delta. It’s their sense of fascination. Fascination requires anticipation. They want to think about how do I make this travel experience the best I can through the data we collect, through the way we train our team, the way that we access technology, the safety of the things that we’re implementing. What they’re looking at is not just about you going to the gate, jumping on a plane and getting to where you want to be.

They’re looking at everything that happens before you even go to make your reservation. All of the communication, all of the collaterals that they have, they’re looking at your time at the airport. How can they streamline that? How can they make that easier? You’re going to see some amazing differences in the next twelve months of what Delta has got planned for you. They’re also thinking about while you are on the plane, how do we make this an opportunity?

They will write notes. The crew will write notes to guess who are on the plane. When they hear of special occasions, they make that a thing on the actual flight. They think about, “Once you’ve got off the plane from us, how do we get you to become an advocate? Let’s follow up afterwards. How was your experience? Tell me about that.”

What they’re constantly thinking about is what I call BDA, before, during, and after their experience with you. We can all apply that to our career. What are we doing before we go to meet with our boss that will set us up for success? What are we doing during the interview and time with our boss so that that boss knows that we’re ahead of our career and we’re doing what we need to do? What do we do after we leave so that we’ve given our boss the talking points they need to talk about us and our projects to their executives?

This process of BDA, before, during, and after, that is just one of the systems of elevation in the experience elevation model. When I was looking around the world for a case study for my book, believe me, I had some pretty ridiculous standards. I needed a brand that was aligned with my own values. I needed people that could do something that was safe in the world.

This is an airline that is committed to sustainability. That’s really important to me personally. When I looked at leadership, I wanted to make sure there was longevity, that they really upskilled their team. I had some pretty aggressive criteria for who I would put in my book. They came out with all of the different things they do because they represent all five of the luxury levers.

I’ve seen in my own experience with them and with some of the other airlines, you really feel it when they go that extra step. As you were talking about them, I was reflecting on when I traveled on my birthday. I was flying from Boston to Denver. I dropped off my rental car. It was a United flight, not a Delta flight in that particular case. I got to a Marriott hotel that I was staying in that day. The rental car person said, “It’s your birthday. Happy birthday.” The airline, the woman came up to me and she goes, “It’s your birthday. I’ll give you a free drink.” I get to the hotel. On the TV, it says, “Happy birthday.” I think I heard from airline car rental and hotel before I’d heard from any of my three kids that day. They were on it.

Customization and fascination. For each of us, we can do that. Our birthday, the one day of the year that is actually about us, what they’ve done is taken that information, that data point, and they’ve personalized your experience so it feels customized just for you. You feel special too, which then allows you to think next time you want to book a hotel or a car rental or a flight, you’re going to remember that experience that you had.

Let’s talk a little bit, and then I want to get to speaking, but one last question, I guess, on the experience piece, AI, automation creeping more and more into marketing and sales and service activities. How do you get the advantages of what they offer without losing the human touch and this aspect of personalization and feeling that connection? Obviously, AI can be great at personalization, but how do you keep that emotional connection if you’re layering in all of this technology on top of the human part?

The Power Of Personalization & Fascination

I think that in our digital AI world, it’s the human connection that gets attention. It could be the simplicity of using someone’s name. It could be looking them in the eye when they actually enter your space, your office, your workplace. It could be the handwritten note that tells someone that you appreciate them. It’s the extra note you write when the check comes to your table or the bill and you say, “JR, thank you for serving me today,” and then you add your tip.

It can be very simple little ways to personalize. I believe more than ever we need the human connection. Yes, we can absolutely enjoy the efficiencies that AI provides us, but that’s what I would say is transactional. What we’re looking to do with the human connection is make it transformational. If you think about luxury hotels, think about the role of the bellhop.

It’s such a vital role. It’s so important. The bellhops going to move your bags efficiently through that hotel lobby and up to your room. That’s great. That’s transactional. We want a bellhop. It’s vital. Too often, I think leaders are thinking like a bellhop. They’re crossing things off their list. They’re moving from one thing to the next, running from a meeting to the next, trying to get to the bottom of their to-do list. In actual fact, what I need them to do is not think like a bellhop. I need them to think like a concierge.

If you want to bring a human touch into your every day, you’ll think like a concierge, not a bellhop. A concierge is the most revered position in the hotel. They’re the go-to resource for everybody. They can get you that ticket to that restaurant or that concert that you want. Here’s the thing. They anticipate needs you didn’t even know you had. What I want people reading this is I’d love you to change your mindset to a luxury mindset where you think like a concierge, not a bellhop because you can anticipate needs that the people around you didn’t even know they had. AI cannot do that for you.

All right. Let’s shift gears. You do a ton of speaking. I know you were, at one point, on the board of one of the speaking trade associations in the United States. You’ve clearly had a high level of success. What’s really resonating with your audiences right now as you go out to speak to executives and to their teams and to their broader organizations at the moment?

Speaking Philosophy: Conversation, Not Presentation

What audiences want is they want a conversation, not a presentation. I always believe that you can’t be nervous if you stand in service. As a keynote speaker, my job is to stand in service of whoever’s in that room at that point in time. I believe whoever’s in the room is meant to be in the room. For me, the way that I prepare for those opportunities is always to think about it as a conversation, not a presentation.

Luxury Mindset: What audiences want is a conversation, not a presentation. You can’t be nervous when you stand in service.

I never say exactly the same thing all the time. I don’t have a rote speech. I could never do that. God bless people who can, that’s just not the way I’m wired. I’m always looking for interaction. I’m looking to think how do they practically apply what we’re talking about together? I’m the business speaker. I often follow the CEO. They do the state of the nation and then in comes Neem James to share the insights. I know where I fit in an agenda as well.

While I don’t call myself an inspirational or motivational speaker, I definitely get those words get used on me. I’m very much about what’s the practical application of everything that we’re talking about together. I believe in the power of stories, but that wasn’t always the case. I used to think, “I want to get in, I want to give them strategies and I want to get out.” What I realized by working with brilliant keynote directors like Mike Ganino, he wrote a book called Make a Scene, what Mike was able to do was to take my practical strategic brain and allow me to refine that through better storytelling, to even have more of myself on stage. I think the best keynote speakers are the ones we resonate with who are truly themselves on stage.

If you run into me at the airport at 12:00 at night, or you see me on a stage at 12:00 at lunchtime, it’s the same person. If you really want to elevate your keynote speaking, your presence on stage, it’s about bringing more of yourself and your stories and your unique perspective, your thought leadership to that audience. Most audiences want to know why you. Why are you there speaking to them? Why should they listen to you and why whatever you are saying is going to help them in their lives?

Very quickly, the sooner you can help them understand what’s in it for them and their situation or their project or their initiative, then I think you get to connect so much better. I think authenticity on stage, it’s a word that gets overused. Yet I think when you show up and just stand in service of that room and think, “How can we have this conversation together,” and make it a conversation where you learn from them and they learn from you, that’s when I have the most fun.

That’s when you get what our dear friend Drew Davis calls stage side leads. That’s when people come up to you afterwards and say, “Neen, I have an event in February. Can you come speak? Can you come and hurt my executive team?” If you are using speaking as a distribution opportunity or a marketing distribution opportunity for your business or your brand, you might be an internal thought leader or you might be an external thought leader.

That stage side lead, the person who comes up to you beside the stage, that’s Drew’s term, not mine, when they come up and say, “Can you help my team,” that’s a really great indicator that you’ve had a fabulous conversation that has resonated with someone who says, “I want you to come help my team.” I love a stage side lead. My goal is to always have at least two.

One of the questions I wanted to ask you is how did you develop your skills? I will tell you, there’s three things I’ve noticed about you in our conversation. One, you have a very relatable style, which obviously resonates. Two, you are very much on message, and I mean that in a positive way. You are hitting the key things that you want to cover that tie back to your book very clear. The third thing, which I’m particularly very envious of, is that you seem to have completely eradicated filler words from your vocabulary.

Thank you for that observation.

That is really hard. When I go back to edit an episode, there are people who are easy edits, who are very clear and crisp, and there are people who are much harder, who have a lot of filler words and pauses. You’ll be an easy edit. I mean that in the best of ways. I’m curious, other than working with this gentleman Drew that you’ve mentioned, what are some of the other things that you have done over the years to really hone your craft as a speaker? Very few people will be a keynote speaker at the level that you’re a keynote speaker, but people get up and give presentations all the time, and most of them are not that great. People want to be better speakers, but think they really struggle. I’m curious how you developed your craft.

Honing The Craft: The Privilege Of Service & IP Cataloging

I think there’s many answers to that, but one thing that I would start with is that I understand it’s a privilege to stand on the platform. It’s a privilege to stand in service of a room and people, and I treat it with reverence. When people say to me, “I’m just going to wing it,” I think that is the most repulsive, insulting thing that you can do or say to an audience. I am always prepared. I always want to be the most prepared person in a room. That’s one thing that I would say. Understand it’s a privilege to stand in front of other people. Stand in service. That is really in key.

Luxury Mindset: Understand it’s a privilege to stand in front of other people. Stand in service—that is key.

What I’ve also realized, though, is if you invest in cataloging your intellectual property, meaning what are the things that you have uniquely experienced in your world and you can capture that intellectual property in ways that makes it relatable to your audience, you are going to have much more successful soundbites, memorable phrases. I’m a massive fan, and what I’m known for, one of my superpowers is contextual models.

I believe if you can create a contextual model for someone to understand the complexity of what you’re trying to say and simplify it in a contextual model, think of it as a framework. It will elevate your intellectual property and it will elevate the understanding of the audience because you make them smart. If they get your model, and then they can go draw it on a napkin or teach their team or share it in their slide deck, you are giving them the tools for them to also extend your thought leadership. I believe in the power of having context, a contextual model.

I believe in the power of metaphor. Metaphors make things memorable and repeatable, and people may not remember everything you say, but I guarantee you’ll start thinking like a concierge, not a bellhop. That metaphor, it turns on the right hemisphere of the brain. The way I got good at speaking and content development was I understood the really four different kinds of audience members. We have the people who are big picture and they like to have, and they’re left hemisphere oriented. They love a contextual model.

We have people who are big picture, right hemisphere, they love a good metaphor, and you need to appeal to them first. We have people in the audience who are also left brain, but they’re more detailed. They like to have a rhetorical question or a process or evidence, statistics that’s important to them. We have people who are also detail oriented, but they’re right hemisphere. They love a story, ancient history, current events, world news. We need to have a diversity of examples so that every time we speak, we share our context.

What’s our big picture? A model and a metaphor. We have a concept. What’s our point? What’s the 1 or 2 sentences we’re trying to say? We have content that shows evidence and story to support every main point that we have. If you were to follow that model of sharing your thought leadership in that way, you become even stronger because you find evidence to support all of the things that are important to you.

Of course, I’ve invested a lot in the way that I am coached with a keynote director like Mike. I learn from people in business like Drew Davis. I read and consume anything that Teams and Webster creates on message design and change management. I’ve surrounded myself. I pay a lot of people to be able to show up. We need to think about, because I coach executives, I have so many coaches.

Pam Slim is my business coach. She is one of the best brains when it comes to what you do. If you want to get good at your craft, if you want to command high fees for speaking, you have to invest significantly in yourself first. You have to look and sound like whatever it is you’re talking about. I speak in luxury. I have to look like luxury. Sound like luxury. I have to be luxury so that that experience is congruent for the clients.

It doesn’t matter if I’m working with an emergency room in a hospital, which I do. I have clients who are hospitals, whether I’m working with a manufacturing firm and I’m wearing a hard hat around their facility, or whether I’m sitting in a beautiful walnut board room table with plush carpet, the same Neen James shows up every single time. I think that’s what makes speaking for me so fun because it’s just me chatting to an audience. Sometimes there’s 5, sometimes there’s 5,000. It doesn’t matter about the size of the room or the people are there. It’s simply a conversation, not a presentation.

You seem like a naturally energetic person. I would imagine rising to the level that’s needed to really fire up an audience and get them engaged is probably easier for you than it is for the vast majority of people. I have to believe there are also times where you’re just not feeling it. When you’re not feeling it, how do you fake your way through it?

Managing Energy & Presence (The Swan Metaphor)

I do not believe in faking it. I think one of the things we are responsible for, our energy is contagious. I walk into every room and I assume everyone wants to play with me. I always have. I have the opportunity to act as like the host or the hostess in any situation I find myself. It doesn’t matter if it’s at the gate when everyone’s all upset at the airport or whether it is in the ballroom and I’m trying to create an experience.

The moment that I leave my house, I’m on. You have to think about that because every person that you interact with, including the people in your home, but every person, I want them to feel seen, heard, and valued. If I’m living what I’m talking about, it means I have to, no matter what. It’s nobody’s fault if I’ve had a bad day. Nobody needs to see that. Think of it like being the swan. I am looking to be elegantly gliding across the pond like a swan, but underneath, my little legs might be going like crazy. Nobody sees that.

Here’s what I do. I am very diligent. I work with a personal trainer multiple times a week virtually because no matter if I’m in a hotel or in my home office, I think we have to be responsible for the body that we take around the planet. I have to be able to run through airports, put my bag in the overhead. I have to be able to do a sound check at 6:00 AM and still be on and coherent at 10:00 at night if I run into someone at the airport. I really manage my energy. I’m very diligent. The food I put in my body, the things that I drink, the sleep. I’m very protective about my sleep because my energy is what I’m paid for.

I think of my brain like luxury real estate. I don’t want any cheap thoughts decorating my brain. I’m very protective of my inputs, but I also think that people pay for the real estate in my brain. If we look at our brains as a business tool, I’m having CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and say, “Tell me what you think about this.” I’ve got to be on, which means I’ve got to personally make sure I’m always prepared, that I’m very present, that I’m not distracted.

For example, when I’m at an audience, I was speaking for Delta Vacations, and I’m always in the room early, I walked around and shook as many hands as I could, said hello to as many people as I could. Someone said to me, “Why do this?” I said, “It’s because now, we’re just having a conversation. You’re not a stranger. Now we’re friends. It’s very easy.”

I could use their names in the presentation, and then they felt so seen, and it’s so fun for me. It took me literally just a few moments. What I think we need to do is get out of your head, get off the stage, get to know the people that you’re standing in service of, and that will also energize you because then you know you are there to truly create an experience for them that they will remember, hopefully, for a long time.

You call those little moments champagne moments.

I love a champagne moment.

What do you do differently when you’re delivering an online presentation versus an in-person one?

On a ballroom stage, I have the privilege of this massive space. I can use my gestures and they can be really big, but on the iMac, they might look really tiny. When I’m presenting to you virtually, all of my hands and my face always stays within the frame. My hands will never leave the frame because then I disconnect. People follow your hands and they follow your mouth when you speak. I keep my gestures here.

I also leverage any technology available. If there’s a chat facility, you better believe I’m asking people to write in the chat, unmute themselves, tell me, answer questions, do a poll, use breakouts. I’m leveraging engagement strategies as well. I use a lot of rhetorical questions. What would you think about that? How would you feel about that?

I’m giving a lot of calls to action in a virtual situation. Go here, try this, read this, try this, taste this. I’m speaking even more about the five senses in my stories, because when you are in person with people, there is just a different energy that gets swapped. I need to bring that same high energy, and I’m looking at the camera. I’m not distracted. I’m not looking all around me. If you could see my desk, you would see I have all the notes I prepared before our time together. I have my book, I have my model, I have water. I have everything I need to make sure that in this moment I’m fully present, but I’ve turned off absolutely anything that can distract me.

One of the things we need to think about as virtual presenters, whether we are leading a team meeting, whether we’re sharing our intellectual property, is you’ve got to understand there is a human being at the end of that camera just like there’s a human being sitting in a ballroom. Your job is to help share something that will make their life easier, better. Regardless of whether it’s on camera or whether it’s in a ballroom, you have a responsibility to be really prepared for that and to be great at the stories and the energy that you bring.

You brought this up in the book, the story that you tell of the child who told you to listen with your eyes.

Donovan, he’s so smart. Five years old, and he’s telling me, “Neen, listen with your eyes.” That is advice for all of us, no matter where we are. We don’t just listen with our ears, we listen with our eyes, our heart, our soul. You can do that virtually and in person.

I think it’s actually more important virtually because you don’t have the benefit of that big stage in the body language and the ability to move around and generate people’s interests with the whole of your body. You’ve got the frame.

You have your stories, you have your tonality, you have your physicality, you have your language palette, you have examples, you have colors you wear, you have a lot of tools available to you. You just need to get a little bit more creative sometimes. You can have props. That can be really fun. As a keynoter, I use a bottle of champagne through the whole presentation. When I do virtual presentations where I’m asked to keynote, I use a bottle of champagne on camera as well. You can take props into your virtual to make them more fun and engaging too.

Last question, just given that we’re running up against time. You’ve got this book, Exceptional Experiences. What else are you working on that’s got you particularly excited as you look forward over the next 12 to 24 months?

Future Focus: Elevating The Team Experience

What’s really fascinating to me is when we did the luxury research study, I had so many people come up to me and say, “These mindsets are great, but what am I?” We then developed a self-assessment. I was like, “People love that.” Now people are saying to me, “The book is fantastic. I want to be able to do it not just for my clients, but for my team.”

Now what’s been fascinating is I’ve already been consulting on how do you be elevating the client experience, so many leaders are saying to me now, “Neen, this is great. I want to do this for the next twelve months with my team.” So many of the systems of elevation we talk about in the book are applicable as leaders. Luxury in our research study was defined as high quality, long lasting, authentic, unique and indulgent.

Besides indulgent, all of those qualities work for leadership as well. What I’m excited about is so many clients, whether they are tourism authorities of countries that are inviting me to come in and work with their locals, to elevate the experience for the people who come to visit their country or whether it is a manufacturing plant who want to change the way that they do business, the consulting I’m loving.

It’s so exciting to have conversations where it’s not just about the client experience, it’s about the team experience. Here’s what I love about that. It’s the team that delivers the client experience. If you take care of your team, they will take care of your client or your patient, student, member, whatever community you serve.

This is a good place for us to stop. It was a great conversation and I very much appreciate you reaching out and offering the setup time. It’s been a privilege to spend an hour with you going through what you’re doing and your book and your speaking and everything.

It’s been my privilege. Thank you for everything you do in the world, JR.

Yeah, you as well.

—

Thanks so much, Neen, for joining me to discuss the delivery of luxury experiences, some of the broader ways that you can apply a luxury mindset in the way that you’re delivering experiences, both personally and professionally, and also at an individual level and a corporate level. Also, it was good to dive into her work as a keynote speaker and some fantastic lessons there about how to sharpen your communication skills. As a reminder, this episode was brought to you by PathWise.io. If you’re ready to take control of your career, join the PathWise community. You can also sign up on the website for the PathWise newsletter. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.

Important Links

• Neen James
• Folding Time
• Attention Pays
• Exceptional Experiences
• Make a Scene
• PathWise on LinkedIn
• PathWise on Facebook
• PathWise on YouTube
• PathWise on Instagram
• PathWise on TikTok

About Neen James

Neen James is a leadership strategist, dynamic keynote speaker, and the author of Folding Time, Attention Pays, and the upcoming Exceptional Experiences. With boundless energy, quick wit, and actionable insights, she serves as a confidante to C-suite leaders to help them elevate experiences and achieve greater focus, communication, and influence.

Neen’s groundbreaking research has identified four distinct luxury mindsets that influence buying behavior, and her proprietary Experience Elevation Model™ helps brands create systematic approaches to building customer devotion.

Recently appointed to the board of the World Luxury Chamber of Commerce, Neen has been named one of the Top 30 Leadership Speakers by Global Gurus multiple years in a row for her work with some of the world’s most prestigious brands, including Viacom, Comcast, Virtuoso Travel, Four Seasons, and the FBI.

Neen empowers individuals to prioritize what matters most so they can create exceptional experiences that drive results and foster lasting connections. Originally from Australia, James is living her best life in Tampa, Florida.