The Great Benefit of Belonging to the Luxury Marketing Council according to Greg Furman and Peachy Deegan

From our friend Greg Furman, Mover and Shaker featured on Whom You Know:

Here are the kinds of bespoke services (in addition to our other benefits of membership - listed below as well) we can provide you to help leverage and add value to your membership in The Luxury Marketing Council

* A letter under my signature on my letterhead (if you handle the clerical aspects of personalizing and mailing) to all our members in New York City - some 1,700 CEOs and CMOs thanking them for their membership, introducing you as their representative here in the U.S.; a similar letter to all our prospective members - some 3,400 CEOs and CMOs; an introduction to all my partners/licensees worldwide so that you and Sun Belt are on their radar. This could include any promotional materials you'd like to send as well.

* Your/their participation as panelists and speakers. If you develop a presentation on the changing profile of real estate and clubs and trends in that area, we'll find a venue for you and you can present to our members and prospects. Typically we'll draw some 150 top people. We can video this and post it on our password-coded web site for all members worldwide. And we can give you a DVD of the presentation as well.

* We can take this presentation on the road to our various chapters throughout the U.S. If you take care of travel and hotel, we'll find venues for you and invite our members in the cities you deem to be most opportune.

* We'll add Club Corp to our images on the home page of our web site and if you have particular initiatives that you'd like to promote where you're looking for partners, we can post that on the site as well.

* We can, working with an IPSOS/Mendehlson, perhaps do some custom research on trends/issues relevant to your business and publish and promote that to members, prospective members and the media.

* I will serve as a sophisticated introducing broker and arrange to 'warm the call' for any and all of the top management members of The Council that you'd like to meet.

* You/Club Corp can do a column for our soon-to-be-launched global e-newsletter.

* I'll involve you in my graduate course on luxury marketing at NYU Stern's graduate school of business and you can be one of lecturers telling the story of Club Corp and your approach to luxury marketing here in the U.S.

* We can do a sit down, Charlie Rose style 'conversation with leaders in luxury' and we'll post that half-hour DVD on the web for all members globally and you and Club Corp can use this to promote Club Corp in the U.S.

* We can, when/if appropriate, take these initiatives international - Mumbai, New Dehli, Rio, Sao Paolo, London and Hong Kong and provide Club Corp membership in other chapters on a 'friends of the family', discounted basis in those cities which make sense to you all strategically.

* You and they are entitled to two attend two meetings in any/all of our chapters worldwide when you're in any/all of those cities.

* You could do a 'for your consideration' breakfast for members on Club Corp. An actual pitch (see list of benefits). Members pay a much-discounted price $2,500. Non members pay triple that. We host these at Fleishman-Hillard, so no facility charge. A hotel would easily cost $7,000 for the space. Typically we have some 100 top management members and prospective members attend.


Hope the quarter is ending strongly for you and that your year has been a great one. Looking forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.


We're now in 32 cities worldwide - Abu Dhabi, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Austin, Belo Horizonte, Boston, Brasilia, Dallas, Dubai, Fort Worth, Ft. Lauderdale, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, Mumbai, Naples, New Dehli, New York, Orange County, Palm Beach, Philadelphia, Rio de Janeiro, San Diego, San Francisco, Săo Paulo, Sarasota, Tampa, and Wilmington.


Some 875 premium luxury brands and 3,000 CEOs and CMOs. We're in contractual discussions with Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Johannesburg, Toronto, Atlantic City/Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Moscow and we will be in at least 35 cities worldwide before end of 2009.

Our Mission:

o To help top management win greater share of wallet of their very best customers - the 3.2 million in the U.S. or 8.7 million worldwide with liquid portfolios of $1 million or more.
o To be the global thought leader and authority on how the luxury market is changing, how the luxury customer is changing and what the smartest luxury marketers are doing to win greater share of wallet of their best customers.
o And importantly to serve as a 'greenhouse' to 'force bloom' partnerships and collaborations among like-minded luxury brands.

Thanks to the generosity of our members, we're now holding 45 meetings a year in New York for our members - some 320 companies; some 1,700 CEOs and CMOs. For details on 2008 calendar to date, just visit - http://luxurycouncil.com/event_archive_2008.


There's a reason The Luxury Marketing Council has enjoyed such growth. The vision of assembling the smartest, most innovative marketers of luxury products and services together to explore best practices, critical issues and trends (in New York some 45 times a year) has proven to have 'legs' nationally and globally. Now we're in 28 cities with some 860 luxury brands and 2,700 CEOs and CMOs participating worldwide.

The rest is "spontaneous combustion." Great people find other great people and invent great ways to work together: ways to share intelligence on best customers and market trends, ways to share data or customer lists and ways, through innovative collaborations and partnerships, to grow revenue, share of wallet, referrals from and loyalty of best customers - the 3.2 million individuals in the U.S. with liquid portfolios of $1,000,000 or more.

The Council has been sought after as the global thought leader on issues and trends and the relationship broker to help 'force-bloom' partnerships among leading, like-minded luxury brands. .

Not that I expect you to exhaust yourself by reading this listing of 'benefits of membership' in our elite group - but there are some that you might want to consider taking advantage of. They include:

o Think Tanks - The ability to tap council member thinking and "brainstorm" marketing problems is a very powerful asset. Few, if any, organizations can offer convenient and timely access to the best thinking of the best luxury marketers "on demand" as The Luxury Marketing Council routinely, strategically and selectively does. We call the 'partner members,' develop an executive white paper preface to the Think Tank event, find a member to host, facilitate the discussions and write an executive summary of the discussions for the client council member. Every one learns. Everyone wins.

o Networking - The ability to pick up the phone and call any one of some 875 member companies worldwide, some 3,000 CEOs and CMOs and discuss marketing, budgeting, customer related issues is extremely powerful.

o Relationship Brokering - Routine and regular "putting together" of members interested in working together on joint promotions targeted to
shared, best customers.

o Association - Being in the company of the most prestigious
luxury product and services companies, and having personal access to decision makers enhances your brand too.

o Executive Roundtables/Best Practices Mornings - The idea
exchange and exploration of critical marketing issues and topics in
a comfortable climate with very smart marketers is one of our biggest selling points. We do some twenty of these a year. Topics have included Direct Mail Loyalty Programs, The New Media, The Power of Customer Service, The Aesthetic Conventions of Luxury Marketing, Collaborations: Business and the Arts; Effective Public Relations: Case Histories; Women of Substance and Influence; Leveraging the Brand: Corporate Reputation, A Quantifiable Asset, Luxury and the Internet and CEO and Publishers' panels.


o Ability To Tap Members for Collaborations and Partnerships, not to mention the friendships which routinely develop over our seven years of service to luxury marketers.

o Regular Access To Interested Media. I routinely and frequently refer members to journalists looking for specific points of view on different industry groups and trends in the luxury market and among consumers of luxury products and services.

o Participation In Knowledge Exchange, Joint Promotions, Offsites, Data Base Exchange And Our Luxurycouncil.Com Web Site And Other Initiatives going forward and the cost sharing/favorable pricing and growth in share and number of best customers that goes along with these kinds of initiatives.

o CEOs Only lunches and offsites. Planning on at least two in 2009.

o Benchmarking Reports - The Luxury Marketing Council regularly surveys members on specific marketing practices, issues and trends. We have investigated "Best Practices of Best Companies in Reaching Best Customers." "What Keeps Luxury Marketers Awake At Night," "Best Practices of Companies Who Have 'Gone Global' In Leveraging Their Brands," "Strategic Giving and Philanthropy Among Luxury Marketers," "How Luxury Marketers View and Use the Marketing Mix: Allocation of Resources" to name a few.

o luxurycouncil.com Web Site - posts calendar, detailed member contact and mailing list, affords ample opportunities to communicate with members and to post promotions and promote member company interests and profiles.

o Access To Member And Prospective Member List - Some three hundred fifty names, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses available to members only for special member targeted mailings and promotions.

o Executive Retreats/Offsites - Opportunity for members to build relationships and discuss in a relaxed setting issues and a wide range of collaborative marketing opportunities. Offsites have been aboard Seabourn Cruise Line's Spirit (four day cruise to San Juan, five day cruise to St. Barthlemy), at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires and Troutbeck, an executive retreat in upstate New York.

o Common Practice Surveys - To enhance potential for productive collaborations, The Luxury Marketing Council conducts practice surveys of members' marketing and promotional practices.

o Newsletter - The Luxury Marketing Council regularly publishes "Collaborations," which reports on all member collaborations and reviews industry trends and member initiatives.

o Research - The Luxury Marketing Council periodically conducts specific research projects exclusively for members.

o Research Library - The Luxury Marketing Council has maintained a research library of current research by leading publications, institutions on the luxury customer and trends in the luxury market domestically and internationally.

o Access And Invitation To Luxury Marketing Council Chapter Events In London, Paris, Dubai, Boston, Dallas, Atlanta and, as we grow, other capital cities domestically and abroad as well as published calendars of events and member lists for all chapters of The Luxury Marketing Council worldwide.

o Routine And Frequent Invitation To Council Member Events,
Participation In Member Clubs (Monaco Government Tourist Bureau's Le Diamant Rouge which offers members special discounts and opportunities when visiting Monaco, for example), promotions, complimentary subscriptions to member publications: Departures, Gourmet, Deloitte & Touche Review, Sotheby's Preview, Sotheby's International Realty Domain and others.

o Coordination Of Speaking Opportunities/Participation In Focus Groups (on a discounted consulting basis) for council members and Furman Communications Marketing clients. Always focusing on the luxury market or luxury customer.

Wishing you and your colleagues the very best and every future success. Looking forward, I hope, to seeing you soon and I hope to your participation in our elite group, The Luxury Marketing Council.

Cheers and Very Warmest Regards,

Gregory J. Furman
Founder & Chairman

The Luxury Marketing Council
(Since 1994 - 875 Luxury Brands in 32 Cities Worldwide, 3,000 CEOs and CMOs)