Rachael Johanson

There is a point in business when doing more stops being the goal.

More clients. More inquiries. More content. More calls. More projects. More visibility.

If the goal is to move into the upper end of the market, the strategy has to change with it.

On this episode of The Wine and Dine Me Podcast, I sat down with Rachael Johanson, a strategist who works exclusively with female entrepreneurs building service-based businesses at the top of their markets. Her work centers on positioning, sales psychology, personal branding, press, partnerships, and helping women move toward fewer, better, larger projects.

What I appreciated immediately about Rachael's perspective is how specific it is. There is no blanket business advice here. The tactics that help someone build a high-volume business are not necessarily the same tactics that help someone move into three-day weddings, seven-figure event budgets, or a highly selective service model.

That distinction became the backbone of our conversation.

Listen to the full episode in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Youtube.

The Penny Market vs. the Silver Dollar Market

Rachael describes two very different ways to build a service business: the penny market and the silver dollar market.

There is nothing inherently wrong with either one. They simply require different business models.

The penny market is based on volume. You need more clients and more projects to reach your revenue goals. That means more onboarding, more calls, more events, more administrative work, and more simultaneous relationships to manage.

The silver dollar market operates differently.

Instead of producing 30 events a year, perhaps you produce seven or ten. Those projects have larger budgets, longer timelines, greater creative scope, and often more complex expectations.

The problem Rachael sees is that many women want the silver dollar client while continuing to market themselves exactly as they did when they needed volume.

They are still posting constantly, offering fifteen-minute calls, promoting investment guides, chasing broad visibility, and creating funnels designed to bring as many people through the door as possible.

But when you only need seven exceptional clients, attracting everyone is no longer the point.

As Rachael explained:

“They're trying to get to the silver dollar market, but they're marketing themselves in the way that they did when they were in the penny market.”

That landed with me because I could immediately see places in my own business where I had followed generally accepted marketing advice without stopping to ask whether the advice actually fit the market I wanted to serve.

There is more business information available than ever. The harder question is knowing which advice applies to you.

Positioning Comes Before Marketing

When Rachael begins working with a new client, she starts with one question: What should this woman be known for?

Not everything she is capable of doing.

Not every client she could serve.

What should someone specifically call her for?

This is where so many talented women struggle. We know we can execute in different cities, work across several types of celebrations, accommodate different aesthetics, and solve a wide range of problems. That versatility feels valuable, so we try to communicate all of it.

The result can be a brand that says very little.

Rachael looks instead for a combination of differentiators.

It could be client type. It could be geography. It could be project scope. It could be a particular kind of event or expertise.

A wedding planner might not simply be a Charleston wedding planner. She might become known for producing multi-day Charleston weddings for couples coming in from outside the city.

Another planner might become the person known for complex multicultural celebrations spanning several days and multiple traditions.

The niche becomes specific enough that the right client immediately recognizes herself.

And importantly, choosing a specialty does not mean refusing every other kind of work.

It means claiming expertise.

Rachael encourages clients to begin with the evidence already inside their businesses. Look at past projects. Look at the clients you loved. Look at where your most profitable work has come from. Look for patterns.

As she put it:

“There's so much beauty in niching down. Cause remember, you're not trying to work with like 30 couples a year. You're trying to work with seven.”

That changes the equation entirely.

The Psychology of the Velvet Rope

Rachael has built much of her work around what she calls the psychology of the velvet rope.

Imagine putting a velvet rope around your business rather than leaving every door wide open.

The goal is not to make the business feel cold or inaccessible. It is to become clear enough about what you do that the right people begin lining up, and you get to decide which opportunities are allowed through.

Once the positioning is clear, everything should support it.

Your homepage.

Your Instagram bio.

Your photographs.

Your language.

Your sales materials.

The way referral partners describe you.

Even the way you conduct the first conversation with a prospective client.

If your positioning says one thing but your sales experience, imagery, website, or marketing says another, the signal becomes confused.

Rachael's work can go as granular as deciding what a client wears in a headshot or role-playing a conversation with a skeptical father of the bride.

One of her current projects involves producing a high-quality editorial-style magazine for a client and overnighting it to prospective clients before their first conversation.

That level of consideration is intentional.

When every other company is sending a PDF and a Calendly link, the experience itself begins to communicate what working with you may feel like.

Positioning, Press, Paid Speaking, and Partnerships

Rachael works through four primary areas with her clients: positioning, press, paid speaking, and partnerships.

But she is clear that positioning must come first.

Press becomes far more useful when there is already a clear story for the media to validate.

Rachael does not view press simply as visibility or vanity. She calls it a pricing tool.

If you claim to be an authority in a particular market and respected third parties reinforce that expertise, it provides another layer of credibility.

The same applies to meaningful industry lists or major publications that a potential client may actually recognize and search.

But Rachael also challenges the assumption that every established service business needs a monthly PR retainer.

For many businesses, she believes that money could create a greater return elsewhere, particularly through relationships.

That part of the conversation was easy for me to agree with.

Throughout my career, media has changed. Social platforms have changed. Search has changed. Marketing tactics have changed.

Relationships have remained remarkably consistent.

The venue director who trusts you.

The photographer who understands your work.

The designer who thinks of you when the right client appears.

The private banker, matchmaker, advisor, or other professional already serving the type of person you hope to serve.

Rachael pushes clients to think more creatively about who their referral partners really are.

Not simply, “Who works in my industry?”

Instead: Who already has the trust of my ideal client?

Selling to Clients When Budget Is Not the Primary Issue

One of the more interesting parts of our conversation was the psychology of selling at the top of the market.

More money does not mean fewer questions.

It does not necessarily mean less negotiation.

And it certainly does not mean clients stop thinking like businesspeople.

Rachael pointed out that many people investing at this level are themselves founders, executives, entrepreneurs, or members of families that have spent decades building businesses.

They understand negotiation. They understand value. They understand advisors.

The language matters.

A planner may be more accurately positioned as an advisor, partner, or strategist rather than someone simply helping select beautiful things.

I use the word strategist often for exactly that reason.

At this scale, our responsibility is to understand what a client wants to accomplish and determine how to allocate time, money, creative resources, logistics, and people to achieve it.

The florals may be beautiful, but the work goes much deeper than the florals.

People Buy You First and Your Resume Second

Rachael said something during our earlier conversations that I knew I wanted to explore on the podcast:

People buy you first and your resume second.

A beautiful portfolio can get someone's attention.

It cannot replace chemistry, authority, trust, or confidence.

This is particularly important for founder-led businesses.

Over the years, I have received conflicting advice about whether I should personally take initial client calls. At one point, I handed those conversations to someone else because I had been told that as the owner, doing my own sales somehow diminished the perception of the business.

My sales dropped.

When I began taking the calls again, they went back up.

Rachael was not surprised.

At the upper end of the service market, the client is not simply purchasing a package. They may be entering a year-long relationship with the person they expect to guide one of the most personal and financially significant experiences of their lives.

If they show up to that first conversation, having the founder show up too can signal care rather than lack of status.

Rachael does not even call these meetings sales calls or discovery calls.

She calls them connection calls.

The language reinforces that both sides are determining whether the relationship is right.

Your Personal Brand Is Already Saying Something

Our conversation eventually turned toward something I have personally been thinking about quite a bit: the role of the founder's personal brand.

Every detail is communicating.

The headshot.

The clothing.

The lighting.

The posture.

The scale of the founder's photograph compared with the rest of the team.

The imagery selected for the portfolio.

When Rachael designs team pages, she often thinks of them as a pyramid. The founder sits visibly at the top, with a larger image and more biography. The supporting team follows beneath.

It is not about making a team seem unimportant. It is about making the business structure clear.

The brand should accurately communicate who is leading the work.

The same principle applies to photography.

If you produce incredibly considered events, your own imagery should communicate that same level of care. That does not mean pretending to live like your wealthiest client. In fact, Rachael was emphatic about avoiding anything that feels like cosplay.

You are not trying to prove that you are the client.

You are showing the client that you understand her and can do the job exceptionally well.

Sometimes Your Best Work Is Already Sitting in Your Archive

Another useful exercise is to go back through old work with fresh eyes.

Business owners often evaluate projects based on what happened behind the scenes.

We remember the installation that was technically difficult. The project that made the most money. The floral order that required rare product. The production problem we were proud to have solved.

A prospective client sees none of that context.

They see the photograph.

They feel something, or they do not.

Rachael encourages clients to review their archives based on the client they want next rather than the memories attached to the project.

Does this photograph support where I am going?

Does it communicate the atmosphere I want associated with my work?

Is this actually my strongest image, or am I including it because I know how difficult the project was?

Sometimes the work that moves a brand forward has been there for years. It simply has not been edited or claimed correctly.

Fewer Clients Can Create More Room

We closed our conversation by talking about motherhood and the fear many women carry that building a bigger business must inevitably take something away from home.

Rachael challenged the premise.

A larger business does not always mean a greater volume of work.

Sometimes the volume is exactly what is creating the chaos.

Thirty clients require thirty onboardings, thirty plans, thirty sets of invoices, thirty sets of expectations, and thirty relationships.

Seven or ten clients can create deeper work without requiring thirty simultaneous versions of your attention.

That does not mean larger projects are easy. Anyone who works in events knows better.

But there can be more room for creativity, selectivity, profitability, and family when the business is intentionally built for fewer engagements rather than constant volume.

Rachael left listeners with one idea that neatly summarizes the entire episode:

“The clearer you are on who you're right for and who you're not right for, the more success you're gonna have.”

She wants people to encounter your work and occasionally say, this is not for me.

Because clarity is not supposed to appeal to everyone.

It is supposed to make the right person recognize you immediately.

And perhaps that is the real shift between the penny market and the silver dollar market. The goal is no longer to convince as many people as possible to come through the door.

It is to become unmistakably right for the few people you most want on the other side of it.

Learn more about Rachael Johanson and her work, or follow her on Instagram. Her current website describes her work as helping women build and monetize personal brands at the upper end of their markets, which closely reflects the strategy she shared throughout our conversation.

Listen to the full conversation on The Wine and Dine Me Podcast for much more on positioning, press, partnerships, pricing, founder-led sales, personal brand strategy, and what has to change when the business you want is no longer built on volume.